Humanistic education policy
In his closing speech at the 11th Party Central Committee Conference of the 13th tenure, General Secretary To Lam affirmed that building a modern national education system, on par with the region and the world, is one of the fundamental solutions to overcome the risk of falling behind.
Previously, the Politburo decided to completely exempt tuition fees for students from preschool to high school in public schools nationwide from the 2025-2026 school year. The Ministry of Education and Training estimates that to implement this policy, the State must pay about 30,000 billion VND (if deducting the local budget of provinces/cities that have implemented tuition exemption, the central budget will have to implement less than this figure).
Meritorious teacher Nguyen Van Ngai - former Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City - said that currently, many countries in the world have implemented tuition exemption policies for students.
"This is an important decision, demonstrating the concern of our Party and State for education. The policy is very humane, helping students, especially in remote areas, have equal opportunities to study and improve the quality of human resources. Create conditions for students of school age to go to school, while contributing to improving people's knowledge and popularizing education", Mr. Ngai commented.
Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam - Vice President of the Vietnam Association of Educational Psychology, Chairman of the Board of Education of Dinh Tien Hoang High School (Hanoi) supports the tuition exemption policy, saying that this is a humane policy, contributing to the development of education, bringing happiness to the people and in line with the country's progress in the new era.
Need for more policies to care for teachers' lives
In addition to support and agreement, teacher Nguyen Van Ngai also expressed concern about the overcharging of some schools in recent times. Mr. Ngai said that in addition to tuition fees, parents also have to pay other fees and illegal collection often occurs in these fees.
Therefore, he hopes that the authorities need to take tough measures and strictly handle when detecting overcharging in educational institutions. Mr. Ngai said that when the tuition exemption policy is applied, the authorities need to quickly implement tuition compensation for educational institutions to avoid delays.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Ngai, along with the tuition exemption policy, Circular 29/2024 of the Ministry of Education and Training regulating the implementation of extra classes has initially recorded many positive responses. "It can be seen that we do not ban extra classes, but the regulations in Circular 29 are aimed at no more extra classes. If we can do this, our education will have a great step forward," said teacher Nguyen Van Ngai.
Experts all commented that the policy of exempting tuition fees for students from kindergarten to humanistic general education aims to build a modern national education system, on par with the region and the world.
However, Dr. Nguyen Tung Lam expressed his hope that the Politburo would continue to pay more attention to the investment mechanism for educational development in line with the internationally integrated market economy, creating conditions for schools to be autonomous. One of them is to pay more attention to the teaching staff, and soon decide on teachers' salaries to attract talented people.
Dr. Hoang Ngoc Vinh, former Director of the Department of Vocational Education, Ministry of Education and Training, said that to implement tuition reduction from the 2025-2026 school year, it will cost the State budget a relatively large amount, so careful preparation in terms of resources is needed to ensure funding in implementation.
Mr. Vinh suggested that, in parallel with tuition exemption, the education sector needs to control the quality of teaching and learning, ensure teachers' income, and at the same time have appropriate solutions to avoid affecting the orientation of student orientation after secondary school.
