According to data from the Ministry of Education and Training, by the end of the 2022-2023 school year, the country recorded a shortage of up to 118,253 teachers, but there were still more than 74,000 staffing quotas assigned to localities that had not been recruited.

The situation of teachers quitting and changing jobs has been simmering for a long time and has not been resolved. Teachers who teach integrated subjects of natural sciences, history and geography are still worried about the quality and effectiveness of their teaching hours when they cannot fully handle the responsibility of their concurrent subjects after only a few training courses.

In addition, teachers for new subjects are scarce, especially teachers of foreign languages, information technology, and arts. This makes it impossible for many localities to implement subjects according to the new curriculum.

So, up to now, is the 2018 General Education Program - an effort to fundamentally and comprehensively innovate the education sector - really effective and of high quality?

"3 teachers 1 book"

Besides the burden of a serious shortage of teachers, implementing integrated subject teaching at secondary school level is also creating a series of challenges and difficulties for both schools and teachers.

Specifically, natural sciences (including physics, chemistry, biology), history and geography are integrated but separate, leading to the situation of "3 teachers, 1 book", "2 teachers, 1 book". This situation creates confusion when creating tests, grading papers, entering scores and giving comments to students.

As a rule, there is only one teacher in charge of all areas of knowledge in an integrated subject.

In reality, most "integrated teachers" are single-subject teachers who have only undergone a few training sessions. Therefore, they are always anxious in class because they are not confident enough to take on the responsibility of conveying the spirit of educational innovation.

The recent confessions and shares of integrated teachers about their wish that "students should not ask any difficult questions" really sow bitterness in people's hearts...

This is the fourth year that the 2018 General Education Program has been implemented at all three levels: grades 4, 8 and 11. The "textbook replacement" strategy has been approved and implemented, but there is still a shortage of human resources to meet the requirements of educational innovation.

Where are the teachers in the 2018 General Education Program? The education sector has outlined a new education program, created many interesting textbooks, but has not recruited enough teachers, and there are no teachers to teach new subjects. As a result, teachers are forced to increase their hours or are transferred from one grade level to another to temporarily fill the gap.

The training sessions also took place quickly, so the education sector could hardly ensure the quality and effectiveness of this "textbook change". Therefore, public skepticism and questioning of the 2018 General Education Program are completely justified.

Education is the top national policy and teachers determine the success or failure of the 2018 General Education Program. However, right from the day it started to build the 2018 General Education Program, the Ministry of Education and Training did not seem to have a specific plan for training, recruiting, and developing the teaching staff.