The Government has just issued Decree No. 97/ND-CP (Decree 97) amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No. 81/2021/ND-CP dated August 27, 2021 (Decree 81) regulating the mechanism for collecting and managing tuition fees for educational institutions in the national education system and policies on tuition exemption, reduction, support for learning costs; service prices in the education sector. In particular, tuition fees for public higher education will be adjusted compared to Decree 81.
Postpone tuition increase schedule
Decree 97 adjusts the tuition fee roadmap as follows: keeping tuition fees from the 2023-2024 school year for preschool and general education stable at the same level as the 2021-2022 school year; postponing the tuition fee roadmap for public higher education and vocational education by 1 year compared to the regulations in Decree 81 (i.e. tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year will increase compared to the tuition fees for the 2022-2023 school year, but the increase is lower than the roadmap specified in Decree 81) to suit practical conditions and reduce difficulties for students; tuition fee exemption and reduction policies specified in Decree 81 will continue to be maintained to support policy beneficiaries and those in difficult circumstances.
Thus, tuition fees for mass programs at all public universities nationwide in the 2023-2024 school year will have the following ceilings: tuition fees for the Education Sciences and Teacher Training majors: 12.5 million VND/year (an increase of 2.7 million VND compared to the 2022-2023 school year); Arts majors: 12 million VND/year (an increase of 300,000 VND); Business and Management, Law majors: 12.5 million VND/year (an increase of 2.7 million VND); Life Sciences, Natural Sciences majors: 13.5 million VND/year (an increase of 1.8 million VND); Mathematics and Statistics, Computer Science and IT, Engineering Technology majors: 14.5 million VND/year (an increase of 2.8 million VND); Medicine and Pharmacy majors: 24.5 million VND/year (an increase of 10.2 million VND); Other Health majors: 18.5 million VND/year (an increase of 4.2 million VND); Humanities, social and behavioral sciences, journalism and information, social services: 12 million VND/year (an increase of 2.2 million VND). Thus, compared to the 2022-2023 school year, tuition fees of non-autonomous higher education institutions of 7 majors increased from 0.3-10.2 million VND/year, depending on the major. Of which, the highest increase is in the Medicine and Pharmacy major and other Health majors, an increase of 4.2-10.2 million VND/year.
Meanwhile, for public universities that are self-sufficient in regular expenses (autonomous) such as member universities of Ho Chi Minh City National University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Finance and Marketing, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education, Ho Chi Minh City University of Medicine and Pharmacy, etc., the tuition fee is determined to be a maximum of 2 times the fee of non-autonomous public universities, corresponding to each major and each academic year. For public universities that are completely autonomous (self-sufficient in regular expenses and investment expenses) such as Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, National Economics University, etc., the tuition fee is determined to be a maximum of 2.5 times the tuition fee corresponding to each major. As for private universities, some schools will increase tuition fees by no more than 10% compared to 2023 and some schools have announced no tuition increase.
Efforts to increase support policies
According to Dr. Phan Hong Hai, Chairman of the Council of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry, although the school is financially autonomous, the 2023-2024 school year is allowed to double the adjusted tuition fee of Decree 97. However, the school decided to keep the tuition fee the same as the 2022-2023 school year to reduce difficulties for students. In the current context, if tuition fees are not increased, it will be difficult to improve training quality and lecturer salaries; but if they continue to increase, it will be very difficult for students because of the difficult economic situation. Moreover, this is a general policy of the Government, schools should support it to share difficulties with students. Although tuition fees are not increased, the school will still maintain policies on tuition exemption and reduction and seek scholarship sources for students. In the 2023-2024 school year, the school will spend 45 billion VND to award scholarships and support students in difficult circumstances.
Dr. Vo Van Tuan, Vice Principal of Van Lang University, said that although it is a private university, this year the school decided not to increase tuition fees for all courses to support students. In addition, the school maintains a financial support policy for 17 policy beneficiaries (VND 10 billion) and a scholarship policy (VND 35 billion) for students per year.
Similarly, Dr. Pham Thai Son, Director of the Center for Communication and Admissions, Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade, said that the trend of autonomous schools will increase, meaning that tuition fees will be adjusted to be closer to training costs. When adjusting, including increasing tuition fees, it will cause fear, even difficulty for students as well as society. However, along with increasing tuition fees, when implementing autonomy, schools must commit to spending at least 8% of tuition revenue to establish scholarship funds to support students. Along with increasing tuition fees, schools also have more policies (mobilized from businesses, philanthropists) to support students in and out of policies.
THANH HUNG
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