Clarifying the non-profit principle can effectively control the "canteen corruption" in primary and secondary schools and ensure the legitimate rights and interests of students.
Recently, the Ministry of Finance, together with the Ministry of Education, issued the newly revised "Financial System for Primary and Secondary Schools", which requires that if schools independently operate canteens to provide dining services for students, financial activities should be included in the unified management of the school's financial department, and the accounts can be split under the school's existing account. Accounting, truly reflect the status of income and expenditure, and regularly disclose the accounts.
If there is any balance, it shall be transferred to the next fiscal year for continued use.
This means that no matter whether it is public or private, all canteens in primary and secondary schools are not profitable, and even if there is a surplus, it cannot be used for dividends and other uses, but can only be used for the continued operation of the canteen.
This sets a red line for the independent operation of canteens in primary and secondary schools.
To ensure the non-profit principle of canteens in primary and secondary schools, can effectively control the "canteen corruption" in primary and secondary schools, and prevent some school operators and managers from profiting from operating canteens and infringing on the legitimate rights and interests of students.
In recent years, the repeated occurrence of "canteen corruption" in primary and secondary schools has attracted widespread public attention.
According to media reports, the then principal of a middle school in Xuchang, Henan, was found to have taken advantage of his position to take 1.02 million yuan of student meals for himself in less than three years, and was suspected of bribery, embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds. He was recommended to be sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of 300,000 yuan.
In the case of the lunch problem at a primary school in Jiangyin, Jiangsu, the then director of the General Affairs Office embezzled as much as 1.31 million yuan for students' meal expenses for more than a year.
This time, the non-profit nature of primary and secondary school canteens is clarified from the financial system, and it is stipulated that all meal expenses must be used for canteen operation, all operators have no shares and cannot share dividends, and operating balances cannot be used as "profit" income for bonuses, allowances, etc. .
To put it simply, in addition to deducting the operating costs of the canteen, students' meals should be eaten by students.
The National Nutritious Lunch Program even explicitly requires that the construction of canteens and the wages of canteen service personnel should be solved by local government departments.
The key for public schools to implement the requirement of non-profit dining halls is to disclose financial accounts and play the role of parent committees.
It must be realized that for schools to operate canteens independently, even if a system is established for the principal and class teacher to accompany meals, it is difficult to prevent canteen operators from shoddy and profit-making by charging rebates.
Because there may be a community of interests behind this.
Therefore, the parent committee should participate in the supervision of the operation of the school canteen, require the canteen to provide meals with high quality and quantity, and publish the income and expenditure account books.
For those private schools that hope to make money through logistics operations, the implementation of this non-profit requirement requires the founders to change their school-running philosophy.
"You can't make money by charging tuition fees, but mainly by providing logistical services", which is the way some private schools operate in recent years.
The revised system further clarifies that schools in the compulsory education stage are not allowed to engage in business activities in accordance with relevant state regulations, which also requires that all private schools in compulsory education must fully adhere to non-profit running schools.
For private high schools with non-compulsory education, even if the school is registered as a for-profit, its canteen operation must be non-profit.
Considering the different ways of providing dining services for students, the newly revised system proposes financial management requirements for the actual situation of schools using different methods such as self-operated canteens, entrusted operation of canteens, catering or entrusting meals to students.
If the system clearly requires, if the school adopts the entrusted method to operate the canteen to provide dining services for students, it shall strengthen the supervision and management, and shall not transfer the costs of construction and repair to the entrusted party; Fees can be collected by the school uniformly and managed according to agency fees.
This is conducive to the implementation of non-profit requirements for canteens in primary and secondary schools.
However, in the specific operation process of the canteen, it is still necessary to prevent the transfer of interests between the relevant personnel of the school and the entrusted party and the catering party.
In recent years, many of the hygiene and quality problems of nutritious lunches exposed by the media have occurred in entrusted meals and catering.
The system stipulates that the school shall not pass on construction, repair and other costs to the entrusted party.
This is a requirement at the school level to prevent "open" interest transactions, and to avoid "the wool comes out of the sheep". The entrusted party transfers the construction and repair costs to the students, raises the standard of meal fees, or reduces the quality of service.
As for the possible "black box operations" and "private transactions" between the responsible personnel of the school and the entrusted party, in addition to strictly implementing the financial system, it must be curbed by strengthening supervision and information disclosure, especially the supervision role of the parent committee. .
Only in this way can the system requirements be implemented and the canteens of primary and secondary schools be run well.
□Xiong Bingqi (pedagogical scholar)