LookAtVietnam – VnExpress newspaper has received a letter from 19 overseas students, who beg for help of Minister of Education and Training

VnExpress newspaper has received a letter from 19 overseas students, studying at Bauman Moscow State Technical University under the Programme 322, who beg for help of Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan because they have not received stipend for the last six months.

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All the students get a stipend of $400 a month. After paying for housing, money remittance and insurance, they have $214-284 left to cover their expenses including books.

In Moscow, the sum of money does not go very far, but they have not received their small stipend for the last six months. The students complain that they always get stipend late and that they often have to go to school on an empty stomach. The students do not say tell members of their families, because they fear that they would make their parents worry.

With the stipend always coming late, students now have two choices, either they endure the hunger and wait for stipend to come, or try to earn their living and neglect studying.

“We have no money in our pockets when we walk on streets or when we go to school,” the students said. “We have nothing for breakfast but we still have to go to school. We also have no money to have lunch in the lunchtime at the university”, said one student who wished to remain anonymous.

According other students: “Every time when we pass exams with good result, we immediately send reports home with eagerness, hoping to get stipend soon. However, several months after sending the first reports, we have to send the second and the third reports, but money has not come. We have become disappointed”.

The students said that they cannot understand why it takes so much time to remit money. “We have fulfill all the necessary procedures as requested, but why cannot we receive money on schedule?” they questioned.

Under the current regulations, after receiving the request from the Vietnam International Education Department under the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Finance will remit money to the accounts of students or students’ representatives. However, due to the tardiness, over the last six months, more than $45,000 worth of stipend of the students have been still ‘lying’ at the Ministry of Finance.

When asked about the problem, Nguyen Xuan Vang, Director of the Vietnam International Education Department said that the 19 students studying in Moscow under the Programme 322 have been sent abroad by the Military Technical Academy. Therefore, in principle, the stipend of these students is remitted to the representative of the academy, not to the individual accounts of every student.

Explaining the tardiness in money remittance, an official of the Vietnam International Education Department, said that it is because the academy still has not made final decision about to whom to remit money, either the money would be sent directly to students, or sent to the representative as previously done.

In February 2010, the department asked the academy to send reports about the study result of the students in accordance with the new form in order to consider granting stipend for February – July 2010, but there was no response. “I urged them to fulfill necessary procedures, but we did not receive any documents about the students,” he said

Also according to the official, recently, the academy sent the score board of the 19 students..

Right after hearing about the letter the academy sent a document to the department, requesting to remit stipend to the 19 students to the account of the academy’s representative in Russia.

On May 20, the money was remitted to Russia.

Source: VnExpress