Every month, headmaster of a day-boarding primary school
with 1000 students can pocket 20 million dong which is the “commission” paid by
private catering companies. Meanwhile, the salary paid by the state to the
headmaster, who has 20 years in service length, is just five million dong.

Meals for students or headmasters?

Day-boarding schools provide lessons to students both in the morning and
afternoon, which means that students stay at schools during the lunchtime and
have meals there, and their parents have to pay for the meals.

In general, parents have to pay 14,000-15,000 dong for a meal. However, in fact,
the value of the meals is about 10-12,000 dong only, because the catering
suppliers have to pay “commissions” to the schools’ headmasters. This means that
in order to “express the gratefulness” to the headmasters, the suppliers have to
pay the headmasters the sums extracted from the money paid by students.

Nguoi lao dong’s reporter, pretending to a headmaster of a school in HCM City,
contacted a catering supplier to order meals for 1200 students a day. After
hearing that the reporter wanted to order 1200 portions (15,000 dong per
portion), V, a senior executive of V Catering Company in Phu Nhuan District,
said that the headmaster and his school would get the commission worth 2.5-3
percent of total turnover. If the total turnover is 400 million dong a month,
the headmaster and the school would pocket 10-12 million dong.

This means that the total value of every partition, after paying tax and
commissions, would be 11,500 dong. “Is ththise sum of money high enough to
ensure sufficient nutrition for students?” the “headmaster asked. “Of course, I
can say for sure that our products will be safe and have high quality,” V
affirmed.

At GK workshop in Binh Thanh District, the same reporter was told that he would
get a big commission of four percent, if he orders 1200 portions.

The reporter said that the suggested commission was too low. “If you want, I
will offer seven percent in commission. The commission will be paid at the
beginning of each month,” a man told the reporter.

This means that the headmaster would pocket 1100 dong for every portion, and
with 1200 portions, he would earn 1.3 million dong per day.

Especially, PP catering company offered even more attractive commissions than
the previous two. PP said that for every 14,000 dong portion, the supplier will
pay 1500 dong to the headmaster and his school.
Desserts go to… school headmasters

When the same reporter called H, the owner of KKh catering company in Tan Phu
District, H said that she would give 500 dong per meal to the headmaster and
another 500 dong to the school (management board, accountant and other VIPs).
When the reporter said that 1000 dong was too low, H said that he would give the
headmaster 1500 dong for every portion ordered, and she does not care how much
the headmaster would give to the management board’s members and other teachers.

H added that besides the commissions she has to pay to the headmaster and the
school, she still has to pay 2000 dong per portion to other “high ranking
officials”. “Therefore, we have only 10,500 dong for every portion, so we will
not have desserts. Desserts will come only once a week,” H said.

Analysts have pointed out that the “extra money”, i.e. the money headmasters can
earn besides the official salaries, is so big that it is the extra money, not
the salary, that is the main source of income of educators.

A headmaster of a primary school with high number of students reportedly
pocketed huge sums of money just on drinking water. The headmaster declared that
over 5000 water jugs were used (the real number was 4000), and thus earned 17.6
million dong. The price of every water jug was 6000 dong, but the headmaster
asked the supplier to write down in the bills that the price was 12,000. This
way she could earn 6,000 dong per every water jug and 24 million dong for 4000
water jugs.

Source: Nguoi lao dong