Right from the beginning of the school year, the Department of Education and Training (DET) of Bac Lieu has clearly defined the collection and payment of fees. Regarding health insurance for students, in the 2024-2025 school year, educational institutions must ensure that 100% of students participate in health insurance according to regulations and collect according to the instructions of the Provincial Social Insurance. Educational institutions need to proactively coordinate with local Social Insurance agencies to collect fees multiple times: 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, not at the same time to reduce the burden and share difficulties with parents.
For fees collected on behalf of parents such as personal insurance, other voluntary insurance from organizations outside the school, electronic contact book texting fees, etc., these are not mandatory fees. Schools need to notify and promote so that parents can agree and voluntarily participate. Absolutely no coercion is allowed in any form.
In the context of budget difficulties, educational institutions are allowed to promote and mobilize funding for educational activities to carry out tasks to improve the quality of education, but must ensure that the funding mobilization is in accordance with regulations and on a voluntary basis. Absolutely do not mobilize support to pay for teaching fees; amounts directly related to managers, teachers and staff; security and protection activities; fees for looking after students' vehicles; fees for maintaining classroom hygiene and school hygiene; rewards for managers, teachers and staff; costs to support the management of educational institutions, etc.
Despite having many documents, some schools still collect and spend money quite arbitrarily. Typically, a high school in Bac Lieu city "transparently" spends money on parents such as: supporting breakfast for excellent students taking exams in grades 11 and 12; supporting candidates for national excellent student exams; sending off the national excellent student exam proctoring delegation with nearly 7 million VND; supporting the art night with 5 million VND...
A parent said that the school's Parents' Association should not have paid for these expenses because there were regulations. On the other hand, the national excellent student exam invigilator team already had a regime according to regulations.
At Bac Lieu City Secondary School, many parents agreed to pay the class fund of 500,000 VND/person because they all agreed to the suggestion, and it was difficult to pay less. Regarding the collection fees, although the documents of the Department of Education and Training and the Provincial People's Committee clearly stated that it could be divided into several installments, most schools did not follow this and collected them all at once.
Mr. Tran Van Loc (Ward 1, Bac Lieu City - character name has been changed) reflected: "I have read and know that Bac Lieu province is very interested in the early year collection. The spirit is to reduce the burden on parents, but the early year parent meeting does not do that. I have 2 children and 2 grandchildren, the class's parent fund alone is 2 million VND. That is not to mention the school's parent fund and other fees such as: electronic contact books, garbage collection fees, chalk fees, uniform fees, badges...".
