Tuition 1 dong surcharge 10 dong

At the beginning of the school year, parents are overwhelmed with hundreds of worries, money to buy school supplies, clothes for their children, plus other voluntary contributions, so the financial burden is even more burdensome.

The problem of financial balance makes many parents restless at night, especially poor families struggling with daily expenses.

Tuition 1 dong surcharge 10 dong

As their children enter the new school year, parents are burdened with worries because of hundreds of payments. (Illustration photo)

Mr. Nguyen Quoc (37 years old, Cau Giay, Hanoi) and his wife had to save and save more than 12 million VND to have enough to shop and pay the school fees for their two children in grades 1 and 3.

The tuition fee is not much, his first grader does not have to pay tuition, but the actual cost for the child in the new school year is a "headache" - all kinds of funds, costs for experiential activities, life skills training, classroom decoration. This amount is usually collected at the beginning of the year, if there is any additional money during the year, more will be "mobilized".

"They are all marked as 'voluntary' but in reality, if you don't pay, you can't do it. The head of the parents' association sends messages every day urging you to pay, " he said. Normally, the notice of these fees will not include the name of the school or the homeroom teacher, but will be collected in the name of the parents' association.

Parents will be added to a zalo group to exchange and discuss issues in the classroom. In it, the representative of the parent association will list and even propose contributions, which are often broken down into small pieces, and if you just read them, you will think "it's not worth much". However, when combining more than a dozen items, parents have to pay up to millions.

Every year, the amount of money parents are asked to contribute "voluntarily" is a page long. He remembers that last year, except for special holidays such as November 20, Lunar New Year, October 20, March 8, and Mid-Autumn Festival, the parents' committee also "drawn" gifts for teachers on Christmas, Halloween, and many other decorations.

This year, his third-grade daughter has to pay more than 2 million VND to the parent-teacher fund, and his first-grade son has to pay 3 million VND. Not to mention the cost of uniforms, books... which also cost a considerable amount.

"Exempting students from tuition fees doesn't mean much because the additional fees are several times more. At the beginning of the year, there are hundreds of fees to pay, such as cleaning fees, club fees, facility renovation fees... It's not wrong to say that tuition costs 1 dong but the additional fees are up to 10 dong. Parents don't have the means to rush around to collect enough money," the parent said in frustration.

Blurred voluntary contributions

This year, her child is in 3rd grade. Ms. Ngoc Mai (37 years old, Hoang Mai district, Hanoi) pays more than 1.5 million VND/semester to the parent fund to buy facilities. This amount of money is used by the parents' association to buy some equipment and supplies, including the proposal to install a touch screen TV, which Ms. Mai thinks is completely unnecessary.

"Some of the fees are acceptable, but I don't think buying a touch screen TV is appropriate. In fact, the TV is mounted quite high, so will the touch screen function be used?" , she said.

Parents have a headache because of the fees at the beginning of the school year. (Illustration photo)

According to the proposal, the cost to install this device for a classroom is about 25 million VND. Her child's class has 44 students, each student will pay an average of nearly 600,000 VND. The cost table provided by the parent association representative does not specify which brand of TV to buy, but only lists the purchase cost, plus the installation labor and accessories, which is 2 million VND.

Ms. Mai said that calling for socialization and voluntary contributions to purchase and renovate physical equipment is not uncommon in schools before the new school year. Usually, these matters are actively discussed within the internal group of parents. Accordingly, the process from proposing, building the budget, calling, paying money... all are called voluntary parents.

The mother of two shared that although her husband and she still have enough income to pay the above fees, if it were voluntary, she felt it was unrealistic.

Besides the parents who responded to this contribution, there were also those who were "in favor but not in heart", choosing to silently pay money because they followed the majority for safety. The accumulation of socialized education expenses at the beginning of the year became a heavy burden for many families.

In addition, Ms. Mai calculated that at the beginning of the school year, each child spent more than 5.5 million VND on expenses. The voluntary contributions do not include books, uniforms, extra classes, extracurricular expenses, etc.

" We agree to contribute to better serve the students' education, but the fees should be reasonable, don't say 'voluntary' but make it mandatory so that parents don't have too much trouble, " she said.

On the eve of the new school year, the story of overcharging in schools has "heated up" again. Recently, a parent whose child is in grade 1 at Huu Hoa Primary School (Thanh Tri, Hanoi) posted an article on social media reflecting that the homeroom teacher of the child's class asked the parents to contribute to installing air conditioners and projectors for the children's learning, especially, with a commitment to return these assets to the school after the children graduated from grade 5.

According to this person, the school will not allow parents to install new assets if they do not commit to donating these assets. Parents wonder why families must commit to donating these assets to the school, when these assets can be left for the next class to use economically.

After that, Thanh Tri District People's Committee established a working group consisting of functional departments in coordination with Huu Hoa Commune People's Committee to verify the information. According to Mr. Pham Van Ngát, Head of Thanh Tri District Education and Training Department, the verification results showed that parents formed groups to discuss the installation of air conditioners, and the school and teachers had no policy on this matter.

Despite being "justified", this story still caused parents to "stir up" discussions about the situation of overcharging at the beginning of the school year.

In February 2023, Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son sent a document responding to voters' requests to review the functions of the Parents' Association when there was a "problem" of many illegal collections.
Regarding operating costs, the Ministry stipulates that the Parents' Representative Board is not allowed to collect involuntary donations and donations that do not directly serve the board's activities, such as: protecting school facilities, ensuring school security, supervising students' vehicles, cleaning classrooms, and cleaning schools.
The parents' representative committee is also not allowed to collect money for rewarding school administrators, teachers and staff, purchasing machinery, equipment and teaching aids for schools, classrooms or for school administrators, teachers and staff, supporting management work, organizing teaching and learning and educational activities, repairing, upgrading and constructing new school facilities.

NHI NHI

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