School Boards must be responsible if there is overcharging.

The school board, including the principal, must be responsible for the overcharges and cannot put all the responsibility on the Parents' Association.

Although the Department of Education and Training and localities have issued many documents to guide and rectify the collection and expenditure at the beginning of the school year, the situation of overcharging continues to recur year after year, causing frustration for parents and society. School leaders who have been accused by parents of overcharging all say that these are the amounts proposed by the Parents' Representative Committee and that the school is not involved.

However, from the current reality, leaders of the Ministry of Education and Training and many experts affirm that school boards must take responsibility for allowing overcharging to occur.

At the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year, many schools across the country were accused by parents of overcharging for unreasonable amounts of money, such as: buying projectors, supporting facilities, repairing classrooms, organizing life skills classes, etc., with the total amount each student had to pay amounting to several million VND.

Specifically, the schools are: Uy No Primary School, Dong Anh District, Hanoi City; Chu Van An Primary School, Cao Lanh City, Dong Thap Province; Le Van Sy Primary School, Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City; Minh Tan Secondary School, Thuy Nguyen District and Dang Cuong Primary School, An Duong District, Hai Phong City...

Opinion of a parent in Ho Chi Minh City protesting some school fees.

These cases all have in common that the school leaders "push the responsibility" to the Parents' Representative Board with the familiar answer: "The school does not force it, but the Parents' Representative Board proposes to collect it voluntarily." Public opinion raises the question: Since it is an agreed fee, why do parents react? Why does the Parents' Representative Board "accept" the overcharging that makes other parents upset?

In response to this question, many parents said that, in name, it is voluntary, but even if they do not agree, parents still have to pay the fees as notified due to concerns about affecting their children's studies.

Mr. Tran Hoang Nam, in Cau Giay district, Hanoi, whose child is in first grade, said: "I have some questions that I don't know who to ask or how to explain. For example, some things like learning English with foreign teachers. At the beginning of the year, there was no parent-teacher meeting, and there was no opinion on whether they agreed or not.

Obviously, in the documents, this is written as a voluntary payment, but now the school has sent a notice, so we are in a fait accompli situation. If we do not let our child study, he will be careful because he will have to go to another class, affecting his psychology. I am also sure that many parents think like me, but we have to follow it because we are afraid of affecting our child.

According to Dr. Vu Thu Huong, Lecturer at Hanoi National University of Education, the current problem of overcharging comes from two sources, including the school and the Parents' Representative Board. The reason is that the Parents' Representative Board does not understand its role in mobilizing operating funds, so it has become an "extended arm" of the school in setting illegal fees, causing frustration among parents.

“There are some schools that use the Parents' Association to collect their own funds, but there are also schools where the parents themselves ask the school to collect. There are also cases where it is not the Parents' Association but a parent in the class who asks, forcing the parents in the class to follow, making the parents very upset. I myself have witnessed the Parents' Association collecting money to do something, and then saying that this was requested by the school,” said Dr. Thu Huong.

Circular 55/2011 of the Ministry of Education and Training on the Regulations on the operation of the Parents' Representative Board clearly stipulates that the amounts that cannot be collected are donations that do not directly serve the activities of the Parents' Representative Board, including: protecting school facilities; cleaning classrooms, cleaning schools; rewarding managers and teachers; purchasing machinery, equipment, and teaching aids for the school; repairing, upgrading, and building new school facilities...

Although schools know these regulations, they still negotiate with the Parents' Association to set up fees for purchasing machinery, equipment, and repairing facilities.

From this reality, Mr. Nguyen Viet Can, Head of Financial Planning Department, Hanoi Department of Education and Training, said that school principals must be responsible for the school's overcharges and cannot put all the responsibility on the Parents' Representative Board.

“Here, the first is the propaganda work to implement and correctly understand the directive documents. The second is that all plans, including the action plan of the Parents' Representative Board, as well as the plans for educational organization activities in the school, must be approved by the Principal. Therefore, all revenue and expenditure matters in the school must be the responsibility of the Principal and the decision-maker,” said Mr. Viet Can.

According to many experts, to avoid overcharging at the beginning of the school year, schools need to fully promote the spirit of democracy and voluntariness, and not suggest fees or collection levels to the Parents' Representative Committee.

On the part of the Parents' Representative Board of the school and class, it is necessary to implement the spirit of voluntary establishment of the Operation Fund, which means only mobilizing, not setting a minimum general level, depending on the ability and heart of each parent. Local authorities and the education and training sector need to strictly handle schools that allow overcharging, not allowing the situation of schools blaming the Parents' Representative Board for overcharging as in some schools today./.

According to VOV