PGO warns Education Ministry about informal taxes levied in schools

The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) called on the Ministry of Education to intervene and exclude the collection and use of money through parent associations and not to admit the involvement of the education institutions in this process, Info-Prim Neo reports. The collection of money from parents is not one of the sources of financing that the state education institutions can use, but such a practice is applied in almost all the schools of the country, says the PGO. “It is not clear how this money is spent and where it is invested,” reads a communiqué from the institution. According to prosecutors, 19,000 lei of the money colleted through the parent association of the Chisinau-based Theoretical High School “V. Alecsandri” was spent on repairing the school. “The administration could not provide proofs that the school was in need of repair. At the same time, it did not make approaches to the Municipal Education Division, the local administration, the Ministry of Education or the Ministry of Finance to allocate money, based on an expenditure estimate for the repair works,” said the PGO. It also said that a part of the money collected through the agency of the parent associations working under education institutions are used to lay out offices for the administration, including to purchase furniture, carpets and other things. Many of the parents do not even know that they are members of the parent association. But all of them know that they must pay money for repair, for the birthdays of the school head and teachers. The PGO warned the Ministry of Education about the provision of the students with textbooks. It established that the same sets of textbooks are rented during many years at the same price without taking into account the wear degree. When collecting the rent for textbooks, many education institutions do not issue checks or other documents proving that the money was levied.