According to information from the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, in the 2024-2025 school year, Ho Chi Minh City needs to recruit 4,013 teachers for all levels from preschool to high school. Of which, preschool needs to recruit 691 teachers, primary schools need to recruit 1,386, secondary schools need to recruit 1,588 teachers, high schools need to recruit 263 and specialized schools need to recruit 85 teachers.

Central District Cannot Hire Teachers

Mr. Tong Phuoc Loc, Head of the Department of Organization and Personnel, Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, acknowledged that Ho Chi Minh City is facing difficulties in recruiting teachers for each subject level. Specifically, primary schools have difficulty recruiting teachers for music , fine arts, English, computer science, and physical education; secondary schools have difficulty recruiting teachers for music, fine arts, English, computer science, and technology; high schools have difficulty recruiting teachers for music, fine arts, and technology.

Among them, the most difficult thing is recruiting primary and secondary school teachers, because there are no or very few applicants or applicants do not meet the conditions and standards.

Every year, on average, Ho Chi Minh City needs to recruit nearly 5,000 more teachers for all levels from preschool to high school, but the number of teachers recruited is only about 50% of the demand, and there are even subjects with no candidates.

Right in District 1, according to the report of the Department of Education and Training, from the 2020-2021 school year to the 2023-2024 school year, this district has always not recruited enough teachers compared to the demand.

Specifically, in the 2020-2021 school year, the recruitment demand is 194 teachers, the actual number of candidates admitted and accepted to work is 71 people, accounting for 36.59%. In the 2021-2022 school year, the demand is 280, 46 people accepted to work, accounting for 16.42%. In the 2022-2023 school year, the demand is 304, the number of teachers accepted to work is 90 people, accounting for 29.6%. In the 2023-2024 school year, the demand is 276, the number of teachers accepted to work is 79 people, accounting for 28.62%. Thus, in total for 4 years, District 1 has only recruited 26.13% of the teachers needed to recruit.

According to Mr. Vo Cao Long, Head of the Department of Education and Training of District 1, the shortage of teachers is serious and long-lasting. Preschools and primary schools lack teachers in many subjects: English, physicaleducation , music, fine arts, information technology, and team leaders; secondary schools lack teachers in literature, history, geography, industrial technology, fine arts, Chinese, Japanese, and team leaders. The number of teachers does not meet the standards in the job position plan.

Mr. Long said that the number of teachers living in District 1 and neighboring districts is very small. Many teachers in the province have to rent houses, the distance from their home to their workplace is far, so they do not stay long at their workplace, after a while they will ask for a transfer or quit their job.

In addition, there is a situation where newly recruited teachers, after a short time, also quit their jobs or change jobs because they are not confident in their jobs due to pressure, salary and other policies and regimes that do not guarantee their lives. There is a phenomenon of "brain drain" among young teachers, after being trained by the school in professional skills, but the source of income at non-public schools is more attractive than public schools, they are willing to change their workplace.

POLICY TO ATTRACT TALENTED HUMAN RESOURCES

Faced with this reality, Mr. Tong Phuoc Loc said: In the 2024-2025 school year, Ho Chi Minh City has set out 5 solutions to gradually overcome existing difficulties in the process of recruiting teachers.

First of all, the city requires localities to increase propaganda about teacher recruitment on the media to attract local human resources and resources from provinces and cities to work in Ho Chi Minh City.

Quickly complete the policy project to attract primary school teachers at public primary schools in difficult-to-recruit subjects such as English, IT, physical education, music, and fine arts.

The Department of Education and Training will continue to place orders for human resource training at universities to recruit teachers at all levels. Coordinate and implement policies to attract and create a source of staff from excellent graduates.

Accordingly, the Department of Education and Training has issued documents to Ho Chi Minh City National University and universities in the city to strengthen and disseminate this policy among students. To date, it has received a list of 356 excellent graduates from the University of Natural Sciences (25 students), Saigon University (15), Ho Chi Minh City University of Technical Education (7), Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry (65), Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics (194), Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry and Trade (50).

Excellent students and young scientists, if recruited, will enjoy policies such as: receiving 100% of their salary during the probationary period, additional allowances equal to 100% of their salary according to the salary coefficient, priority training, and fostering of basic knowledge of political theory, state management and specialized knowledge of education. At the same time, they will also be given priority to carry out scientific and technological research tasks, programs, projects and proposals from the school level and above.

P DECENTRALIZATION OF TEACHER RECRUITMENT TO PRINCIPALS

Mr. Tong Phuoc Loc said that he will continue to review and pilot the decentralization of recruitment for public service units that partially self-insure regular expenses, public service units whose regular expenses are guaranteed by the State under the Department of Education and Training, which have had difficulty finding qualified civil servants who agree to accept the job and sign a work contract for many years.

Up to now, the Department of Education and Training has piloted the decentralization of civil servant recruitment for 29 units. In particular, in 2024, the Department of Education and Training will promote the decentralization of civil servant recruitment for principals of 9 public service units that partially self-insure their regular expenses under the Department with headquarters far from the city center, including 7 high schools in Cu Chi district, 1 school in Thu Duc city, and 1 school in Binh Chanh district.

"Reality shows that when being proactive, schools have had much more favorable conditions in recruitment, gradually improving the quality of education of the unit. However, to ensure "even" recruitment among schools as well as ensuring quality, the Department still has supervision to ensure that decentralization achieves optimal efficiency. Expanding the decentralization of recruitment is to help schools in suburban areas be more proactive in recruiting teachers," Mr. Ho Tan Minh, Chief of Office of the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, assessed the decentralization of recruitment.

According to the current mechanism for recruiting personnel for the education sector, the Department of Education and Training is responsible for recruiting high school teachers, affiliated schools, districts and counties are responsible for recruiting teachers from preschool to junior high school.

At the end of July, during a working session with the National Assembly's Culture and Education Committee's survey delegation on the Teachers Law, Ms. Mai Thi Hong Hoa, Vice Chairwoman of District 1 People's Committee, said that the locality is studying a pilot project to assign the right to recruit teachers to principals.

According to Ms. Hoa, the principal should be given the authority to recruit teachers, use them effectively and be responsible for the recruitment work. Because the principal is the person who supervises and bears the highest responsibility for the quality of education and the effectiveness of work at the unit. The principal will know best which teachers the school needs and what their quality is...