"Teacher asks for laptop" and a series of school fees in the name of gratitude to teachers

(Dan Tri) - Teacher TPH, a teacher at Chuong Duong Primary School, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, asking parents for money to buy a personal laptop is one of the controversial cases regarding school fees in the past year.

In 2024, there were incidents related to the issue of school donations in the name of gratitude to teachers, causing outrage.

"Teacher asked for laptop"

The shocking incident last year about school was the incident of Ms. TPH - "the teacher who asked for a laptop" - that happened at Chuong Duong Primary School, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City.

Messages asking for support to buy computers from a teacher at a school in the center of Ho Chi Minh City have shocked public opinion (Screenshot).

At the beginning of the school year, Ms. TPH announced that she would not collect funds, but… she lost her laptop so she asked her parents to donate a laptop. She collected money, she gave the price of the personal computer she needed to buy, the amount she asked her parents for, the amount she would compensate with the affirmation: "I will also take this laptop, parents."

"I bought the laptop, I will let the parents know the remaining amount. And I would like to have this laptop too, parents"; "I said I would like to take the black one for 11 million to run data quickly, parents support me with 6 million, I will compensate with 5 million"... Those are the messages informing about Ms. H's request for money from parents to buy a laptop.

Ms. H. opened a vote for "agree" or "disagree" in the class's Zalo group of parents. Even though she was the one asking, this teacher asked the person who voted "disagree" back, "Which child's parent are you?"

After the incident, Ms. TPH was disciplined with a warning and suspended from teaching for the rest of the 2024-2025 school year (Photo: Huyen Nguyen).

After the incident, when 25/27 parents attending the meeting signed a petition to change the homeroom teacher or transfer their children to another class, Chuong Duong Primary School decided to temporarily suspend Ms. TPH for 15 days.

After that, Ms. H. was disciplined with a warning and was transferred to be in charge of educational work, stopping teaching until the end of the 2024-2025 school year.

Parents' fund plans to spend all "envelope" money on teachers

In mid-October 2024, the list of parents' fund allocations for a second grade class at Vo Thi Sau Primary School, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City was shared rapidly with a series of comments on social networking forums.

Besides spending on student activities, this budget list is most overwhelming with the content "showing gratitude to teachers on major holidays of the year".

All holidays of the year such as October 20, November 20, New Year's Day, Lunar New Year, March 8 and year-end summary all have "envelopes" for homeroom teachers, nannies, and subjects with expenses ranging from 1 to 2.5 million VND.

Responding to this budget list, the leader of Vo Thi Sau Primary School said that the parents' representative board implemented this revenue and expenditure plan themselves, without consulting with the homeroom teacher.

The list of expected parent fund contributions is heavy on "envelope money" in a class at Vo Thi Sau Primary School, District 7, Ho Chi Minh City (Screenshot).

The school has worked with the parent representative committee of this class and the school has analyzed for parents to understand that the spending on care and compensation for teachers and nannies is against the regulations. The school requests that parents not include the above content in the fund's activities.

According to the school's leaders, the above collection violated Circular 55, so the class's Parents' Representative Committee returned the money to the parents.

However, the situation of parents' funds "spending a lot" in envelopes for staff is not unusual at Vo Thi Sau Primary School.

Previously, in the 2022-2023 school year, at this school, there was an incident where the list of parent fund expenditures of a class was up to more than 130 million VND, mainly for activities of giving money to homeroom teachers, subject teachers, leaders, school staff, security guards, and buying flowers for the class on Tet holiday.

The highest listed expense is up to 54 million VND for "taking care of her" with specific amounts for the homeroom teacher and nanny, each 27 million, in the form of monthly transfers, from September 2022 to May 2023.

For other holidays and Tet such as Teachers' Day, Lunar New Year, Vietnamese Women's Day, International Women's Day, etc., the total expenditure ranges from several million to nearly 20 million VND.

Just like this year's explanation, according to the leader of Vo Thi Sau Primary School, this plan was implemented by the parents of the students in the class themselves, without going through the homeroom teacher or the school.

The performance to honor teachers on November 20th cost nearly 22 million VND

Before November 20, 2024, the Parents' Representative Board of Class 8A1, Nguyen Chi Thanh Secondary School, District 12, Ho Chi Minh City sent an open letter to parents in the class about mobilizing donations for the class's performance program to celebrate Vietnamese Teachers' Day, aiming to show gratitude to teachers.

The content of this open letter is attached with a budget estimate for organizing a folk dance performance at a local talent training center.

Specifically, the folk song performance cost 10 million VND to choreograph, 5.61 million VND to rent costumes, 6 million VND to pay for food and drinks for 10 members of the art troupe, and sports activities. The total cost for this performance is 21.61 million VND.

Open letter calling on parents to contribute funds for the performance to celebrate November 20, costing nearly 22 million VND (Photo: PH).

According to the budget, parents from the talent training center providing the above service donated 3 million VND. The remaining budget for this performance is 18.61 million VND. The Parents' Association called on parents to contribute funds.

Response from Nguyen Chi Thanh Secondary School, this is a program launched to celebrate Vietnamese Teachers' Day November 20, the school did not direct classes to mobilize parents to donate large amounts of money for the performance.

When receiving information from the class's Parents' Representative Committee, the homeroom teacher assessed the cost as too high and inappropriate.

It is known that after the incident, the parents working at the talent training center promised to sponsor all expenses for the class to stage the above performance.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/co-giao-xin-laptop-va-loat-vu-viec-tien-truong-mang-danh-tri-an-thay-co-20250117050416597.htm