A teacher at Hoang Liet Preschool in Hanoi’s Hoang Mai district comforts children on their first day in school. (Photo: VNA)It will also conduct adjustments to a series of policies, including reducingprofessional recruitment requirements, shortening the time for salaryincreases, and reducing the retirement age for preschool and primary teachers.
Speaking at a recent conference on development of policies to ensure thequality of early childhood education in Vietnam, Deputy Director of theministry’s Department of Teachers and Educational Administrators Pham Anh Tuansaid the ministry has made bold moves in an attempt to keep preschool andprimary teachers in the profession.
Tuan said the country currently faces a shortage of roughly 107,000 teachers,of which pre-schools lack 44,000 teachers, accounting for over 40% of total.
Statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training also show that in thefirst ten months of this year, about 16,000 teachers quit their jobs, most ofwhich were preschool educators.
To attract staff, he said that the ministry will adjust the ratio of teachersper classes to the ratio of teachers per students and adjust the requirednumber of teachers following the number of school sites in disadvantaged areas.
Currently, the required rate of preschool teachers is 2.2 teachers per class,but the average level of all regions is below the standard rate.
The Central Highlands and northern mountainous areas have the lowest rate inthe country of 1.6 and 1.58 teachers per class, respectively.
The ministry will also remove a regulation on certificates of foreign languagesand informatics, reduce professional title standard certificates as well asthe time of salary increase for preschool and primary teachers.
Regarding the issue of teacher training, Tuan said the ministry plans to removethe regulation on certificates of regular training and assign the authority torecognise completion of regular training to the department of education andtraining in localities.
It will update new training modules regularly to suit the innovation ofpreschool education and innovate training methods by combining face-to-face andonline training to improve training quality.
In addition, the ministry will improve the capacity of pedagogical universitiesand set up modern preschool teacher training facilities to train the nextgeneration of preschool teachers, he said.
Tuan said the ministry plans to propose changes in a series of policies tocreate favourable working conditions to teachers.
Preschool and primary teachers will be able to retire at the age of 55 insteadof 60.
Localities will be allowed to recruit teachers who are qualified but have notmet the training standards according to the Education Law 2019 and set out atraining roadmap to raise standards for teachers later.
In particular, the ministry will recommend the Government urgently develop anew salary policy, in which teachers' salaries are given the highest priorityin the administrative and professional salary system and there are additionalallowances depending on the nature of the work by region.
Newly recruited teachers will be given the second rank level, equal to about 9.7million VND (390 USD) per month while contracted teachers will have salary notlower than the average salary of enterprises in the same locality andpreferential allowances.
Currently, the average income of preschool and primary school teachers who haveworked for five years after graduation is 4.5 - 4.7 million VND (181-189 USD)per month, including salary and preferential allowances up to 35%.
Junior teachers only receive the income of 3 million VND (120 USD) per monthfor the first two to three years.
The ministry will propose to increase allowances from 35% to 70% for those whowork in urban areas and to 100% for those in disadvantaged areas. About 200,000teachers will get supported if the Government approves the proposal.
The ministry will also recommend the Government consider not streamliningteachers at preschool and primary schools over the next few years.
Localities will be assigned to review the number of teacher shortage and haveroadmaps for supporting teachers to keep their faith in the profession, hesaid./.
VNA
