The Ministry of Justice is appraising the draft Decree regulating the exemption of general education textbooks and the roadmap for tuition fee exemption, curriculum for national defense and security education subjects at higher education institutions and vocational education. The draft is drafted by the Ministry of Education and Training.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the resolutions of the Politburo, the Government, and the National Assembly have assigned the Minister of Education and Training to decide on a set of general education textbooks (SGK) for uniform use nationwide, implemented from the 2026-2027 school year.
Accordingly, the Minister of Education and Training decided that this set of textbooks includes 4 groups: Vietnamese textbooks (grades 1-12); English textbooks (grades 1-12); Textbooks of other foreign languages (French, German, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Russian, grades 3-12); Textbooks of ethnic minorities (grades 1-5) with 8 languages: Bahnar, Cham, Ede, Jrai, Khmer, Hmong, Mnong, Thai.
The Ministry of Education and Training also proposed to provide free textbooks for printed books and Braille books. Electronic textbooks have not been provided free of charge because the Ministry of Education and Training is researching and developing them, so there are no specific criteria and standards for this type of book.
The draft clearly states the implementation of free textbooks according to the model of textbooks invested by the State, equipped for school libraries for common use. Students borrow by semester or school year; expired must be returned for continued use. Books are managed, labeled and classified according to regulations.
The Ministry of Education and Training proposes the time for free textbooks as follows:
Free textbooks for general education students are implemented nationwide from the 2029-2030 school year.
For localities with the ability to balance local budgets, encourage provincial-level People's Committees to decide to implement the free textbook policy earlier than the roadmap specified in the Decree; in which priority is given to allocating resources to deploy in advance for border areas, islands, ethnic minority and mountainous areas, areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions, ensuring compliance with practical conditions and local budget capacity.
Based on data from general education students and teachers in the 2025-2026 school year and textbook prices for the 2026-2027 school year of the Vietnam Education Publishing House, the Ministry of Education and Training estimates that the total state budget needed to exempt textbooks for all general education students and teachers is more than 4,000 billion VND.
Textbooks purchased from the state budget are public assets, managed and used according to the provisions of law. Therefore, acts such as collecting fees against regulations, supplying books not in the correct list, creating fake dossiers or causing loss of public assets are strictly prohibited and handled according to the provisions of law.
