More than 107,000 pre-school teachers will be considered below standard and need to receive more training if the amended Law on Education takes effect next year. (Photo: tuoitre.vn)Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - More than 107,000 pre-schoolteacherswill be considered below standard and need to receive more training if theamended Law on Education takes effect in 2019.
The amended law proposes lifting pre-school teacherqualification standards from intermediate school graduation to a collegeeducation.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the countryhas 337,488 pre-school teachers, 98.5 percent of whom meet the current standardof intermediate school graduation.
Explaining the change, the ministry said pre-school lays thefoundations of human development, so kindergarten teachers are a determiningfactor in the success or failure of pre-school educational goals and need to betrained in children’s health and psychology as well as teaching music anddeveloping children’s cognition and language ability.
According to the ministry, the one to two years it takes toreceive intermediate school training is not enough time to equip pedagogystudents with the required skills. The limited training time does not createconditions for students to practice teaching, meaning they only focus ontheories and many teachers lack practical skills.
The admission criteria for pre-school pedagogy students areso easy that many graduates have a history of misconduct or violent behaviourtowards children, the ministry said.
Taking examples from around the world, the ministry saiddeveloped countries like Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the UK, Australia,the US and South Korea require pre-school teachers to hold a bachelor’s degreeor a degree of higher education. Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Taiwanand Malaysia have set the qualification standard at college graduation level.
According to the ministry, teacher training will put more ofa burden on provincial education budgets.
It takes a teacher holding an intermediate school degree oneyear to obtain a college degree. The ministry estimated that the training budgetfor one person reaches 8 million VND (350 USD) for one year. This meanstraining more than 107,000 teachers would take a budget of over 857 billion VND(37.3 million USD) over five years as planned.
In return, teachers who graduate from college will have theopportunity to earn higher salaries, the ministry said.
The two current intermediate pedagogy schools trainingkindergarten teachers will become pedagogy colleges if they meet requirements,or will be merged to become the pedagogy faculty of existing colleges followingthe ministry’s plan to eradicate pedagogy intermediate schools. - VNA
VNA
