Collections at the beginning of the school year must be in accordance with instructions and close to reality.
After the parent meetings at the beginning of the new school year, public opinion was once again stirred up by the issue of “revenue and expenditure” and the socialization of education. Therefore, to ensure publicity and transparency, the implementation of revenue must be carried out in accordance with the guiding documents and closely follow the reality of each locality and each school.
Schools in remote areas are flexible in fundraising.
Heavy rains in mid-September caused Trung Phuc Cuong 2 Primary School (Nam Dan) to be flooded for nearly a week. When students returned to school after many days of interruption, parents were worried because the school is located in a low-lying area, is flooded every year, and the school quickly deteriorated.
The Board of Directors of Trung Phuc Cuong 2 Primary School is also concerned because the school was merged from many communes and still has to maintain 2 school locations, so investment in construction is facing many difficulties. Socialization work is only partially successful because parents mainly live on agriculture, economic conditions are still difficult.
To have enough facilities to meet teaching and learning needs, for many years now, Trung Phuc Cuong 2 Primary School has done quite well in mobilizing sponsorship from businesses and philanthropists.
The most valuable project is the classroom block and the head office building, which were invested in by the General Director of Nghi Tam Investment and Tourism Company - a son of the commune - in 2003 and continued to be funded for renovations over the years.
In addition, the school has also called for external mobilization to purchase facilities and build a scholarship fund for the school. At the end of September, through benefactors, the school also mobilized 20 sets of computers worth 200 million VND to equip the school's IT room.
Due to its own characteristics, the school board determined that the revenue from socialization would not be much. Meanwhile, every year the school has to invest in 2 school locations, which requires a huge amount of money. To ensure the minimum facilities, before the new school year, the school conducts a survey, evaluates the facilities and makes a specific plan for each item that needs investment and publicizes it on the school bulletin board for parents to grasp. During the implementation process, propaganda and mobilization will be done so that parents understand the policy and join hands in implementing it. For larger amounts, the school will proactively call for external sponsors to reduce the burden on parents.
Teacher Le Thi Lan - Principal of Trung Phuc Cuong 2 Primary School (Nam Dan)
Located in the most difficult area of Thanh Chuong district, Dang Thai Mai High School is not favorable for social mobilization. However, in recent years, all of the school's policies have been supported by parents in the area. Specifically, each year the school mobilizes 500 - 700 million VND from parents' contributions to invest in facilities and purchase equipment for learning. In parallel, with the connection of the school's board of directors, many sponsors who are former students and children in the area have also joined hands to contribute to the education of the commune's children.
Most recently, Dang Thai Mai High School (Thanh Chuong) was sponsored an electronic library, desks for students, and a school stadium. For the classes, the parents' association of each class also actively mobilized to purchase televisions, fans, and other items to serve each class.
Socialization of education is a policy that is in line with the purpose of the State and the People contributing and building together. To gain the trust of parents and students, the school determines that investment in facilities must serve the right purpose, must be public and transparent. The implementation process is not hasty, must be in line with parents' wishes, practical and close to economic conditions, avoiding cases of willfulness, quick action, and short cuts. The funding for each class will be implemented and managed by the classes themselves, and after the end of the course, the classes will be proactive in liquidating assets.
Teacher Le Van Thanh - Principal of Dang Thai Mai High School
Right purpose and ensure correct revenue - correct expenditure
After nearly a month of entering the new school year, up to this point, most schools in the province have held parent meetings and announced the first year fees. In addition to the required fees such as tuition, health insurance, and bicycle fees, parents are more interested in socialized fees (sponsorship), class funds, and association funds.
As soon as the new school year began, the Department of Education and Training issued a document guiding revenue and expenditure, which clearly stated mandatory revenues, voluntary revenues and a number of other revenues as prescribed.
Talking about worksocializeAt the beginning of the new school year, Mr. Tran Van Hoa - a parent in Nghi Kim commune (Vinh city) said: "This year my child is in 6th grade, so the contribution is more than other levels because most of the equipment in the classroom must be purchased from the beginning. As a parent, I support the policy of the class and the school, because the purchases in the classroom are to serve the children's learning. I think the remaining revenues, if implemented correctly according to the guidelines, will receive approval."
On forums, the issue of revenue and expenditure is also discussed quite a lot. Among them, the most mentioned are contributions to association funds, class funds, socialization money, and electronic contact book money. Some opinions are concerned that every school year, classes have to pay money to buy new cabinets, fans, air conditioners, etc.
Through the implementation in schools, this year, the collection of fees has been carried out quite systematically to minimize overcharging, causing public outrage.
"The school has 3 forms of mobilization: in kind, working days or cash. However, to receive approval, we determined that the implementation must ensure the regulations, processes and principles that the documents stipulate on the principle of voluntariness, publicity, transparency, no coercion, no regulation of average funding level".
Teacher Dang Ngoc Hiep - Vice Principal of Khanh Son Secondary School (Nam Dan)
Regarding the implementation of collection fees, especially socialized fees, according to regulations, schools must survey, develop plans and must be approved by local authorities, Departments of Education and Training or Department of Education and Training before implementation. To reduce pressure on parents, this year the Department of Education and Training also requires schools to spread out collection fees and not collect multiple fees at the same time. In addition, there are policies to encourage exemption and reduction of fees for students from policy families or those with difficult economic circumstances.
Every year, the Department of Education and Training inspects the implementation of revenue and expenditure at schools and if there is any violation, the school principal must be responsible. The Department's guidelines also require that fundraising must ensure the principles of voluntariness, publicity, transparency, no coercion, no regulation of average funding level, no regulation of minimum funding level, and absolutely no allocation of fundraising targets for each class (or each homeroom teacher). In addition, do not take advantage of education funding to force contributions and do not consider fundraising as a condition for providing education and training services (or a condition for evaluating and ranking in competition).
Mr. Nguyen Trong Hoan - Chief of Office of Department of Education and Training
