Lecturers of Vietnam - Korea - Quang Ngai College owed billions of dong

debts for overtime teaching for 10 years

Reflecting information to reporters of Lao Dong Newspaper, some lecturers working at Vietnam - Korea - Quang Ngai College indignantly shared: For the past 10 years, dozens of lecturers of the school have been owed overtime teaching fees, allowances, and have recently been owed official salaries. The total amount of debt that has been confirmed through official documents is nearly 2.8 billion VND.

In 2022, the collective of lecturers submitted a complaint to the People's Committee of Quang Ngai province, the Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs (old), and the Inspectorate of Quang Ngai province directed the principals of Vietnam - Korea and Quang Ngai to pay overtime teaching fees in the 2015 - 2016, 2016 - 2017, 2017 - 2018 and 2020 - 2021 school years, but so far it has not been resolved.

A lecturer (name changed) said that despite many official dialogues and recommendations, the lecturer still did not receive a written response or specific debt payment plan from the school's leaders.

He was even more upset when lecturers working at other units came to visit and were paid 285 million VND, while physical lecturers working at school, teaching regular courses, managing students and being responsible for training quality were owed nearly 1 billion VND in overtime teaching fees.

The fact of being owed money for many years has caused many difficulties for the lives of the school's lecturers.

Schools lost steam in the problem of financial autonomy

Reporter of Lao Dong Newspaper directly worked with Mr. Vo Dinh Ta - Principal of Vietnam - Korea - Quang Ngai College. According to Mr. Vo Dinh Ta, the school has 117 civil servants and employees. The target is to enroll about 950 students per year, however, the actual enrollment rate is only about 80%.

According to regulations, each student studying at the school must pay about 18.5 million VND/year in tuition fees. For those who are exempted from tuition fees, the State will reallocate funds to schools.

According to Mr. Vo Dinh Ta, from 2023, according to the policy, the school must be 100% financially independent. In the period from 2015 to 2018, the school owed lecturers about 936 million VND in overtime. In 2024, overtime debt will be over 1.3 billion VND.

On average, the school spends more than 1.4 billion VND per month to pay salaries to officials and workers. The scene only paid 50% of the June 2025 salary. The salary for July 2025 and the allowances, phone, work fees... have not been paid to lecturers and employees.

The school is expected to pay the above debts to cadres, civil servants and workers in August 2025, said Mr. Vo Dinh Ta.

According to Mr. Ta, the school was given financial autonomy from 2023. It will be 3 years from that time that the school will evaluate the entire process of operation, then have a report and recommendation to the superiors. He also said that in the near future, the school will streamline and rearrange the apparatus.

According to the school's lecturers, with 117 officials and employees, the number of lecturers and administrative personnel is equivalent. Because of the cumbersome apparatus, the school cannot balance the budget to pay overtime, salaries... to lecturers.

Mr. Vo Dinh Ta said that it is not yet clear how many are the specific number of lecturers and how many are the administrative staff at the school.

Regarding the fact that guest lecturers from other units are paid in full 285 million VND, while physical lecturers - who directly teach the main course - are owed nearly 1 billion VND in overtime teaching fees, Mr. Ta explained: because guest lecturers come from other places, the debt is less, so the school prioritizes payment in advance. "They have called many times to collect the debt and threatened to sue if they were not paid, so we were forced to try to pay them in full" - Mr. Ta said.