Bidding for teacher training under Decree 116 has many problems and is not effective.

Decree No. 116/2020/ND-CP regulating the policy of supporting tuition fees and living expenses for pedagogical students was issued by the Government on September 25, 2020 (hereinafter referred to as Decree 116). This Decree applies starting from the enrollment period of the 2021-2022 school year.

After 3 years of implementation, Decree 116 has achieved certain results such as: the number of candidates and parents interested in teacher training majors has increased, the rate of candidates registering for admission, the admission score and the rate of candidates enrolling in teacher training majors have increased sharply in correlation with other majors and training fields, which proves that the policies of Decree 116 have had a positive impact on attracting students with good learning ability to enter teacher training majors, which is a premise for improving the quality of the education system.

However, the implementation of Decree 116 has also encountered some limitations, difficulties, and problems that need to be revised and supplemented to suit the reality. Specifically, the difficulties and problems come from the method of ordering, assigning tasks, and bidding.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training over the past 3 years, the proportion of students who are ordered and assigned tasks by localities is only 17.4% of the number of students enrolled and 24.3% of the total number of students registered to enjoy the policy. The number of localities that have assigned tasks, placed orders, and bid is 23/63 provinces and cities.

The number of students who are "trained according to social needs" and receive state budget funding accounts for 75.7% of the number of students registered to enjoy the policy and 82.6% of the number of students enrolled.

The Ministry of Education and Training stated that the method of ordering/assigning tasks/bidding for teacher training is not being implemented at the same level and effectively as the main viewpoint of Decree 116.

In particular, there are 06 teacher training institutions that have been ordered by local and neighboring localities but have not paid the funding, or have only paid a very small part of the funding (including 02 key schools: Hanoi National University of Education with 13 quotas; Ho Chi Minh City National University of Education with 51 quotas), affecting the support policy for pedagogical students and causing inequality between pedagogical students who follow the ordering/assignment/bidding mechanism and pedagogical students who are trained according to social needs.

Large localities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang... have advantages in terms of conditions to attract high-quality human resources, so they do not place orders/assign tasks/bid for teacher training, but still have a team of teachers asking to work, causing unfairness among localities.

The leaders of the Ministry of Education and Training said that the difficulties and problems come from the allocation of support funds for teacher training students. Specifically, every year (2021, 2022, 2023), the Ministry of Finance only allocates about 54% of the budget needed for teacher training students of teacher training institutions (TET) under the Ministry of Education and Training. Therefore, the funding for teacher training students is often delayed and must be supplemented compared to the training plan, leading to difficulties for TET institutions and teacher training students.

Due to uneven development, resource conditions, and budget revenue and expenditure balance between localities, many localities have difficulty in having enough funds to implement ordering/assigning tasks/bidding for teacher training.

Specifically: Difficulties and obstacles from monitoring the recovery of compensation funds: Decree 116 assigns the provincial People's Committee to be the agency to guide, monitor and urge pedagogical students to refund support funds, but localities are not the units that provide funds for pedagogical students who are training according to social needs, and at the same time, localities do not direct relevant agencies to deploy and guide implementation, causing difficulties for implementation.

In the coming time, the Ministry of Education and Training requires training institutions with teacher training majors to proactively work with the People's Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities and propose to the direct management agencies on assigning training tasks and registering enrollment targets according to the instructions of the Ministry of Education and Training to effectively implement Decree No. 71/2020/ND-CP and Decree No. 116/2020/ND-CP of the Government.