Some educators have warned that the sharp rise in tuition set by state-owned schools will deprive poor but good students of opportunities to access higher education.

The PM has allowed 23 state-owned universities to apply the autonomy mechanism, which means that the schools have the right to set tuition themselves.

Under a pilot scheme, some state-owned universities are allowed to make their own decisions on investment, procurement and finance, but they have to ask the management body for approval for anything they intend to do.

Fifty-thousand secondary school graduates in Hanoi and HCMC will not have be able to enroll in state-owned high schools this year, creating intense competition among students for seats at state-owned schools. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Schools have been insisting on raising tuition despite complaints by students and warnings by analysts that students would not enroll. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Experts have warned that the tuition increase at state-owned universities will cause the plan on improving the ratio of university students per 10,000 people to fail.

VietNamNet Bridge – A university education could become out of reach of many poor students as many state-owned schools plan to raise tuition.

 VietNamNet Bridge – State owned school teachers may feel affected with the modest Tet bonuses of several hundreds of thousands of dong, while their colleagues at international schools can get up to thousands of dollars.