Does increasing tuition increase the quality of education?

According to Mr. Binh, Ho Chi Minh City should have developed a tuition fee framework from 2021 to 2025, but because the city was heavily affected by the COVID-19 epidemic last year, the Board asked the Department of Education and Training to submit a proposal to increase tuition fees for one school year. Therefore, this year, the department continues to submit the tuition fee for the next school year in accordance with regulations. At the same time, the Department of Culture and Social Affairs (HCMC People’s Council) also requested the Department of Education and Training to study and re-evaluate the impact on society.

Ho Chi Minh City is expected to increase tuition fees for the school year 2022-2023 the highest by 5 times

Mr. Binh also hopes that the new tuition fee framework will help improve the quality of education and improve the quality of teachers. “In my opinion, the increase in tuition fees will increase the source of training and fostering for fairly good students or tutoring weak students with the ultimate goal of reducing the need for them to study more. From there, step by step towards only one official school revenue, not many as it is now.” – Head of Culture – Social Department Cao Thanh Binh shared.

However, according to Mr. Binh, in order to limit the burden on parents from the increase in tuition fees, the Department of Culture – Social Affairs will work with the education sector to continue to strengthen supervision and management of the implementation of revenue and expenditure at schools. in order to comply with the regulations, there is no abuse of revenue. Fees that schools can arrange should not be collected from parents. And especially in this difficult time, schools should not increase other revenues.

For disadvantaged students, poor, near-poor households, and policy beneficiaries, the city will exempt or reduce tuition fees according to regulations. Localities, educational units and associations also have many social security programs and scholarships to directly support students to ensure that no students have to drop out of school because of difficulties.

According to Mr. Binh, in the coming time, the Department of Culture and Social Affairs will also work with relevant agencies, including the Department of Education and Training, to listen and request to study and re-evaluate the impact on society. association, recalculating revenue and expenditure estimates. “Currently this is just a draft, the Department has not submitted it to the City People’s Committee for approval. However, the tuition fee increase according to the draft is in compliance with the law and is currently at the lowest level in the framework.”Mr. Binh said.

Previously, as informed by Tien Phong, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training has published a draft resolution regulating tuition fees for preschool and public education from the school year 2022-2023. The resolution is developed according to the new tuition fee framework under Decree 81/2021/ND-CP of the Government and is being sent to relevant agencies for comments, the deadline is May 20.

According to this draft, in addition to primary school students who are not charged tuition fees, tuition fees for other education levels in the city have increased compared to the current level.

Specifically, the city will collect tuition fees in two groups. Group 1 (urban) applies to students in districts and Thu Duc city. Group 2 (rural) is for students in Binh Chanh, Hoc Mon, Cu Chi, Nha Be and Can Gio districts.

In which, for schools in group 1, the city will apply a new general fee of 300,000 VND/student/month. For group 2, there will be three rates, kindergarten and kindergarten will not increase, still 120,000 VND/month and 100,000 VND/month, respectively; lower secondary education and continuing education (TX) Lower secondary education increased by 70,000 VND to 100,000 VND/month; High school and high school secondary education increase by 100,000 VND to 200,000 VND/month.

Thus, in both groups, the lower secondary and higher secondary education has the highest increase in tuition fees. In particular, in group 1, students will be able to pay a new tuition fee five times higher than the current rate.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, the reason for the difference in tuition fees is because in the past, the city has always maintained a low tuition fee, which has not increased during the past 6 years. As for the lower secondary level, starting from 2019, Ho Chi Minh City applies the reduction of tuition fees at the lower secondary level, so this level of education has the biggest difference when being asked to increase tuition fees. The Department also added that each year, the city spends 20% of its recurrent budget on education and training. However, this only ensures the basic regime for the team, the investment rate for facilities and professional activities is very modest. new and evolving.

According to this draft, starting from the school year 2023-2024, based on the consumer price index and economic growth rate, the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City will submit to the City People’s Council a specific tuition fee rate. The next year’s revenue will increase no more than 7.5% compared to the previous year, not exceeding the ceiling as prescribed. This draft, if approved, will apply immediately in the school year 2022-2023.