Two years of weary waiting for allowances for teaching children with disabilities
Reader Tran Thi Minh Le - teacher of Que Phu Secondary School, Xuan Phu commune, Da Nang city - reflected to Lao Dong Newspaper that many teachers directly teaching integrated disabled students in the old Que Son district have not been paid preferential allowances in the 2 school years 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
Through investigation, Xuan Phu Commune People's Committee has proposed to allocate funds to pay preferential allowances to hundreds of teachers teaching disabled children in the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years, with a total amount of more than 3.336 billion VND.
However, the Da Nang City Department of Finance believes that, according to the norms for regular allocation of expenses for education and training in the past of Quang Nam province, this fund has been included in the estimate assigned to the old Que Son District People's Committee. Therefore, the proposal to allocate funds by Xuan Phu Commune People's Committee at the present time is "unfounded" to summarize and report to the City People's Committee.
This answer makes teachers even more concerned: If funding has been allocated in the old district's estimate, why has it not been paid yet? If the locality cannot balance the source, which unit is responsible for advising and proposing supplements? If the dossier is still missing, why is the matter prolonged for 2 school years but not handled promptly?
In another document responding to Phuoc Nang Commune People's Committee, the Department of Finance stated that the funds for the 2023-2024 school year that have not been paid are the responsibility of the old Phuoc Son District People's Committee, including the responsibility of the school for not summarizing, reporting, and proposing fund needs.
The document also stated that after operating the local government at 2 levels, the district level is no longer there, and district-level funding has been transferred to the city. If this is a legitimate right of teachers and the school provides sufficient dossiers and documents, the locality needs to report to the Department of Finance for consideration and submission to the City People's Committee for additional funding.
It can be seen that with the same allowance policy for teaching disabled students, the method of determining responsibility between localities is not unified. According to a review in localities in the old Quang Nam province, now Da Nang City, thousands of teachers teaching disabled students have not yet received allowances from previous school years.
It's not like the district has already received the money and not spent it.
Mr. Nguyen Phuoc Son - former Chairman of Que Son District People's Committee - period 2021 - 2024, currently Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman of Que Son Commune People's Council - informed that it is necessary to clearly see the nature of the problem to avoid misunderstandings.
According to Mr. Son, the decisions cited by the Department of Finance are decisions assigning annual budget estimates to the district. This is a source of allocation according to common norms for the locality to balance for many expenditure tasks. In fact, the old Que Son district has not been supplemented by the province with a separate target to pay this allowance to teachers.
Mr. Son said that due to unbalanced sources, the former Que Son District People's Committee once proposed to Quang Nam province to supplement funding to pay allowances to teachers teaching disabled students. In one proposal alone, the amount was more than 3.33 billion VND for hundreds of teachers.
According to Mr. Son, the unclear reply document easily makes public opinion misunderstand that the district has received money but has not paid. This is a legitimate regime, which needs to be comprehensively reviewed and have a unified plan to avoid making each commune and each school confused about dossiers and procedures.
The regime has regulations, but workers are still waiting
Recently, Da Nang City People's Committee assigned the Department of Finance to preside over and coordinate with the Department of Education and Training to guide communes, wards, and special zones to review dossiers, documents, and funding needs; advise on a plan to resolve them definitively before May 24, 2026, "to avoid prolonging".
Localities must submit dossiers before May 2026 and be responsible for the accuracy of the data and proposed content. However, according to teachers' reflections, after this time milestone, many people have not yet received allowances.
In fact, the allowance regime for teachers teaching disabled students is not a new policy, but has been stipulated in Decree 28/2012/ND-CP, Circular 03/2018/TT-BGDDT and guidelines on inclusive education.
Xuan Phu Commune People's Committee once requested schools with disabled students to prepare reports and budget estimates for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 school years to summarize and submit to the City People's Committee for allocation. The document also stated that the first semester of the 2025-2026 school year has been allocated funds for payment, while the previous 2 school years have not been resolved.
Thus, for the same policy, the same beneficiary, some stages have been paid, some stages are "suspended". This breakdown needs to be clarified by specific responsibility, and teachers cannot continue to ask each level and each department.
