At the 38th session, the National Assembly Standing Committee gave opinions on the draft Law on Teachers.
The draft law has attracted attention when proposing policies to support teachers, including subsidies based on the nature of work and region; policies to support training and development; periodic health care, occupational health care; tuition exemption for biological children and legally adopted children of teachers while working...
In particular, it is expected that to implement the tuition exemption policy for children of teachers and lecturers, it will take about more than 9,200 billion VND/year.
The proposal to exempt tuition fees for children of teachers and lecturers is receiving much public attention and has many different opinions.
Speaking with Lao Dong on October 9, National Assembly delegate Pham Van Hoa (Dong Thap delegation) expressed his disagreement with the proposal to exempt tuition fees for biological and legally adopted children of working teachers.
"Teachers are still civil servants, and cannot have too many "privileges and benefits" compared to other civil servants" - according to delegate Pham Van Hoa, currently, due to difficult living conditions, teachers' salaries are being proposed to be ranked highest in the administrative career salary scale system. At the same time, teachers also receive professional allowances, more than other civil servants. If they have to teach far away, teachers can even stay in official residences.
According to the delegate, it is right to increase teachers' salaries, even very high, but nothing should be free, including tuition for teachers' children.
"We cannot turn one injustice into another. In a society, every profession deserves equal respect and priority," said delegate Hoa, adding that the proposal by the drafting agency would be easily judged by public opinion as having "group interests" for their own profession.
Speaking with Lao Dong, a National Assembly delegate from the National Assembly's Culture and Education Committee expressed concern about the proposal to exempt tuition fees for teachers' children in the draft Law.
According to this delegate, in principle, we need to have some policies to ensure priority for teachers due to their special nature such as salary and allowances, but exempting tuition fees is not advisable and unnecessary, and lacks fairness.
Previously, examining the draft law on the afternoon of October 8, Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture and Education Nguyen Dac Vinh stated that there were opinions suggesting clearly defining the scope and beneficiaries, thoroughly and fully assessing the impact of resources to ensure the implementation of policies to support and attract teachers, especially the policy of exempting tuition fees for teachers' children (point d, clause 1, Article 26).
Commenting on the tuition exemption policy for teachers’ children, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh said that this regulation is difficult to apply to private educational institutions and even public educational institutions. Therefore, it is necessary to stipulate policies for teachers with specific difficult circumstances.
The Vice Chairman of the National Assembly said that this content should not be stipulated in the draft law. Incentives and special policies are fine, but the provision of "privileges and benefits" is not advisable.
