Can abolishing the parents' representative committee help eliminate overcharging?

Many revenues are called voluntary and socialized.

The story of a teacher at Chuong Duong Primary School (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City) asking parents for money to buy a personal computer (laptop) is still causing public outrage.

According to the teacher’s explanation, because the computer was lost, she thought of asking the parents for money and called it the socialization of education. Although the teacher admitted her mistake and apologized, her actions had a significant impact on the image of teachers and the reputation of the education sector.

In Nghi Son town (Thanh Hoa), after being upset about the fees, some parents of Hai Thuong Primary School have just been refunded nearly 2 million VND they had paid previously.

According to the feedback of some parents whose children study at Hai Thuong Primary School, in the list of fees for the new school year, in addition to the mandatory fees for students, there are many fees that parents think are not in accordance with regulations.

Students of Giang Vo Secondary School (Hanoi) attend the opening ceremony of the 2024-2025 school year.

The table of revenue and expenditure statistics from the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year of a 6th grade class at Huynh Tan Phat Secondary School (District 7, Ho Chi Minh City) startled many people because of the amount of up to 65 million VND that parents spent to buy teaching materials for teachers.

Before the opening day of the new school year 2024-2025, several forums for parents of students in Hanoi were also buzzing with a story that was said to have taken place at Van Phuc Secondary School (Thanh Tri district).

According to the feedback, during the parents’ meeting, the school announced that it would charge 200,000 VND/student to make a canvas to shade the school yard. Parents said that with a total of nearly 1,000 students, the amount of 200 million VND to make a canvas was not appropriate.

In addition, the school also announced that each student pays 20,000 VND/month for cleaning and taking care of trees (not sweeping the classroom); pays 50,000 VND/month for printing documents, but teachers still send homework files to the class group for parents to print themselves...

As soon as the information was posted, many parents expressed concern about the risk of facing a similar situation.

Parent fund is being transformed?

Although every year, the management agency issues many documents guiding, directing and reminding, the situation of overcharging still shows no signs of abating.

Reality shows that parents' frustration does not necessarily stem from having to pay for their children, but from the lack of transparency when schools set up baseless, unreasonable or voluntary fees.

To avoid overcharging, on some education forums, many opinions suggest that the parent-teacher association should be abolished. Talking to reporters of Dai Doan Ket Newspaper, education expert - Dr. Vu Thu Huong, former lecturer of the Faculty of Primary Education, Hanoi National University of Education, expressed her agreement with this opinion.

Not denying the benefits and contributions of the Parents' Association in school activities, however, according to this expert, teaching and learning are the responsibility of teachers and students, not parents. Meanwhile, the Parents' Association is currently deeply intervening in school activities. This has distorted many meaningful activities in the school.

Dr. Vu Thu Huong gave an example of how most classes now hire janitors to clean up after students. Or the activity of showing gratitude to teachers on November 20th, students only participate in formalities, the rest is due to the intervention of the parents' committee, distorting the meaning of student education.

According to Ms. Huong, the parent fund was originally intended to show gratitude to teachers. Later, this fund was transformed into many different forms each year, becoming an illegal collection.

Recalling the story of a teacher in Ho Chi Minh City who asked her parents for money to buy a personal computer, Ms. Huong acknowledged that some teachers are placing a high value on material things and forgetting that the most important thing in the teaching profession is the value it gives to students. The reason also comes from the income for teachers from the parent fund.

Dr. Vu Thu Huong stated: “It is not too difficult to solve the problem of overcharging. Although the authorities have issued many directives, they are still only half-hearted and have not done it thoroughly. In addition to strictly regulating the fees that are allowed to be collected, there should be regulations for schools to absolutely not solicit support in any form.”

In addition to the amounts of money that schools are allowed to collect, according to the provisions of Circular No. 55/2011/TT-BGDĐT of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Parents' Representative Board is not allowed to collect voluntary donations from students and their families that do not directly serve the activities of the board.

Including the following 8 revenues: Protecting school facilities; protecting school security; supervising students' vehicles; cleaning classrooms and schools; rewarding school administrators, teachers and staff; purchasing machinery, equipment and teaching aids for schools, classrooms or for school administrators, teachers and staff; supporting management, teaching and learning organization and educational activities; repairing, upgrading and constructing new school facilities.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/bo-ban-dai-dien-cha-me-hoc-sinh-co-dep-duoc-lam-thu-10292002.html