Is the PTA only for collecting money?
Ms. Le Thi Minh Van (Thanh Hoa), a parent with two school-age children, shared that after many years of monitoring, she realized that the parent-teacher association's sole purpose is to... collect money.
The fees are announced at the beginning of the school year and it seems that the parents' representative committee is an "extended arm" that helps collect money on behalf of the school instead of serving as a bridge between the school and parents.
"In fact, the parent-teacher association is meant to be a communication bridge between the school, teachers and parents. However, in the current era of digital media development, every class has a Zalo group to exchange information. The role of the association is also vague. It mainly appears in meeting minutes, the focal point for collecting money to return to the school" - Ms. Minh Van said and suggested that the parent-teacher association should be abolished to avoid negativity.
Meanwhile, although she supports the activities of the parents' association at schools, now that her child has finished high school, Ms. Thu Thao (Buon Ma Thuot, Dak Lak) is still haunted by the scene of the parents' association urging parents to pay class funds right at the beginning of the school year.
“Just 1-2 days after the first parent meeting of the year, I received many messages in the Parents’ Association group urging everyone to pay. The content could be directly urging payment or listing parents who have paid, updated daily. I felt dissatisfied because the amount of money paid was not small, many parents may not have enough conditions to pay right away” – Ms. Thao recounted the story more than a year ago.
Need to rectify the activities of the parent-teacher association
Ms. Vu Thi Hong - a parent whose child is studying in grade 5 in Thanh Xuan district, Hanoi, believes that maintaining the activities of the Parents' Association in classrooms is necessary. Because in addition to studying, students also participate in many extracurricular activities and entertainment in and outside of school. Parents need to support students, teachers and the Parents' Association will be the connecting point.
“Children participating in many extracurricular activities means incurring expenses. Parents must be responsible for contributing to create a common class fund to serve their own children,” said Ms. Hong.
According to Ms. Hong, what is necessary for the Parents' Representative Board is to be public and transparent about revenues and expenditures, and to use the fund for the right purposes. At the same time, before calling for contributions, the Representative Board needs to consult all parents and have collective consensus.
She added that in her child's class, the Parents' Association works actively and responsibly. The class fund contribution is appropriate, ensuring enough money for necessary activities.
“The parents’ association is also very considerate in not limiting the time limit for paying class funds. We can contribute when we have enough money because at the beginning of the year there are still many payments to make for our children,” she shared.
From the perspective of a teacher, Mr. Nguyen Van Luc, former teacher of Trinh Phong Secondary School, Khanh Hoa, believes that the parent-teacher association should not be abolished, because it is the bridge between the school and parents in educating students. However, the activities of the parent-teacher association need to be reviewed and tightened.
"The parent-teacher association should be reorganized in a more streamlined way, that is, there should only be a school parent association, and the class parent association should be removed. If teachers need to communicate with parents in the class, it can be done on Zalo class, which is convenient, avoiding meetings that take up more time and meetings that only listen to contributions.
"Absolutely, the parents' representative committee is not allowed to establish a class or school fund or collect donations" - Mr. Luc suggested.
