According Minister of MOET Nguyen Thien Nhan, the tuition fee for general education will not be higher than 6% of family income. However, it remains unclear how much is 6% of family income.

According to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan, the tuition fee for general education will not be higher than 6% of family income, and the tuition levels will be different for different regions and localities.

Local authorities will decide the tuition levels after considering the average income in the localities. Those families which have incomes lower than the average level will enjoy tuition exemptions or reductions. It is expected that 20% of people in every locality would be eligible for these discounts.

However, parents now still do not know how much 6% of family income is exactly and how much they will have to pay to send their children to school.

It is estimated that in Hai Phong, where there are good socio-economic conditions, and the average income per capita was over $1,000 in 2008 (the average monthly income was VND1.6mil), the average tuition level for general education will be VND96,000/month.

Meanwhile, since 2003-2004 school year, the monthly income in Hai Phong applied for secondary school students has been between VND14,000 and VND27,500, while the levels for high school have been VND21,000-40,000.

If applying the same method of calculation with Hanoi, where the average income per capita was $1,700 in 2008, the tuition level would be VND120,000-130,000/month.

With the new tuition scheme, students will clearly have to pay more.

In fact, the income per capita announced annually by local authorities is just the average level. Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the poor within a locality proves to be relatively big. Therefore, state management agencies need to make thorough surveys of local people’s incomes in order to define reasonable tuition levels, and to prevent families from declaring themselves ‘poor families’ to enjoy tuition exemptions.

In reality, besides tuition fees, families have to spend money on a lot of additional items to support their children’s studies. They have to pay money to contribute to the construction and upgrade of schools, pay money for upgrading schools’ material facilities, and pay for extra classes. They also have to pay for extra-curricular activities, for uniforms and for gifts for teachers on special days.

VietNamNet/VnMedia