According to the latest guidance of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training on revenue and expenditure management for the 2024-2025 school year at public educational institutions, in addition to the prescribed amounts, educational institutions can implement voluntary collections.

Voluntary revenues and expenditures include: Funding for educational institutions; operating expenses of parent-teacher associations; youth union funds and team funds. The entire plan must be made public at meetings with parents and sponsorship must be called for according to the plan.

During the implementation process, educational institutions must establish a receiving team and plan the use of funding. After completion, educational institutions must publicly post and report the financial settlement and implementation results to parents, organizations and individuals who have contributed.

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Nghe An Department of Education and Training requires all schools not to collect donations from parents and students. Photo: Quoc Huy

Sponsorship must ensure the principles of voluntariness, publicity, and transparency. The school must not force, must not stipulate an average sponsorship level, must not stipulate a minimum sponsorship level, and must absolutely not assign sponsorship mobilization targets to each class (or each homeroom teacher).

Nghe An Department of Education and Training emphasizes that funding for education should not be used to force contributions, and that fundraising should not be considered a condition for providing educational and training services (or a condition for evaluating and ranking in competition). The collection, expenditure, and funding of the parent-teacher association must ensure the principles of transparency and democracy.

Each school needs to extend the collection period, not collect many fees at one time; encourage exemptions and reductions of fees other than tuition for students from families with preferential policies or those with difficult economic circumstances.

The Department also requires coordination between commune-level authorities, schools and parent representatives in developing plans, organizing implementation and managing the use of revenue and expenditure sources.