About 200 non-public educational institutions have signed a petition to the Prime Minister and ministries, requesting urgent support to help them survive difficulties.

As students have been staying off school for nearly two months, schools lack sources of income as they cannot collect tuition from students. Therefore, they don’t have money to cover operation expenses and pay teachers.

The situation is serious for the schools which employ foreign teachers and run joint training programs with foreign schools.

Following requests from tourism and manufacturing companies, private schools are now calling for help from the State.

Meanwhile, schools cannot plan their operation because it is unclear when students will come back to school. Local authorities' decisions are renewed every week.

“A lot of non-state education establishments will have to be dissolved if schools have to close for a long time,” said Tran Thi Hai Yen from Alpha School.

Teaching online and helping students review lessons from a distance are the methods applied by many private schools. However, it is unclear if distance teaching will be recognized. The Ministry of Education and Training has prohibited collecting tuition from online teaching.

The complaints by private schools have raised controversy. On an education forum, some parents commented that it is unreasonable for private schools, which collect very high tuition, to be rescued.

“They (private schools) need to observe the decisions by local authorities to close schools to prevent the epidemic spread. It will be a crime to call students back to school these days just to bring income to private schools,” a parent in Dong Da district commented.

“Only the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and local authorities are taking the right position to decide when students can come back to school. The decisions will depend on the recommendations by medical agencies,” he said.

Meanwhile, another parent said that all sectors of the economy, not only private schools, are suffering from Covid-19.

“Many private enterprises in many business fields are on the verge of bankruptcy. This is a common problem,” he said.

However, Yen explained that private schools entreat for help not because they want to call students back to school soon. They just want support like other private enterprises can enjoy from the state.

“We want tax reduction, tax payment delay and adjustment of regulations which can help us survive and recover after the epidemic is over,” she said.

Nguyen Thi Ngan Hoa, rector of Victoria Thang Long, a private primary school established in 2019 also said private schools need to be equally treated like other private enterprises in other business fields such as tourism, transport and import/export. 

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