With only about a month left, more than 2.5 million students in Ho Chi Minh City will enter the 2026-2027 school year. Along with preparing facilities and teaching staff, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training (GDĐT) has also issued many guidelines related to student rights, revenue and expenditure work, and organization of activities at educational institutions.
Continue to implement tuition fee exemption policy
According to the guidance of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, educational institutions continue to fully implement policies on tuition fee exemption and reduction, learning cost support and specific support policies of the city for eligible students.
Schools are responsible for reviewing the right subjects, ensuring timely policy implementation, and preventing omissions or duplicate payments.
Not yet collecting service fees when there are no new regulations
One content that many parents are interested in is the tuition fees at the beginning of the school year.
The Department of Education and Training said that it is advising the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to issue new regulations on the list of service fees to serve and support educational activities and the revenue and expenditure management mechanism according to Decree No. 66/2026/ND-CP.
While waiting for new regulations to be issued, educational institutions are not allowed to organize collection of these service fees.
Previously, in the 2025-2026 school year, public schools in Ho Chi Minh City were allowed to collect 24 fees according to regulations, including 9 fees for services serving and supporting educational activities and 15 fees to organize school programs and services for individual students.
Tightening fees at the beginning of the school year
In addition to waiting for new regulations on fees, the Department of Education and Training requests schools to strictly implement regulations on revenue and expenditure.
Accordingly, schools must fully disclose revenues, collection levels, revenue-expenditure plans; must not set offside revenues, not collect in advance, collect in bulk or collect exceeding the permitted level.
Regarding sponsorships, schools are not assigned mobilization targets, are not forced by parents to contribute or use sponsorship sources to replace expenditures under the responsibility of the state budget.
Parents' representative boards are not allowed to establish class funds.
The Department of Education and Training continues to emphasize the correct implementation of regulations for the Parents' Representative Board.
Accordingly, the Parents' Representative Board is not allowed to collect fees under the school's responsibility; is not allowed to establish class funds, school funds or forms of mandatory funds; is not allowed to stipulate the average contribution level or mobilize sponsorship against regulations.
Fundraising (if any) must be carried out on a voluntary, public, transparent basis and in accordance with the law.
No collection of periodic health check-up fees
According to the guidance of the Department of Education and Training, periodic health check-ups for students are within the scope of the state budget.
Schools are not allowed to collect any fees from students or parents for periodic health check-ups.
Promoting cashless payments
In the new school year, the Department of Education and Training continues to request educational institutions to promote digital transformation in financial work.
100% of educational institutions must be connected to licensed payment systems; diversify payment methods to facilitate parents. Schools are also not prioritized separately for a bank or intermediary payment unit and must publicize service fees (if any).
Preparing to deploy textbook lending
Another new point is the preparation for implementing the policy of lending textbooks to students in the form of borrowing - returning through the library.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training requests educational institutions to proactively review and inventory the number of existing textbooks; develop needs, estimates and plans for managing, lending, recovering, and preserving books according to the Department's guidance. Implementation will be carried out when there is a decision, plan and funding allocated by competent authorities.
