# Social consensus to combat spending on education By [MondPrima](https://paragraph.com/@mondprima) · 2023-06-09 --- In follow-up to the Opinion on Further Strengthening and Regulating the Management of Fees for Education, the Office of the Joint Inter-Ministerial Meeting on Inter-Ministerial Fees for Education throughout the country issued a briefing on Typical Questions of Non-Compliance Fees (hereinafter referred to as the Communication), and gave a briefing on six typical problems of educational fees. The circular emphasizes that the education administration and schools at all levels, including kindergartens, need to draw lessons from these typical issues. A countermeasure should be taken in order to increase the specialization of the cost of education and to identify, together with the clock, the high-pressure posture that governs the cost of education. It should be said that the strict prohibition of fees is the focus of governance in the field of education over the years. From the current realities, the phenomenon of fee-spending for education has changed significantly. However, as illustrated by the survey of the typical problem of fees for non-compliance in this communication, it is still not possible to underestimate the backlash of some of the old problems and the new ones. For example, violations of pre-school fees, non-charging of compensatory time off, non-payment of financial contributions, etc. have occurred in the past as a continuation of the chronic problem of educational fees over the years. In contrast, such as the non-charging of fees for the purchase of flatter by disguised students and the non-compliance of charges on behalf of the Committee are new problems that have emerged in recent years. However, both old and new problems have touched on the red lines of the strict prohibition of fees, and they do not lack a clear system. For example, in recent years, in the process of promoting the informationization of education, there have been numerous disputes over the related charges in some schools. In response, the education authorities have introduced a set of normative policies. As early as 2019, documents issued by eight departments, such as the Ministry of Education, clearly require that educational mobility applications that are used uniformly as teaching, management tools, are not charged any fees to students and parents. In September 2022, the Ministry of Education reiterated once again that the purchase of flatter computers or education APP for mandatory students in the name of informatization is prohibited. The fact that the issue of various types of fee-discharges remains unchecked is a reminder of the fact that regulations and policies cannot be effectively enforced in the case, but rather of a retrospective, with a view to maintaining an unusually high-pressed governance posture. Furthermore, a real problem in the governance of the cost-of-educational system is that of the delicate relationship between parents and schools. Some parents remain afraid of knowing “spending”, which may weaken the power of social reporting and supervision. Thus, the governance of the problem of educational fees cannot be entirely dependent on the complaints of parents, and all levels of education need to be more proactive in governance, screening, in a variety of ways, in a timely manner, in order to obtain and efficiently verify and correct the cost of school fees across the country, so that more seismic power can be released. Of course, a serious and efficient checking of irregularities is one aspect of the clocking of education fees, and more efforts are needed at the prevention end. The briefing emphasized the need to improve the policy of fee- and fee-for-services, to improve the management of fees for post-school services, study travel, cafeteria, uniforms, etc., and to improve the system of billing, as well as the regulation of fees. That is to say, not all education fees are chargeable, and for some reasonable fee-charging projects, what is required is normative rather than “one size fits all”. This requires further refinement of the relevant fee rates, fees procedures, etc. In addition, the guidance and regulation of the management of individual committees, which are also part of the “spending” system, deserves attention. The circular also notes that the expansion and optimization of educational inputs, the elimination of fees to compensate for insufficient inputs, and the continuous upgrading of the capacity for modernizing the financial governance of education. This is in fact well targeted. Needless to say, some sources of fees for education may be inadequate educational inputs. When educational inputs are sufficient to avoid the embarrassment of the school, “smart gynaecologists are not mushrooms”, they will certainly help to stem the “income generation” of schools among parents. The normativeization of education fees, the social burden of education and equity at the end, directly related to the credibility and social image of the education sector, schools and teachers. It is the most basic requirement that people be able to provide education that is satisfactory to the people and that zero tolerance be given to all the problems of fee-busting. In the new year, it is hoped that the denial of education fees will become a consensus and self-conscious action in all schools. --- *Originally published on [MondPrima](https://paragraph.com/@mondprima/social-consensus-to-combat-spending-on-education)*