Free textbook initiative spreads to schools across Dong Nai

The first communes and wards in Dong Nai City have implemented an initiative to provide free textbooks to general education students beginning in the 2026-2027 school year, although the nationwide policy is scheduled to take effect in the 2029-2030 school year.

Le Truong Son (middle row, sixth from right), Member of the Dong Nai City Party Committee’s Standing Board and Vice Chairman of the City People's Committee, together with leaders of Nha Bich Commune and benefactors, presents free textbooks to students. Photo: Duong Hinh

Dong Nai City is among the few localities in the country where communes and wards have introduced free textbook initiatives ahead of the national schedule, beginning with the upcoming school year. The education sector expects the initiative to be expanded to more communes and wards, helping reduce the financial burden on parents while bringing joy to students before the new school year.

Joy ahead of new school year

Immediately after the Central Government adopted the policy to provide free textbooks to students beginning in the 2029-2030 school year, the Party Committee and People's Committee of Dong Xoai Ward proactively studied the policy and moved forward with its implementation instead of waiting another three years. The ward's initiative is regarded as a pioneering model that has encouraged many other localities across the city to follow suit.

During an online meeting on July 10 with leaders of the City People's Committee and the Department of Education and Training, leaders of the Dong Xoai Ward People's Committee said the ward had completed the distribution of 5,466 sets of textbooks for grades 1 through 10 published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House, the officially approved textbook series that will be widely used beginning in the 2026-2027 school year. To mobilize such a large number of textbooks within a short period, the ward engaged the entire political system. Rather than using the education budget, it mobilized agencies, units, businesses, and benefactors to jointly provide free textbooks to students.

Beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, students from grades 1 to 12 nationwide will uniformly use a single set of textbooks published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House. Other textbook sets previously used for instruction will serve only as reference materials.

Pham Anh Quang, Principal of Tien Thanh Secondary School in Dong Xoai Ward, said that in the first year that Dong Xoai Ward implemented the free textbook program, the school's students received 1,656 sets of textbooks. He said the program brought great joy to the school's students and parents ahead of the new school year. The school will enter the books into its library management system before distributing them to students for free use. It will also remind students to take good care of the books so they can be passed on to other students in the following school year.

Vu Thi Thu Thao, a parent whose children attend Tan Thanh Primary and Secondary School in Dong Xoai Ward, said her family would benefit significantly from the initiative. In the upcoming school year, she has one child entering grade 6, one entering grade 4, and one entering grade 1. When she contacted the school to register for textbooks, she was pleased to learn that the ward would provide them free of charge to all students. With each set of textbooks costing between VND 170,000 and VND 190,000, excluding workbooks and reference books, her family has saved some money, helping ease expenses before the start of the new school year.

Supporting parents and students

Since Dong Xoai Ward became the first ward to provide students with free textbooks, several other communes and wards have implemented this meaningful policy in different ways. These include Bu Dang, Nha Bich, Minh Hung, and An Loc communes. Wards with sufficient resources have mobilized social funding to provide free textbooks to all students. Disadvantaged communes that are unable to mobilize such funding have instead used budget funds. Localities unable to provide textbooks to all students have prioritized those entering the first grade of each education level, namely grades 1, 6, and 10.

Bu Dang is one of the remote communes in Dong Nai City with a large ethnic minority population. Vu Luong, Member of the City Party Committee, Secretary of the Commune Party Committee, and Chairman of the Commune People's Council, said that when the proposal to provide free textbooks to students was introduced, the Standing Board of the Commune Party Committee reached a broad consensus in support of the policy. However, because the commune faces many challenges, mobilizing social resources was not feasible. The Standing Board therefore decided to use the commune's education budget to provide textbooks to all students beginning in the new school year.

Vu Luong said that providing textbooks for the commune's 5,250 general education students would require VND 1.2 billion. He added that the commune was determined to implement the policy because providing free textbooks is a major policy with profound humanitarian significance, particularly as ethnic minorities account for 17.34% of the population, including 954 ethnic minority students from poor and near-poor households. He also noted that strong encouragement from leaders of the City People's Committee and the Department of Education and Training contributed to the commune's decision to proceed.

To date, many communes, wards, and schools across Dong Nai City are urgently studying and implementing appropriate approaches to provide free textbooks to students. For localities with relatively small student populations and favorable socio-economic conditions, immediate implementation is relatively straightforward. However, for localities with large student populations, particularly wards near industrial zones, implementing the policy immediately places considerable pressure on local budgets.

By Cong Nghia – Translated by Minh Hong, Minho