Appellate trial of case of former principal collecting 15,000 VND/time for tutoring
On September 10, the Hanoi People's Court opened an appellate trial for the case of Abusing positions and powers while performing official duties related to Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh - former Principal of Ba Dinh Secondary School and former accountant Pham Thi Minh Nguyet. The case is expected to be tried in 2 days.
Previously, in March, the Hanoi District 1 People's Court held a first-instance trial, sentencing former Principal Nguyen Thi Binh to 3 years in prison; Ms. Nguyet to 24 months of suspended imprisonment for the crime of "Abusing positions and powers while performing official duties".
According to the first-instance judgment, in the 2013-2014 school year, defendant Binh, as Principal, directed the collection of extra classes at the level of 15,000 VND/session/student, higher than the level specified in Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND and guiding document No. 5898/HD-SGD&ĐT of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training.
Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND stipulates that at the secondary school level, for students under 10 in a class, schools are allowed to collect 26,000 VND/lecture per student; from 10 – 20 students, 13,000 VND/lecture per student; from 20 – 30 students, 9,000 VND/lecture; from 30 – 40 students, 7,000 VND/lecture and over 40 students, only 6,000 VND/lecture is allowed to be collected.
The prosecuting agency said that despite the above regulations, Principal Nguyen Thi Binh still directed accountant Pham Thi Minh Nguyet and homeroom teachers of grades 7, 8, 9 to collect tutoring fees at a common level of 15,000 VND/session/student. The total amount the school collected from 24 classes was 2.1 billion VND and the first-instance court said that the collected amount was higher than regulations by nearly 1.1 billion VND. Of the total 2.1 billion VND collected, 70% was spent on teachers directly teaching, and 30% was brought back to the school.
To legitimize the collection of higher fees as mentioned above, Ms. Binh directed accountant Pham Thi Minh Nguyet to prepare documents, divide the 30% money collected from tutoring submitted by the homeroom teacher of one tutoring class in half, divided into 2 groups of classes to establish 2 accounting books systems.
Thus, Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND and Guidance Document No. 5898/HD-SGD&ĐT were once one of the legal grounds for the court to indict Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh. However, these documents were later concluded by competent state agencies to be illegal and repealed.
Controversy over legal basis in the case
Lawyer Tran Hong Phuc (Hanoi Bar Association) said that at the court session this morning, representatives of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training still said that Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND is in accordance with the law, in which the regulation of the ceiling collection level is to avoid the situation of uncontrolled collection of extra tutoring and extra classes.
Meanwhile, representatives of the Ministry of Justice affirmed that the issuance of Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND is illegal, because Circular No. 17/2025/TT-BGDĐT has stipulated the collection of extra classes and tutoring fees based on agreement and does not stipulate the maximum collection level. Therefore, no agency or organization is allowed to set the maximum collection level themselves.
At the trial, representatives of the Department of Document Inspection of the Ministry of Justice also said that this agency has inspected decisions of the People's Committees of provinces and cities. Through inspection, only some localities have documents identified as problematic, not all have issued regulations like Decision No. 22/2013/QD-UBND of Hanoi.
Discussing this content, Lawyer Phung Thi Huyen said: "This is a major contradiction that the lawyer focused on clarifying at the trial.
On the defendant's side, Ms. Nguyen Thi Binh said that she still maintained her appeal for acquittal and was questioned by the court.
I am the principal, I perform my duties and I did not intentionally do anything illegal, I did not commit a crime. Today I still maintain the same view. I hope this trial will be tried in the most fair way" - Ms. Binh said.
