The historical anecdote teaches that patience and perseverance in the present will lead to profit in the future and is very much related to Vietnam’s topical issues, especially education.

The story has it that during the Boshin War of the Meiji Restoration in the late 1860s, the Nagaoka province (now the city of Nagaoka in Niigata Prefecture) suffered great losses and most of its food production means were destroyed.

One of its neighboring provinces donated 100 sacks of rice to Nagoaka to relieve hunger.

Torasaburo Kobayashi, one of Nagaoka’s chief executives, then proposed a radical plan to sell the rice and use the money for education.

Samurai clan leaders and the famished public initially protested the idea, but Kobayashi said: “If these one hundred rice sacks are eaten, they are lost instantly. But if they are invested in education, they will multiply to tens of thousands and even millions of rice sacks in future.”

Though they suffered initial losses, the masses eventually benefited from the growth of education.

As the population of educated citizens grew, many became successful and contributed to the nation’s massive development in the Meiji Era.

The era continued to build upon the educational precedent and is remembered for prioritizing education and literacy as top goals.

Many studies have concluded that Japanese educational record in the period was on par with more developed nations in Europe.

This educational background helped build Japan into Asia’s most developed nation.

Vietnam has for long considered education development as one of the top national policies. However, this policy has yet to materialize.

Many educational issues have yet to be resolved.

Due to a facility shortage, grade-schoolers in many localities only attend school half a day. Teachers cannot afford to live on their meager salaries and many have become corrupt.

Major questions are raised - whether the state and localities have done their best for national education and whether tuition fee increase is just, especially if it is the sole measure to improve the current educational system.

Like the majority of public opinion, I think the state has to be in charge of universalizing free education, at least for the primary and junior high school levels.

These levels belong to basic education and are vital to enhancing residents’ lives. Social equality is easiest to manifest by allowing pupils to attend school free of charge.

Only the state can take on this responsibility.

I recommend the state to make a pledge and draft a detailed plan for these following items.

(1) Within the next three or four years, preschool and primary educations are improved in a way that students can attend school the whole day, parents do not have to pay any fees, and teachers’ salaries are raised to livable levels.

(2) In the following three years, a similar plan can be launched at the junior high school level.

In order to have an adequate budget for the plans, I ask the state to seriously consider these following recommendations.

The first suggestion is to dissect and modify expenses for education.

Several studies and calculations have showed that Vietnam’s budget allocation to education was higher than that of other neighboring countries. But where did the money go? Were unnecessary expenses were completely cut?

The second recommendation is to cut wasteful state spending in other areas and use it for education.

Local media have reported that many state investments in infrastructure, for example, have caused great losses to the budget. Wasteful spending was detected in many administrative agencies. Many officials have squandered state funds to build magnificent offices, buy expensive cars and organize extravagant parties. Expenses of this kind must be curbed.

And the last suggestion - if the state has done its best to implement these measures but can not generate enough money, it could mobilize support through taxes. 

It could impose a special type of tax on extravagant spending. For instance, when having a meal worth over VND150,000 (US$9.3), people could pay a special “consumption tax” of 10 percent meant for education.

To summarize, the state is responsible for providing basic education to people for free and a policy and system overhaul may be needed to achieve it.

By Dr. Tran Van Tho, Professor of economics, Waseda University, Tokyo.

Source:  Thanhnien Online.