Parents visit the lunch hour of students at Tran Hung Dao Primary School, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City - Photo: NHU HUNG
The ambiguity in the mobilization and use of funds by many parent-teacher associations makes parents angry.
Abuse of power
Mr. NHTh., head of the parents' committee of a class in a high school in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City, said that the regulations of the parents' committee of the Ministry of Education and Training allow the mobilization of funds "from voluntary support of parents and other legal sources" for activities. The parents' committee should not collect funds but should only call on parents to contribute when there is an activity. But that would be a waste of time.
"At the beginning of the school year, we will estimate the expenses and divide them equally among the number of students in the class to get an average figure of how much each parent needs to pay. When I bring it up at the meeting, I explain each item very clearly, but I always emphasize that the average figure is like that, those who have the means can pay exactly like that or pay more, or not pay at all. This is voluntary.
In reality, there are parents who do not pay, we do not remind them, we use whatever we can raise. I also emphasize that any families in difficulty should please message me or the head teacher so that we can plan to give scholarships to their children. Therefore, for many years, our class has not had any bad reputation," said Mr. Th.
So where does the frustration come from? The answer is the "abuse of power" by some people working in the parent-teacher association.
"Most of the parents who make up the parent-teacher association are well-off. Therefore, they "draw up" many ways to support the school. The classrooms are tiled with brand new tiles, but they want to remove them to make a wooden floor.
In the class, I was the only one who objected, while others disagreed but did not dare to speak up. So they decided to build a wooden floor with the method of dividing the money equally among the students. While the document of the Ministry of Education and Training clearly stated: "There is no regulation on the average level of support funding".
Knowing it was wrong, they still did it, and the school gave them the green light to do it. The terrible thing is that whoever did not pay, the head of the class's parents' representative committee called each person to remind them, and in the end I still had to pay," said Ms. L., a parent of two children in primary school in Ho Chi Minh City.
Circular 55 of the Ministry of Education and Training clearly states: "The head of the class's parent representative committee shall coordinate with the homeroom teacher to plan the expenditure of the supported and sponsored funds and shall only use them after all members of the class's parent representative committee have agreed on their opinions." But in reality, many people have decided on the use of funds themselves.
In the 2023-2024 school year, a group of parents of a 9th grade class at a famous high school in Ho Chi Minh City sued because the class's parent representative committee arbitrarily spent all 19 million VND in funds for the class's performance competition to celebrate November 20.
"We had no idea that the class's parent representatives were hiring a stage director, renting costumes, paying for food... while the class's art troupe only had more than 10 students, mostly the children of these people.
Not only that, they also arbitrarily used the fund to support the nanny and asked her to wash pillowcases, blankets... When a parent reacted, wanting to teach their child self-service skills and suggested "whoever needs it, ask her to wash it for them personally and pay for it with their own money", the student who is the child of that parent was isolated and mentally abused by the whole class", the group of parents reflected.
It is not wrong to say that the parents' committee is a "collection committee", but it is unfair to us. If the committee wants to operate, it needs funding. And if it wants funding, it has to ask parents to contribute.
Mr. NHTH. (head of the parents' representative committee of a class at a high school in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City)
Ambiguous, front
In addition, many schools still confuse the operating budget of the parents' association with the funding for education, making the image of the parents' association ugly and being branded as "an extension of the principal's arm".
Mr. H.Tr.V., former head of the parents' representative board of a primary school in Ho Chi Minh City, shared: "The charter of the parents' representative board clearly stipulates that the parents' representative board is not allowed to collect donations from students or their families: donations are not voluntary;
Donations that do not directly serve the activities of the parents' representative committee such as: protecting school facilities, ensuring school security; supervising students' means of transportation; cleaning classrooms, cleaning schools; rewarding school administrators, teachers, and staff;
Purchase machinery, equipment, and teaching aids for schools, classrooms, or for school administrators, teachers, and staff; support management, organization of teaching and learning, and educational activities; repair, upgrade, and construct new school facilities.
But in reality, some principals want to use the parent-teacher association as a front. When my child was in 4th grade, we were also invited by the school board to propose mobilizing parents to contribute to repair, upgrade, and build new school toilets.
I immediately replied that the toilets were seriously degraded and needed to be repaired immediately. But the parents' representative committee could not take on this task because it was against the regulations. Instead, the school had to mobilize parents to sponsor education according to the Ministry of Education and Training's guidelines in Circular 16.
However, Mr. V. admitted that not everyone dared to refuse. Many people knew the rules and regulations very well but nodded out of respect for the principal. There were also some people who did not know about Circular 16 on funding for education and Circular 55 on the charter of the parent-teacher association, so they did whatever the school asked them to do.
"The school doesn't know"
There was a story about a parent-teacher association of a school in Ho Chi Minh City mobilizing parents to contribute to repainting all classrooms, buying projectors, buying interactive boards, hiring more janitors to clean the toilets...
After a parent filed a lawsuit, the journalist came down to verify. The principal immediately invited the head of the parents' representative committee to work with the journalist and said: "This was initiated by the parents' representative committee and the school did not know (?)".
Mr. H.Tr.V. (former head of the parents' representative board of a primary school in inner city Ho Chi Minh City)
A series of articles about the parents' representative committee in Tuoi Tre newspaper attracts readers' attention - Photo taken from the newspaper page published on October 8
Parents' representative committee needs school orientation
I have been a member of the school's parent-teacher association and the class parent-teacher association since my daughter was in first grade until now when she is in second grade. To be exact, we are the ones who "take the blame for everything".
Because I want to accompany my children's studies, I accept the job, but sometimes it is very tiring. The parents' representative committee is the "bridge" between the school and the parents, so if there is any problem, the school calls, and the parents in the class call their names.
From the school lunch being so bad and low in protein, to two students fighting at school... I had to attend meetings, while I still had to go to work like any other parent.
Circular 55 on the charter of the parents' representative board of the Ministry of Education and Training stipulates: "The parents' representative board coordinates with teachers and schools to organize student education activities; participate in moral education; foster and encourage good students, help weak students, and encourage students who have dropped out of school to return to continue studying;
Help poor students and students with disabilities; organize to collect opinions from parents of students in the class on measures to manage student education to make specific recommendations to homeroom teachers and subject teachers on measures to improve the quality of moral education and teaching quality; coordinate the organization of extracurricular educational activities, traditional education, cultural, artistic and sports activities...".
I know this regulation very well but I don't know how to do it. Deep down, I want and desire to "coordinate with teachers and schools to organize student education activities; nurture good students, help weak students". But we have not been trained to be a parent representative committee, so how should we start now?
The school board should have guided the parents' committee so that we could do well in the above tasks. In reality, the school relied on us to mobilize parents to contribute money to build and renovate facilities, purchase teaching equipment, etc. As a result, the parents' committee was known as the "money collection committee".
Ms. Thanh Hang (head of the parents' representative board of a primary school in Ho Chi Minh City)
Source: https://tuoitre.vn/noi-niem-ban-dai-dien-cha-me-hoc-sinh-bien-thanh-ban-thu-tien-20241009082151471.htm
Comment (0)