VietNamNet Bridge – Educators keep complaining that they don’t have enough money to spend on programs to reform schools, but in reality they are not using all the money allocated to them.

The State Audit Agency’s report submitted to the National Assembly showed that VND8.8 trillion of the budget for education had gone unused.

The information surprised National Assembly deputies who, when discussing the 2012 budget allocation, assumed that the country would need to spend big money on education, healthcare and other social programs.

Dao Trong Thi, chair of the National Assembly’s Committee of Culture, Education, Youth and Children, said: “I don’t believe that the education sector needs less money”.

“The education sector did not use up its money not because it did not need money, but because there were problems in the way of using the money.

“I know that in many localities, 90-95 percent of the budgets have been spent on salaries and allowances for teachers, while there was nothing spent on other educational activities,” Thi said.

He cited several possible reasons why the money could not reach needy schools.

“It was possible that local authorities did not strictly follow the budget allocation. They might have cut the expenses on education to spend on other items,” he commented.

“It might happen that the disbursement was too low, which made it impossible to spend money. There could be some unreasonable regulations which did not allow speedy disbursement, or they spent money on necessary items,” he continued.

Analysts have pointed out that money has been misspent and used ineffectively. As a result, the investments could not help improve the education sector.

The Ministry of Education and Training admitted that money has been wasted during the implementation of many education and training programs.

Regarding the national program on teaching foreign languages to general school students, the ministry, in a report released on May 19, said the biggest waste was found in the procurement of teaching aids and training teachers.

Though money was spent on the teacher retraining program, Vietnam still needs English teachers who can meet the requirements to teach English at schools.

In addition, the HCM City authorities spent VND90 billion on a VND180 billion program on equipping schools with interactive whiteboards that serve the teaching of English at nursery and primary schools.

However, when mentioning “modern teaching equipment”, Thanh Nien commented that HCM City spent hundreds of billions of dong to buy boards that are just like normal blackboards.

Vietnam poured big money into the “bachelor’s production program”, which has resulted in a high number of bachelor’s degree graduates who can’t find jobs.

According to Nguyen Thien Nhan, chair of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, 72,000 bachelors were unemployed by the fourth quarter of 2013. Meanwhile, the report of the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs on the labor market No 1/2014 showed that the number of unemployed bachelor’s graduates had reached 158,000 by that time.

Kieu Oanh