VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of students weep bitterly not because they failed the university entrance exams, but because they cannot afford the tuitions which have unexpectedly increased.

On August 20, 2012, the representative office of the Ministry of Education and Training received a woman, who introduced herself as the parent of a student who has passed the entrance exam to the Nguyen Tat Thanh University.

The woman, after weeping and moaning for a long time, entreated the officers to help her settle the problem she was facing.

The woman was not happy because her son passed the university entrance exam, but she does not have money to pay for his tuitions.

Some days ago, she received a notice from the Nguyen Tat Thanh University which informed that her son passed the entrance exam to the school and asked the boy to turn up at the school to follow necessary admission procedures. The notice also informed the sums of money she had to pay for tuitions.

The mother has just realized that her son has been admitted to the high quality training class for which he would have to pay 15.5 million dong a year. Since she cannot afford such a high tuition level, she has decided not to study at the school. What she wanted was the mark report certificate with which her son would register to study at another school.

On August 22, the same office received another parent, who asked for the mark report certificate. They boy did not want to study at the Hoa Sen University, though he was accepted by the school, simply because of the overly high tuitions.

The students of the information technology faculty of the HCM City University of Technology complained that the tuitions have been increasing too rapidly, from 330,000 dong per credit in 2009 to 430,000 dong, not including surcharges.

The students, who enter the school this year, would have to pay 460,000 dong per credit. Though the tuitions have been raised steadily, the material facilities have not been upgraded, while the lab of the school still does not have enough conditions to serve students’ practice.

Replying to the complaint, Kieu Xuan Hung, Deputy President of the school, said that the school did not collect additional fees in previous years. However, since the school plans to replace all the computers and install air conditioners in the lab, information technology students would have to pay additional fees, equal to 10 percent of the tuitions.

However, the students still have expressed their displeasure about the decision, saying that the tuitions cover all kinds of expenses already, while students should not be asked to pay more money.

Under the current laws, the tuitions for state owned schools are fixed by the Ministry of Education and Training. Meanwhile, the state owned schools which follow the self-autonomy finance mechanism, and non-state owned schools, can define the tuitions themselves. However, the tuition levels must be made public, so that students can consider the training costs to choose schools to study.

In fact, very few schools published the information about tuition levels on their official websites. The information was also not found in the book “Things to know about the enrolment of universities and junior colleges 2012”. Only when students were called to school, did they know how much they would have to pay.

The HCM City University of Technology, for example, did not mention the additional fees in relating documents. Meanwhile, the Nguyen Tat Thanh University only gave a general notice that university students would have to pay 14.4 million dong a year, while junior college students 10.7 million dong.

Compiled by C. V