Vietnam - Parents worry themselves sick about school fees

VietNamNet Bridge – Tuition and school fee increases is once again a hot topic on education forums. Parents complain that education has become very costly in Vietnam.

Tuitions on the rise

The Le Quy Don Primary School has announced the tuition increase of 2.8 million dong for the new academic year. Meanwhile, the meal fee would increase by 50 percent, from one million dong to 1.5 million dong. As such, the total fixed fee to be paid for tuitions, school fees and buses would reach 5.5-6 million dong a month.

The parents whose children become the first graders at Doan Thi Diem private school would have to pay 5.5-6 million dong a month. The Ngoi Sao Hanoi Primary School sets the tuition at 3 million dong for first graders, while the tuitions are lower for higher graders.

Meanwhile, Brendon and Tieu Nguyen Sieu primary schools charge 4.2 million dong in tuition on first graders, and set higher tuition levels on higher grades.

Especially, international schools charge the high tuitions of nearly100 million dong a year for their advertised “international education quality.”

The Vietnam-Australia Primary School collected 55,400,000 dong for the 2010-2011 academic year. One year later, the tuition rose to 62 million dong. Meanwhile, it has decided that the tuition would be 70 million dong for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Being Vietnamese people founded schools, but the schools that run both the Vietnamese and foreign curriculums--such as Olympia or Hanoi-Academy, show their “aristocratic class,” by setting sky high tuitions of hundreds of millions of dong.

At the Olympia School, for example, the tuition for primary education is 99 million dong for an academic year. Meanwhile, students have to pay 114 million dong a month to receive secondary education and 129 million dong for high education.

The tuition levels set by the Hanoi-Academy are 93.6 million dong, 106 million dong and 124 million dong, respectively.

Parents worry sick about high school fees

Besides the official tuitions, the parents whose children go to private schools would also have to pay for “unnamed fees” set by private schools.

The Hanoi Academy, for example, sets the registration fee for the next academic year at 4.5-7 million dong, application package fee and registration fee.

The parents whose children go to Doan Thi Diem, Nguyen Sieu and Le Quy Don schools, belonging to the group of the most prestigious non-state owned primary schools in Hanoi, would have to pay no less than 10 million dong which includes the tuitions, boarding day services, buses, material facilities, uniform, parents’ fund and excursion fee. Besides, parents would also have to pay for the textbooks for foreign language curriculums, life skill extra classes, totaling several millions of dong.

The Hanoi Academy and Olympia, called the schools for the rich people’s children, always collect fees every semester or every academic year. Therefore, parents have to pay hundreds of millions of dong at once. Especially, the school development fees set by the schools are always higher by 2-4 times than that of other schools.

A school officer explained to Hoai Thu, a parent in Dong Da district in Hanoi that the registration fee is the money students have to pay when registering to study at schools. The money would be paid for the tests for students before entering class.

However, Thu still thinks that this is a kind of unreasonable fee, saying that the registration fee has been imposed on kindergarten’s children, who do not have to do any tests.

Nguyen Huong – Van Chung

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