Vietnam - Only students from rich families can study at economics schools

VietNamNet Bridge – The students, who follow economics related majors, would have to pay 100 percent of tuitions, if a project being considered by the Ministry of Education & Training and Finance comes true.

Budget allocation plan sees big changes

The project has raised controversy among students and educators. The State would not give subsidy to the students studying economics and economic related majors. This means that only the students from well off families would be able to follow the training branches, because they would have to pay 100 percent of tuitions.

The Ministry of Education and Training has approved the budget plan for 2013, under which money would be allocated to three groups of schools. The first one comprises of the schools which have to cover 100 percent of their expenses. The second one includes the schools which follows the partial financial self-sufficient mechanism. Meanwhile, the third one would receive the 100 percent funding from the State.

Agriculture, forestry and fisheries schools would receive the 30-50 percent subsidy, while technology schools 20-40 percent. Meanwhile, friendship schools, and the schools in mountainous areas would be 100 percent funded by the state budget.

According to Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga, the State would support the training majors which are very useful for the country, such as pedagogical, technology, forestry, agriculture, fisheries and arts.

Meanwhile, the State would gradually reduce the funding for the law, economics, finance and banking training branches. The schools would be given the right to define the tuitions for the training branches.

Explaining this, Dr. Nguyen Truong Giang from the Ministry of Finance said Vietnam now has excessive economics majoring graduates already, and the education ministry does not intend to increase the number of students to be enrolled in the majors. However, students still have been flocking into economics schools.

“Therefore, it is necessary to force the number of economics students down by raising the tuitions,” Giang said.

Once economics students have to pay 100 percent of tuitions to follow the training majors, the State would have more money to support the training in forestry, agriculture and fisheries.

Poor students have no chance for economics school

Nguyen Tien Manh, an 11th grader of Nguyen Viet Xuan High School in Vinh Phuc province, complained that he may have to give up the dream of studying at the Banking Academy so as to help my family escape from poverty.

“I have heard that the tuitions would be very high, which is unaffordable to my family,” he said.

Nguyen Hoang Sa, a teacher from Einstein School in Hanoi, also said that the high tuitions would force many students, including the ones in big cities, to rethink their plan.

“Raising tuitions for some training branches would lead to the appearance of the “majors for the rich,” while there would be the majors to be reserved only for the poor,” the teacher said.

President of the Tay Nguyen University Nguyen Tan Vui has expressed his worry that if the tuitions increase too sharply, it would be difficult for the schools to enroll students, even though the schools themselves plan to cut down the number of students to enroll.

Ngo Huong, President of the HCM City Banking University, has warned that if the tuitions are raised, the poor students would have to consider their study plan, while rich students would rather go studying abroad.

Van Chung

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