On the morning of December 15, at a meeting with voters after the National Assembly session with voters of 11 wards in Hanoi, General Secretary To Lam mentioned an issue that is causing much concern in society: the situation of some schools collaborating with external units, sending teachers to teach and collecting money from parents higher than the tuition fees exempted by the State for students.
The General Secretary emphasized that the State is responsible for managing universal education, being responsible for the program, the teaching staff and the quality of teaching. In case there is a shortage of teachers in some subjects such as Music, Fine Arts, Foreign Languages, there must be a reasonable training solution and arrangement, and cannot be used that reason to bring in outside teachers to teach and collect money from parents.
"It is impossible to turn schools into places for services and money collection" - the General Secretary stated, at the same time requesting the city to inspect and strictly handle violations.
This statement pointed out a situation that has existed for many years in general education but has not been completely handled.
The introduction of joint and enhanced lessons (Foreign Language, Life Skills, Stem...) into regular school hours and wearing "voluntary" shirts has in fact forced parents to pay their children, increasing the burden of spending and creating a psychological depression in society.
More harmfully, this approach is going against the policy of exempting tuition fees and expanding access to education of the Party and State. When public schools operate in a service direction, the line between general education and business is erased, the first victims are students.
From the direction of the General Secretary, the issue is no longer awareness but responsibility for implementation. The education sector, local authorities and schools need to seriously grasp this spirit, review all forms of money collection linkages in schools.
Cases of intentional circumvention of the law, legalizing the collection of money contrary to the nature of public education must be strictly handled, so that schools can truly return to the true sense of being places to teach people, not service centers.
