In late October 2023, Hung Binh Primary School (Vinh City) finally mobilized parents to pay educational sponsorships for the 2023-2024 school year. The total amount mobilized by the school was 530 million VND; of which, 370 million VND was used to buy 37 computers for teachers to use, causing some parents to ask: Computers for teachers must be purchased by the school or teachers, cannot be mobilized from parents?
Sharing about this, Mr. Tran L, whose child is in grade 1, said: “When I heard the teacher read about the socialized collection items, I was quite surprised when she said that this year she would buy desktop computers for teachers with a unit price of 10 million VND per computer. I think this is not wrong, but is it necessary? Can't teachers buy themselves a laptop to use and ask parents to contribute for everything? If the parents are well-off, it's okay, but if the parents are poor, this is not a small amount of money. To be honest, parents don't say it, but many people are very upset!”
Discussing this issue, teacher Tran Thi Viet Ha - Principal of Hung Binh Primary School said that the school followed the approved process. In addition to purchasing 37 computers, the school also added 32 sets of tables and chairs in the IT room and repaired and replaced the wifi system, electrical system and internet network for the IT room. "The purchase of 37 computers was to place them permanently in the classroom, for homeroom teachers. It also came from the needs of many parents. We followed the correct process. Initially, ward representatives and parents came to survey the needs. Then we made a report and sent it to the ward. After the ward approved it, we sent it to the Department of Education and Training and the plan was approved," said Ms. Ha.
Before that, just entering the school year, although the socialized collection had not yet been implemented, Truong Thi Primary School (Vinh City) also had a policy calling on classes to buy air conditioners for students from grades 1 to 3 in the whole school. The policy was not wrong, but because the implementation was still imposed, not reasonable, it made many parents disagree. The incident was later corrected by the Vinh City Department of Education and Training, requiring lessons to be learned.
Vinh City is one of the leading localities in implementing the socialization of education. In recent years, the contribution of parents has played an important role in repairing school facilities, purchasing additional learning materials and many other items. However, to implement socialization correctly, on target and especially to avoid overcharging is not easy.
Regarding this issue, Ms. Hoang Phuong Thao - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Vinh City said: "In my opinion, if it is called socialization, it must be done promptly. If the children do not use it for the full 9 months of school, it must be at least 8 months. If socialization is only implemented halfway through the school year and only purchased at the end of the year, the children will have summer vacation."
However, because the issue of education funding is very sensitive, recently, the Vinh City Department of Education and Training has been forced to tighten the approval process. “The plan goes through many stages, first the local government, parents' representatives survey the needs. Then, the school prepares documents and sends them to the Department of Education and Training, through the accounting department for approval, to the professional staff in charge of the school level, and then to the head of the department for review and approval. Since the beginning of the year, we have returned many documents, some schools have submitted them up to 7 times but they still have not been approved. Most of the unapproved plans are due to impractical and unreasonable purchasing needs,” Ms. Hoang Phuong Thao added.
Ms. Thao also gave an example: there was a school that made a plan to request the purchase of lockers for boarding students. Meanwhile, this amount was already included in the boarding service fee, but it was still requested twice. There was a school that requested to request parents to buy a very large TV to place in the council room. “We absolutely did not approve such a request, because that TV is only for teachers. If you buy a TV to place in the classroom or multi-purpose room for students to use, it is okay. Not long ago, a school requested to buy all 100 new electric fans because they were broken. We checked and found that in reality, only a few were broken, the school wanted to replace them all for beauty. That is absolutely not allowed,” Ms. Thao said, adding that in the work of funding education, many principals share with parents, but there are also many schools that are “very careless”, mobilizing funding for things that are impractical and ineffective.
At the end of October, after a 2-day parent meeting, Le Mao Primary School (Vinh City) announced to all parents the school's policy of not collecting socialized fees this year. Accordingly, from the previous school year, the school's socialized fund still had a surplus of 200 million VND. The school will use this money for school activities and to repair damage outside the classrooms and school grounds.
To ensure the school grounds and classrooms are beautiful and intact, at the beginning of the school year, Le Mao Primary School handed them over to the classes for care. The school's board of directors also hopes that during the teaching and learning process, if there is any damage, the classes will proactively repair and fix it to serve the teaching and learning of teachers and students. This announcement also received the agreement of parents, because this shows that the school's board of directors has carefully considered the process of implementing the first-of-the-year collections.
Teacher Le Thi Truong Giang - Principal of Le Mao Primary School shared: "Since the summer, the school has reviewed the school's facilities and found that the school's facilities currently meet the requirements for teaching 2 sessions/day. For some remaining items, we plan to install an additional IT room to enhance the advanced classes, but we can use the school's old machines or mobilize other funding sources. Moreover, the school currently has a row of old classrooms, which are expected to be dismantled and rebuilt at the end of this year or next year. If the school purchases additional equipment at this time, it will be wasteful and inappropriate."
This school year, the implementation of socialization in schools is being carried out in a rather thoughtful manner. Through research at the Department of Finance and Planning (Department of Education and Training), by mid-October, the Department has not yet approved any socialization plan documents of the schools. In Quynh Luu district, through discussion, Mr. Tran Xuan Nhuong - Head of the Department of Education and Training of the district said: We expect to have to wait until the end of the first semester to approve the socialization plan. Firstly, the reason for not implementing socialization is to reduce pressure on parents. Secondly, it is for schools to consider and develop socialization plans suitable to the conditions and circumstances of local people.
Previously, in addition to the Department of Education and Training's revenue and expenditure guidelines, Quynh Luu district also issued a document to manage revenue and expenditure in the area. The Head of the District Department of Education and Training said: "The district's viewpoint is that the implementation of revenue and expenditure must be public, transparent, and used for the right purposes. Regarding sponsorships, we request that there be no regulations on average sponsorship levels, no regulations on minimum sponsorship levels. Absolutely do not take advantage of sponsorship for educational institutions to force contributions. In addition, timely support for students in difficult circumstances, ensuring that all students can attend school fully... Currently, the Department of Education and Training of Quynh Luu district has announced a hotline number for people to report on illegal revenue and expenditure. This includes the phone number of the Department of Education and Training's leaders.
Regarding the issue of socialization of education (also known as collecting funding for educational institutions), according to the guidance of the Department of Education and Training, it is a voluntary collection and the Department requires schools not to force, not to stipulate an average funding level, not to stipulate a minimum funding level. The industry also strictly prohibits the use of funding for education to force contributions and does not consider fundraising as a condition for providing educational and training services.
According to the current process, the implementation of socialized education is carried out quite closely with many processes and approved by relevant departments and branches. However, through the implementation, it also shows that the collection of socialized education in schools still has many concerns such as schools have not or are afraid to publicize information and socialized revenues and expenditures. Besides, many schools are considering socialization as a "legal" source of revenue, so they have proposed many impractical and unnecessary revenues, causing waste and making parents lose faith in this policy. The situation, when the time comes to buy air conditioners, buy televisions, repair desks and chairs... recurs in school years as parents reflect, partly due to the schools' incomplete implementation of socialization.
Returning to the case of Hung Binh Primary School (Vinh city) implementing the collection of 370 million VND from social sources to buy computers for teachers to teach in classes, it can be seen that, although this collection has been legalized with many documents in accordance with regulations. But why do parents still wonder, it is still not satisfactory, because considering the current general level, in nearly 1,500 schools in Nghe An, the number of schools that mobilize money from parents to buy computers for each classroom for teachers is extremely rare and almost non-existent. Therefore, when parents' economic conditions are still difficult, when buying computers is not urgent, is the implementation of socialization by the school "correct - accurate" a question that needs to be asked?
