VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of non-state schools in HCM City have announced that they will increase the tuitions for the new academic year. Meanwhile, leaders of the HCM City Education and Training Department still have not reached an agreement on the issue.

Tuitions to be kept unchanged or adjusted?

In late April 2011, at the press conference held by the HCM City Education and Training, to announce the plan to enroll students for the city’s schools, the department’s director, Huynh Cong Minh affirmed that state owned schools will not increase the tuitions. Meanwhile, as for non-state owned schools, the department “will work out with the schools and ask not to raise tuitions”.

Nevertheless, right in May 2011, a lot of non-state owned schools announced the new tuition levels for the new academic year 2011-2012, which are 10-20 percent higher than the current levels, thus having raised worries among parents.

A parent, who has a daughter studying at Dang Khoa private School, said she understands well that at non-state owned schools, tuitions are set up based on the agreements between the schools and parents. However, she still wants the city’s education and training department to make intervention to keep tuitions stable.

“If the tuitions continue rising every year, we will have to send our children back to state owned schools,” she said.

Meanwhile, Tran Thi Kim Thanh, Deputy Director of the HCM City Education and Training Department, said on Tien phong that non-state owned schools can define the tuitions and other school fees based on the agreements with parents. She stressed that the department only can ask schools to set up tuitions at reasonable levels, while it cannot instruct the schools how much to collect

When reporters recalled the statement by the director of the education department, Huynh Cong Minh several days ago, that the department will work with non-state schools and ask the schools keep the tuitions unchanged, Thanh said: “there has been no official new notice about the tuitions to date”.

According to Thanh, after the government released the decree No 49 stipulating the tuition collection and use mechanism, the city’s education department has suggested the plan to increase tuitions.

However, the plan has not been approved by the city’s authorities, because it is still necessary to consider the changes on the market and the people’s lives. Thanh said that at present, the tuitions are still defined in accordance with a decision released by the city’s authorities in 2000.

Tuitions rising by 10-20 percent

Meanwhile, non-state owned schools have been insisting on raising tuitions, saying that this is a necessary thing when everything is getting more and more expensive.

Le Thuy Hoa, Headmaster of Thai Binh private School in Tan Binh district, said that the 10-20 percent tuition increases are necessary to ensure the education quality.

Le Trong Chi, Headmaster of Dang Khoa School in Phu Nhuan district, also said that though he knows he would lose students if raising tuitions, but he still has to do that.

“It is necessary to spend more money on meals to ensure the quality. Meanwhile, it is necessary to pay more to teachers in order to retain them,” he explained.

In Hanoi, non-state schools have also announced the new tuition levels for the upcoming academic year. Doan Thi Diem School has decided to raise the tuition from 1.8 million dong to 3 million dong, while boarding-day students have to pay 1.2 million dong more. Le Quy Don School, which collected 3.4 million dong a month from students last year, has decided to collect 4.5 million dong from the new academic year 2011-2012.

TP