AISVN International School Case: There is a legal gap

Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City Le Thuy My Chau exchanged information related to AISVN school at the press conference on the afternoon of March 21 - Photo: Thanhuytphcm.vn

Many issues were raised from the incident at the American International School Vietnam (AISVN), when the school was facing financial difficulties, causing many teachers to strike and many groups of parents to write petitions for help everywhere.

Speaking with Tuoi Tre , independent education expert Bui Khanh Nguyen - who has many years of experience in the field of international education - said that even in the worst case scenario, students' right to continuous education needs to be carefully calculated by all parties.

The law does not yet regulate the case of school bankruptcy.

* Can a private high school declare "bankruptcy", sir?

- As far as I know, neither the Education Law nor the General School Charter currently has any provisions on the case of school bankruptcy. This may be because public schools still account for an overwhelming proportion and play a crucial role in the national education system.

However, if we consider the private school operating as a business, completely following the market rules, including the law of supply and demand and the law of elimination, then the situation of school bankruptcy is entirely possible.

In some countries like the US, there are also schools that go bankrupt when they encounter financial difficulties because they cannot recruit enough students or cannot find enough funding.

* In the worst case scenario where the school cannot continue operating, will the students be left "helpless" because they suddenly lose their place to study, sir?

- Although the situation of a private school going bankrupt is theoretically possible, education is a business with conditions attached. Therefore, the education management agency needs to provide guidance to handle the arising situation and stabilize the learning for students.

For example, education authorities can act as intermediaries to introduce schools with equivalent programs for students to transfer to.

On the other hand, the public system may often be willing to bail out a private school that is forced into bankruptcy due to difficulties or forced to close due to violations.

But it must also be seen that for students who have studied the international program, even when public schools open to support students, it is almost impossible for them to study the Vietnamese program because it is not compatible.

General education differs from other types of services in that it requires stability and continuity. To some extent, education is an "essential service" for children, like food, water, electricity, etc., so there needs to be a mechanism to ensure educational security.

Expert Bui Khanh Nguyen

Need for remote prevention mechanism

An experiential activity at AISVN School held in 2023 - Photo: TRONG NHAN

* What can parents do to claim their rights in this situation, sir?

- When a school announces its closure, parents have the right to claim back the unused tuition fees so that they can transfer to another school. If the tuition fees have been paid and used, there must be an inspection agency to determine whether there is any error in the use of the school's resources leading to the misappropriation of students' tuition fees.

If the school only explains that the teacher's salary is too high, it is not a complete explanation and needs to be inspected by the management agency or an independent auditing organization. Regarding civil relations, parents have the right to sue the school's legal entity or individual management leaders and participate in the creditors' meeting.

* Is it possible to take preventive measures against similar incidents, sir?

- In my opinion, it is very necessary to have a strict monitoring mechanism that is legalized to prevent any organization with impure motives, for example, wanting to set up an educational model, collect money from students in advance, then "drain" the school's resources and seek bankruptcy through the "limited liability" process.

I also asked questions to the educational quality assurance organizations here. How did they assess the school? What were the results of the assessment? Do parents have the right to know the results or is it the school's "confidential" information?

As far as I know, international school accreditation organizations such as CIS (Council of International Schools) and WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) have strict accreditation criteria, which include school governance and financial resources.

Schools do not have financial investment functions.

* Parents pay a large sum of money upfront, possibly up to several billion, and then their children receive tuition discounts or a refund after graduation. From this incident, many people continue to question the level of risk when participating in these investment packages. What is your opinion?

- Education investment packages are still risky investments, some of them are very risky. The risk lies in the fact that parents have to pay in advance. There are packages that collect money from students for up to 12 or 15 years.

Meanwhile, the legal entity of the school is a "limited liability company" - the school owner may not be responsible for their personal assets in case of bankruptcy, plus there is no insurance package for these "deposits", or compulsory reserve funds in education, so the risk always lies with the investor (ie the parent).

To protect them, only clear legal tools can prevent and minimize risks. Currently, I see that there has been a directive not to allow foreign language and IT centers to collect long-term tuition fees, following a number of cases of foreign language centers declaring bankruptcy.

This is reasonable and can be applied to schools, for example, schools are not allowed to collect tuition fees more than one academic year in advance. Because when collecting tuition fees more than one academic year in advance, it is essentially an investment agreement and a normal school does not have such a financial investment function.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/vu-truong-quoc-te-aisvn-co-mot-khoang-trong-phap-ly-20240325095028366.htm