Many parents in Hanoi are forced to pay many unauthorised fees to their children’s schools though the Education Law mandates that students need to pay nothing except tuition and admission fees, Pham Thi Hong Nga, deputy director of the city Department of Education and Training, said.

Pham Thi Hong Nga, deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, speaks at a meeting Tuesday with the National Assembly’s Ombudsman Committee.

Many schools in the capital collected a clutch of different fees claiming to use them for providing sanitation, drinking water, security services, and parking, she said at a meeting Tuesday with the National Assembly’s Ombudsman Committee.

Others even collect premiums on behalf of insurance companies, she said. Tran The Vuong, the head of the committee, expressed unhappiness saying the premiums should be collected directly by the firms.

Nguyen Van Tho, director of the Department of Finance, said some schools demand fees to provide uniforms for students.

Some schools also asked for other “voluntary contributions” to pay for lunch or set up scholarship funds, Nga said.

Ha Quang Long, deputy head of the committee, said the contributions were hardly voluntary since parents could not refuse to pay.

Tho wanted the city to regulate the collection of such fees, putting the onus on principals, forcing them to step down if any unauthorised fees were collected at their schools.

Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc, vice chairwoman of the city People’s Committee, agreed that without regulations to govern this, wrongdoing would be rife.

But Nga and Vuong said certain fees should be added to the list of authorised ones in future.

The Hanoi Department of Education and Training has ordered schools in the city to stop collecting fees for sanitation, drinking water, security services, or parking.