Ho Chi Minh City proposes to increase boarding fees and add some additional fees

This will be the basis for consulting and proposing to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee and submitting to the City People's Council to issue a resolution regulating revenue and collection levels, and revenue and expenditure management mechanisms for the 2024-2025 school year.

Expected to increase boarding fees in the 2024-2025 school year

N REALITY PROBLEMS

The 2023-2024 school year has ended, and Resolution 04 of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council stipulates that service fees to support educational activities other than tuition fees for the 2023-2024 school year at public educational institutions such as boarding school fees, boarding school meal fees, etc. have also expired.

According to the assessment of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City based on the synthesis of opinions from localities, the organization, implementation and supervision of Resolution 04 in the 2023-2024 school year has received consensus and support from a large number of parents and people.

The Head of the Department of Education and Training in the inner city area recognized that this is the basis for schools to implement the collection of fees in a public and transparent manner; ensuring the organization of the collection of fees in schools is unified. This will avoid overcharging and causing public outrage.

However, in the process of actual implementation, some difficulties and problems have also arisen. Accordingly, there are some educational activity revenues implemented according to the projects that are not consistent with the list of industry codes in Decision No. 43/2018/QD-TTg; revenues from purchasing school uniforms, school supplies, teaching aids, learning materials, etc. are not consistent with the provisions of the Law on Prices.

In the process of organizing the implementation of revenue, revenue from value added tax and corporate income tax (CIT) arises. Based on the study of the provisions of the Law on Value Added Tax, the Law on CIT and related documents, the Department of Education and Training has sent an official dispatch to the City Tax Department and received feedback. However, some revenue items are still subject to CIT. Pursuant to Resolution 04, public educational institutions are only allowed to collect a level not exceeding the maximum level prescribed in the resolution, so tax costs are also a factor that significantly affects the quality of services. Currently, the issue of the quality of meals, drinks, rest, etc. for students has received a lot of attention from educational institutions, parents and public opinion.

In addition, due to the impact of market price fluctuations, some collection levels are no longer suitable and are not enough to ensure the quality of activities such as boarding lunch fees.

WILL INCREASE 5,000 VND FOR BOARDING MEALS

According to the draft, the revenues and collection levels of the 2024-2025 school year are determined to be suitable to the characteristics of the situation and income of the people based on the needs of learners, in accordance with the actual conditions of the city.

In particular, the fee for boarding meals will be adjusted from VND 35,000/meal/day to VND 40,000/meal/day, an increase of VND 5,000 compared to the 2023-2024 school year due to market prices and ensuring meal quality.

The draft revenue for the 2024-2025 school year also includes educational services for graduation exam review for high school students (outside the school year time frame): VND 15,000/student/period

As the unit directly implementing the collection and collection levels, Ms. Nguyen Doan Trang, Principal of Nguyen Du Secondary School (District 1), said: Before the 2023-2024 school year, Nguyen Du Secondary School and public schools in District 1 applied a fee of 40,000 VND/day for boarding meals. When implementing the resolution, the fee will be 35,000 VND/day, a reduction of 5,000 VND/day compared to the previous school fee. Therefore, schools must balance and cut some dishes to suit. Meanwhile, parents want and are willing to pay the same amount as before so that school meals for their children are rich and diverse; however, the school cannot meet this requirement. Therefore, Ms. Trang agrees that adjusting the boarding meal fee stipulated in the resolution can help schools overcome difficulties, while also creating conditions to care for students better than before.

The principal of a secondary school in District 5 said that with boarding meals, food safety and hygiene must be the top priority. Therefore, schools must choose food suppliers and processors licensed by the management agency and cannot buy food without a clear origin. Therefore, the supply price will be higher than that of spontaneous suppliers. Especially, in the context of prices always fluctuating in an upward direction, adjusting boarding meal prices is necessary.

According to this principal, 40,000 VND is considered the maximum and depending on the actual situation, schools can decide on different collection levels, not all of them increasing to the maximum. For example, schools in inner-city areas with higher prices than in the suburbs can collect the maximum, or schools in areas with lower food, labor, and transportation costs can collect a lower amount.

Mr. Hua Thien Vuong, a parent of a student at Nguyen Binh Khiem Primary School (District 1), also acknowledged that the resolution specifying specific fees helps parents to somewhat reduce their worries about monthly fees. However, the fee for boarding meals of 35,000 VND at current prices is not suitable, and parents all want this fee to be adjusted. In the past school year, almost every parent meeting received a proposal to increase the fee for boarding meals. Therefore, the proposal to increase is necessary so that schools can diversify meals and dishes for students.

In addition, in March and April, the Culture and Society Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council also organized monitoring sessions at a number of public schools in the areas to listen to opinions from schools during the implementation of Resolution 04. Mr. Cao Thanh Binh, Head of the Culture and Society Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, said that there were many opinions related to the proposal to increase the level of boarding meals.

According to Mr. Binh, the collection rate of 35,000 VND/person was issued after surveying many areas. At that time, the above collection rate was suitable for the whole city, and the issued resolution was not only applied in District 1 and District 3 but also had to be implemented throughout the city. However, after implementation, there were opinions that the range of collection rates should be wider to facilitate schools. "This issue is satisfactory, we will accept it and work with departments and branches," said Mr. Cao Thanh Binh.

According to the process, after localities contribute their opinions, the Department of Education and Training will advise and the City People's Committee will submit to the City People's Council at the regular meeting in July to issue a resolution regulating the fees applicable for the 2024-2025 school year.

Add some revenue

In the draft of the revenue to be implemented in the 2024-2025 school year of the Department of Education and Training, there is content to adjust tuition fees for schools implementing the high-quality program "Advanced school, international integration".

Accordingly, based on the practical situation, the collection level must be built to ensure the principle of covering all costs and having reasonable accumulation. The collection roadmap must be specifically determined to suit the level of education, the adjustment of the collection level (if any) to achieve the goal of financial autonomy must be built on a rolling basis for each school year, starting from the first grades and stable for each course, the rate of increase in service collection level must not exceed 15%/year and submitted to the competent authority for approval...

At the same time, add some revenues such as: Foreign language and information technology education services according to international certificate output standards (directly implemented by public preschool and general education institutions): 400,000 VND/student/month.

Graduation exam review service for high school students (outside the school year): 15,000 VND/student/period.

Add the cost of renting air conditioners to the revenue item "Service of using air conditioners in air-conditioned classrooms" and adjust the maximum collection level from 50,000 VND/student/month to 110,000 VND/student/month. Specifically: The maximum collection level is 50,000 VND/student/month for classes that are already equipped with air conditioners and a maximum of 110,000 VND/student/month for classes that need to use but do not have air conditioners and have to rent...

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tphcm-de-xuat-tang-tien-an-ban-tru-them-mot-so-khoan-thu-185240613233227444.htm