The report on educational activities and the government’s implementation of the education budget in 2022 shows that the estimated recurrent expenditures in the educational sector this year was VND275,709 billion out of VND1,784,600 billion worth of total state expenditures. 

This accounted for 15.45 percent of total budget expenditures.

The figure is still lower than the minimum level assigned in Resolution 37 dated December 3, 2004 and Article 96 of the Law on Education. 

The resolution and the law clearly stipulate that the State should give top priority to the budget to education, ensuring that it account for at least 20 percent of total state budget expenditures.

Regular spending on education and training and vocational training in the next year is VND286,700 billion, which is not much higher than the figure this year.

However, if calculating total spending on investment in education and training this year alone, there was a relatively high increase in comparison with 2021. 

The total spending on investment in education was VND55 trillion, accounting for 16.6 percent of total state spending on education, a sharp rise of 49.2 percent compared with spending on investment in 2021.

Local reports show that spending for investment and development at the preschool and general education level mostly aimed to improve facilities to ensure the 2018 general education program – which includes more classrooms, rooms for physical and art education, kitchens and storehouses, teaching aids, computers, and equipment for foreign language teaching. 

Most spending in the educational sector is used to pay salaries. If cutting the regular expending as per the roadmap stipulated in resolution No19 dated October 25, 2017.

If cutting down the recurrent spending in accordance with the roadmap stipulated in Resolution 19 dated October 25, 2017, there won’t be enough funding for salaries as well as professional expenditure, and for the implementation of the policies applied to students.

In 2021, the total regular spending of the whole country decreased by 1.9 percent and the educational sector decreased by 3.4 percent.

Some localities reported that they don’t have money for maintenance and purchase of teaching aid. Therefore, the central government needs to allocate budgets to the localities.

In principle, the spending on professional activities must account at least for 18 percent of total recurrent spending as per Decision 46 and 19 percent  as per Decision 30. However, the figures are lower in many provinces.

Luong Bang