Drop proposal to increase teachers' salaries and exempt secondary school tuition

Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha reads the Government's report on the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Education Law. Photo: Quang Khanh

Two contents of special interest in the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Education Law, namely tuition exemption up to junior high school level in public schools and increasing teachers' salaries, are no longer mentioned in the draft law as well as in the report that the Ministry of Education and Training, on behalf of the Government, submitted to the National Assembly Standing Committee on March 12.

The Ministry of Education and Training's report on the synthesis of comments and explanations on the draft law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Education Law said that so far, the Ministry of Education and Training has received comments from 22 ministries and branches.

Of these, 7/22 agencies agreed with the draft law; 15/22 units gave their opinions. Notably, the two contents of increasing teachers' salaries and exempting secondary school tuition fees did not receive consensus from the two ministries directly related to this issue, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Finance.

Proposal not to include teachers' salaries in the law

Regarding the proposal that "teachers' salaries are ranked highest in the administrative career salary scale system", the Ministry of Home Affairs' comments cited current legal documents and stated: "In the past, many ministries and sectors, when drafting specialized laws, have included regulations on salaries (including allowances), which disrupted the original design of the salary regime in the political system, causing unreasonableness among sectors and professions".

The Ministry of Home Affairs stated: “Currently, the Central Steering Committee on research on reforming salary policies, social insurance and incentives for people with meritorious services is developing a Project on reforming salary policies for cadres, civil servants, public employees, armed forces and workers in enterprises to report to the Government Party Committee to submit to the 7th Central Conference of the 12th term.

Therefore, the Ministry of Home Affairs proposes not to regulate teachers' salaries in Clause 23, Article 1 of the draft law. This issue needs to be studied, developed and promulgated synchronously when reforming salary policies for cadres, civil servants, public employees and armed forces in the political system in the coming time, ensuring a general correlation, consistent with the state budget capacity".

The Ministry of Finance commented: “On November 4, 2013, the 11th Party Central Committee passed Resolution No. 29-NQ/TU on fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training, meeting the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the conditions of a socialist-oriented market economy and international integration, including the content that teachers' salaries are ranked highest in the administrative career salary scale system.

However, currently, the Ministry of Home Affairs is presiding over and coordinating with relevant agencies to review and evaluate the salary and allowance scale system for each industry, field and region. Therefore, it is recommended that the Ministry of Education and Training work with the Ministry of Home Affairs to submit to the Government and the National Assembly a comprehensive plan on teachers' salaries and allowances to ensure correlation and consistency in salaries and allowances with other industries and professions in the coming period."

Free secondary school tuition is not feasible

Regarding the proposal of "free tuition up to junior high school level in public schools", the Ministry of Finance's comments stated that Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW stated: "For general education, improve the quality of universal education, implement compulsory education for 9 years after 2020". Therefore, in the context of difficult state budget, balancing the budget to implement this policy is not feasible. It is recommended that the Ministry of Education and Training not include this content in the draft law, and only consider the regulation that junior high school students do not have to pay tuition fees after 2020 when compulsory education begins in accordance with the spirit of Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW.

The Ministry of Home Affairs also said that the proposal to exempt secondary school tuition fees is not in accordance with the provisions of Party resolutions and increases state budget expenditures while the state budget is facing difficulties.

Therefore, the Ministry of Home Affairs requests the Ministry of Education and Training to develop a project on tuition exemption for secondary schools in accordance with the above regulations of the Party and Resolution No. 19-NQ/TU dated October 25, 2017 of the 6th Conference of the 12th Central Executive Committee on continuing to innovate the organization and management system, improving the quality and efficiency of public service units.