Will preschool children be exempt from tuition fees for 5 year olds?

On December 4, Director of the Department of Preschool Education (Ministry of Education and Training) Nguyen Ba Minh said that he has proposed exempting tuition fees for 5-year-old preschool children in the public education system.

The proposal is based on the fact that Vietnam has completed universal preschool education for 5-year-old children with the rate of mobilizing 3-5 year-old children to attend school at 92.16%, and 5 year-old children at 98.75%, as of the 2016-2017 school year. Resolution 29 of the Party also sets the goal of exempting tuition fees for 5-year-old children before 2020.

Mr. Minh analyzed that according to Resolution 46 (May 2017), from 2018, 5-year-old children in areas with especially difficult socio-economic conditions will be exempted from tuition fees to "ensure that all age groups have access to education, limit school dropouts and increase the rate of children going to school".

Head of Preschool Education Department Nguyen Ba Minh.

However, in many other rural and mountainous areas, especially for near-poor households, the current low tuition fee is still a barrier, making it difficult to mobilize children to go to school.

Vice President of the Vietnam Association for Promoting Education, Prof. Dr. Pham Tat Dong agrees to exempt tuition fees for 5-year-old preschool children. Many countries have exempted tuition fees for this level of education. "In Vietnam, universal education is required for 5-year-old preschool children, and universal education means compulsory education, so the State needs to have policies so that poor children can also go to school," said Mr. Dong.

However, the professor wondered if tuition exemption for only public schools would create fairness for children studying in private preschools?

Currently, the government does not have enough facilities for preschool education, forcing many families to send their children to private schools. The majority of these children are children of workers and freelancers from poor rural areas who come to the city to work. They do not have a household registration in the right area, so they cannot attend public schools.

Therefore,The Vice President of the Vietnam Association for Promotion of Education proposed that there should be a policy to partially support tuition fees for children in private preschools.

Previously, at the workshop on Evaluating the results of coordination in legal work between the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Education and Training in 2017 (December 1), many leaders of the Department of Education of Nam Dinh, Ha Nam provinces... proposed exempting tuition fees for preschool education.

Vice presidentAccording to Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung, Nam Dinh Department of Education, the contribution to the state budget from tuition fees at this level only accounts for 3-5% of investment costs for educational activities. This number is very small, so tuition exemption is necessary.

Mr. Dung also said that support is needed.including preschool children who are exempt from tuition fees but have to study at private facilities because public schools cannot meet demand, especially in densely populated urban areas."For example, we calculate the cost of education for a student at about 1.5 million VND per child in public schools, including salary, facilities, and regular expenses, so we can support part of this amount for children studying in private schools," said Mr. Dung.

According to VNE