Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has approved a decree on new tuition fee plan for the 2010-2015 period under which the fees will not surpass 5% of residents’ average income, the Vietnamese Government said on its website May 15. Under the decree, which will take effect in July 1, the new fees applied from the 2010-2011 school year for preschools, junior and senior high schools will be different for each region. Accordingly, the monthly fees for students in urban areas will be from VND40,000 ($2.16) to VND200,000; for rural areas will be VND20,000-VND80,000 and for mountainous areas will be VND5,000-VND40,000. Tuition fees for university students will be specific for six groups of majors: social sciences, economics and law (group I); technology and engineering (group II); natural sciences (group III); agriculture-forestry-fishery (group IV); medicine and pharmacy (group V) and sports and arts (group VI). Students of the group V will pay the highest monthly fees of between VND340,000 and VND800,000, while those of the group I and group IV pay the lowest fees of between VND290,000 and VND550,000. Monthly fees for vocational training students will be VND200,000-VND530,000 in 2010; VND210,000-VND560,000 in 2011; VND230,000-VND600,000 in 2012; VND240,000-VND630,000 in 2013 and VND250,000-VND670,000 in 2014.
The decree also announced nine groups to be exempted from tuition fee. They include relatives of war veterans, underprivileged mountainous children, poor orphans and disabled children, children of the poverty-line households and poor ethnic students.
From the 2011-2012 academic year, tuition fees will be adjusted annually based on the average consumption price index (CPI) released by the government.
Vietnam has 22 million pupils and students in the 2009-2010 school year. Of them, 3.47 million attend nursery schools and kindergarteners; around 6.84 million join primary schools; 9.1 million take part in high schools and more than 1.8 million attend universities.
