Parents' representative or school representative?

(Baonghean.vn) - In reality, for a long time, the activities of the Parents' Association (PAA) have often been oral and based on experience, so they do not fully understand their functions, powers, and duties. From not understanding, it leads to doing the wrong thing.

At the beginning of every school year, the community brings up extra teaching, extra learning, “surcharges” and the role of the Parents’ Council. Many even suggest that the Parents’ Council should be dissolved. As someone who has been the head of the Parents’ Council for many years in both elementary and high school, the author would like to provide a different perspective.

First of all, the reality of life shows that if there are only 3 people, we have to appoint 1 representative, so a school with hundreds, even thousands of parents, having a representative board is necessary. The fact that public opinion and the community talk a lot and criticize the Parents' Association, I think is mostly because the Parents' Association does not operate in accordance with the spirit of Circular 55/2011/TT-BGDDT dated November 22, 2011, promulgating the Charter of the Parents' Association.

It comes from the fact that although this Circular has been issued for 6 years, not many parents who are the Parents' Representative Committee of the class or school do not know or have not read this regulation. Many teachers have also never read this Circular, so there is a "phase difference" in the coordination of activities between parents and schools.

The activities of the Parents' Representative Board are oral and based on experience, so they do not fully understand their functions, powers, and duties. From not understanding and not clearly grasping their position, role, and duties, they end up doing their duties wrongly, causing reactions among parents and unintentionally "supporting" wrong activities in the school.

Representing who?

Parents' representatives often have to have their own opinions in making payments to the school. Photo: Internet

In fact, many years of being the head of the school's parent representative committee shows that, "The parent representative committee is organized every school year, elected by parents or guardians of students (hereinafter referred to as parents) studying in each class and each school" and operates in the true sense for the class, but if elected by the homeroom teacher or principal, it... tends to represent the class and the school.

Following the feedback from parents across the country, we found that up to 99% mentioned unreasonable collections in schools under the name of the Parents' Representative Board of the school or class. In fact, Clause 4b, Article 10 of Circular 55 stipulates that the Parents' Representative Board is not allowed to collect donations: "Donations that do not directly serve the activities of the Parents' Representative Board: Protecting school facilities, ensuring school security; supervising students' vehicles; cleaning classrooms and schools; rewarding school administrators, teachers and staff; purchasing machinery, equipment and teaching aids for schools and classrooms or for school administrators, teachers and staff; supporting management work, organizing teaching and learning and educational activities; repairing, upgrading and building new school facilities".

If the Parent Associations of the class and school understand this and are not too lenient, they can tactfully refuse to stand up and mobilize donations. In reality, many parents often do not hesitate to contribute their efforts and money to activities directly for their children, but they react strongly to "no reward, no punishment" type of contributions.

Some common problems

Many parents wonder why the Parent Council “both plays football and blows the whistle”, meaning that only one parent is in charge of the money and the expenditure, there is no spending plan for each semester, and no public settlement. Many principals like to keep the “school parent fund”, making the Parent Council unable to take the initiative in operating expenses. The role of “post-audit” after parents’ contributions is often not performed well.

Although there is a regulation that “There is no regulation on the average level of support for parents of students”, many Parent Associations do not understand the circumstances of the families so they divide the funds equally, leading to backlash. Many Associations exceed their authority to decide on many undemocratic and public issues, leading to dissatisfaction among parents.

Some class and school representative boards do not have an independent voice in discussing and exchanging work with homeroom teachers and principals, working in a "whatever is said, that is what is heard" style. When faced with some proposals from the school, especially those related to contributions, they do not know how to probe and collect collective opinions, leading to unnecessary reactions. Not to mention, when parents have reactions, the representative board does not have enough prestige, reasoning to explain and admit mistakes, correct mistakes (if any), which can easily cause a chain reaction, worsening the relationship between family and school.

In fact, after many years as the head of the Parents' Representative Board of two large schools, I believe that the legal document system for the Parents' Representative Board already exists, the problem lies in its flexible and effective application. If parents are truly allowed to discuss democratically through the Parents' Representative Board, then the coordination between the school and the family will clearly be improved.

An Thanh