Resolution No. 35/2009/QH12 on the policy orientation for reforming certain financial mechanisms in education and training from the 2010-2011 academic year to the 2014-2015 academic year.

Article 1. The objectives of reforming financial mechanisms:

To establish new financial mechanisms for education and training to increasingly mobilize and effectively utilize state and societal resources to improve quality, expand scale, and ensure fairness in education and training, meeting the requirements of industrialization and modernization of the country; contributing to building a system of policies towards ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality education.

Article 2. Policy and orientation for reforming some financial mechanisms:

1. The State ensures its main role in investment for education and training; at the same time, it mobilizes contributions from families of learners according to their actual capacity; encourages contributions from businesses, organizations, and individuals; creates favorable conditions for establishing and developing non-state educational and training institutions; supports non-state educational and training institutions in training teachers and managers to higher levels.

2. The Government shall clearly define the tasks, powers, and responsibilities of central and local state management agencies in the preparation, allocation, and implementation of the budget plan for education and training. The State continues to increase investment and restructure budget spending for education and training goals. Priority is given to the budget for free primary education; universal secondary education and pre-primary education for five-year-olds, with tuition fees initially; education in difficult areas and ethnic minority regions; vocational training development and talent cultivation. The State budget invests in public educational and training institutions to ensure quality standards during different stages of development; forming some high-quality educational and training institutions to meet the needs of human resource development in the new phase of the country.

3. Improve the legal basis and policies to enhance autonomy and self-responsibility of public vocational training and university institutions in implementing tasks, organizational structures, staffing, and finance. Educational and training institutions must ensure the correlation between educational and training quality and the invested and utilized financial resources; announce their goals, training capabilities, and finances; implement financial reporting systems to superior management agencies as prescribed by the State.

4. State management agencies for education, finance, and related agencies shall conduct inspections, audits of the use of financial resources by educational and training institutions to ensure transparency, compliance with purposes, and legal regulations. Parents of preschool and general education students, vocational training and university students and faculty have the right and responsibility to monitor the use of funds by educational and training institutions according to internal expenditure regulations of those institutions.

5. Implement preferential policies on salaries and allowances for the teaching staff; continue to encourage teachers to teach in difficult areas and ethnic minority regions and inclusive education; implement seniority allowances for teachers and educational managers; retain classroom allowances for teachers reassigned to managerial work for three years.

6. Reform policies on tuition fees, scholarships, and support for learners in the direction of:

Public preschool and general education tuition fees should be commensurate with the economic conditions of each residential area, the actual contribution capacity of the people, aiming towards free tuition at an appropriate time. Continue not to charge tuition for elementary school students. For preschool, lower secondary, upper secondary students, and learners at continuing education centers, provide free tuition for children of those who have rendered meritorious service to the country, policy beneficiaries, and poor households; reduce tuition for near-poor household students; provide financial assistance for students from extremely low-income households unable to meet minimum schooling conditions. Students graduating from upper secondary schools with outstanding achievements, those winning first, second, and third prizes in national competitions, and those obtaining medals in international competitions will be considered for scholarships to attend university.

Tuition fees for public vocational training and university education shall be implemented based on the principle of sharing training costs between the State and learners. In the initial years, total tuition fees of public training institutions shall not exceed 40% of regular expenses, gradually increasing in subsequent years in line with the reform of tuition fee policies. Provide free and reduced tuition for children of those who have rendered meritorious service to the country and policy beneficiaries; reduce 50% of tuition for lower secondary graduates attending vocational training; allow vocational students and university students from poor and near-poor households and those in difficult circumstances to borrow money from the Social Policy Bank for study; continue implementing policy scholarships to support students from policy beneficiary families and scholarships to encourage academic excellence for outstanding students. Outstanding university graduates will be granted scholarships to continue their studies domestically and abroad.

The State shall subsidize tuition fees for educational and training institutions with students receiving free or reduced tuition. Subsidize tuition fees (at the level of public schools in the region) for children of those who have rendered meritorious service to the country studying at private preschool and general education institutions.

Educational institutions implementing high-quality programs shall be allowed to charge tuition fees commensurate with their training costs.

Quality assurance for vocational and higher education institutions, training programs shall be carried out, and a mechanism linking tuition fees to the quality of training shall be applied.

7. Implementation timeline:

For general programs at public preschool and primary-secondary educational institutions, where state resources are insufficient to cover tuition fees, tuition levels shall be determined based on each region within provinces and centrally-administered cities, in line with average income and actual contribution capacity of households, gradually increasing according to a reasonable schedule, with the ceiling only applicable for the 2014-2015 academic year.

For general programs at public vocational and higher education institutions, tuition fees shall be set based on groups of training professions and academic levels, linked to the quality of training, gradually increasing in accordance with the principle of sharing and actual contribution capacity of students.

The new tuition policy will be implemented from the 2010-2011 academic year. For the 2009-2010 academic year, under difficult economic conditions not yet recovered from economic downturns, adjustments to increase the maximum tuition fee at public vocational and higher education institutions (excluding secondary school graduates entering vocational college) will only be implemented at a low transitional level before the scheduled adjustment of tuition fees from the 2010-2011 academic year to the 2014-2015 academic year.

Financial mechanisms unrelated to tuition fees will be applied from the fiscal year 2010.

Article 3. Implementation

1. The Government shall make specific decisions and direct the implementation of policies and guidelines for reforming certain financial mechanisms in education and training as stipulated in Article 1 and Article 2 of this Resolution. It shall also direct thorough and comprehensive research to promptly establish a framework for tuition fees for general programs in various training fields at public educational institutions; guide the level of tuition fees for general programs at private educational institutions to ensure a reasonable correlation with public institutions, while directing local authorities at all levels to take measures to control tuition fees and the quality of education at private institutions.

2. Provincial People's Committees and Municipal People's Committees shall organize the establishment of tuition levels for public preschool and primary-secondary educational institutions within their jurisdiction, based on the guidance of the Government, and submit them to the People's Council at the same level for decision.

3. The Standing Committee of the National Assembly, the Committee for Culture, Education, Youth Affairs, and Children, the Ethnic Council, other Committees of the National Assembly, Delegations of the National Assembly, National Assembly deputies, People's Councils at all levels, the Vietnam Fatherland Front, and its member organizations within their respective responsibilities shall supervise the implementation of this Resolution.