Class fund spent more than 260 million VND, parents are upset

Ho Chi Minh City The new school year has not been a month yet, but the fund expenditures for class 1/2, Hong Ha Primary School, have exceeded 260 million VND, making many parents angry.

Ms. Dang Ngoc Thy, a parent of a class 1/2 student at Hong Ha Primary School in Binh Thanh District, said that the class's parent representative committee has spent more than VND260 million since mid-August.

"Yesterday, when I received the expense statement, I was shocked and couldn't believe it," said Ms. Thy, adding that at the beginning of the year meeting, the parents of the class agreed to contribute 10 million VND each to decorate and renovate the classrooms and take care of student activities for the entire 5 years at the school. The class has 32 students, one parent has not paid yet, so the total fund collected is 310 million VND.

Up to now, the class fund has spent 17 items, of which 220 million VND has been spent on repairing classrooms, buying air conditioners, fans and other equipment.

"Parents all think that the 10 million VND is a one-time payment for the entire 5 years of school. After just over a month, almost all of it has been spent, so what will happen to the entire school year?", Ms. Thy wondered.

Mr. Quoc Truong, a parent of the class, acknowledged that the children study all day at school, so the renovation of the rooms, tiled floors, and air conditioning were necessary to make the children comfortable. However, he did not expect the cost of these renovations to be up to 220 million.

"Many other expenses are also extremely wasteful and unreasonable, such as the cost of performing arts practice up to 4 million, food and teddy bears during performing arts practice over 5 million, or the cost of back-to-school gifts, decorations, and trees up to 10 million," said Mr. Truong.

Previously, Mr. Truong's two eldest children also studied here, with a fund of less than 10 million VND for each child for 5 years. Therefore, he said that in just over a month, the class had spent almost all of the money contributed by the parents, which was "not normal".

In addition, both parents were upset because the expenses were not consulted or announced in advance.

Income and expenditure of class 1/2, Hong Ha Primary School from the beginning of the year until now. Photo: Provided by parents — Income and expenditure of class 1/2, Hong Ha Primary School from the beginning of the year until now. Photo: *Provided by parents*

Responding to VnExpress on the morning of September 27, Ms. Bui Thi Hai Yen, Principal of Hong Ha Primary School, confirmed that class 1/2 had planned to make the above income and expenditure plans. She asked the class to temporarily suspend this so that parents could review it.

"The homeroom teacher reported that the expenses were only estimates, no expenses had been made yet," Ms. Yen added.

According to the female principal, the collection and disbursement of the class fund is discussed and agreed upon by the parents on a voluntary basis, so "the school did not know about this until it received feedback". The school did not request or call on parents to contribute to the fund or provide any support.

Classroom of class 1/2 after painting the walls, tiling and adding more furniture. Photo: Provided by parents — Classroom of class 1/2 after painting the walls, tiling and adding more furniture. Photo: *Provided by parents*

Parent funds are a common contribution at schools.

According to Circular 55 of the Ministry of Education and Training, the operating budget of the parent-teacher association comes from voluntary support and other legal funding sources. The head of this association coordinates with the homeroom teacher to plan the spending of the budget and only uses it after the entire group has agreed on it. The collection and spending must be transparent and democratic; after spending, the budget must be reported at parent meetings.

The amounts that the parent-teacher association cannot donate are: protecting facilities and security; looking after students' transportation; cleaning classrooms and schools; rewarding teachers; purchasing machinery, equipment, and teaching aids; repairing, upgrading, and building new school facilities...

Le Nguyen

*Parents' names have been changed

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