" Struggling" as a contract teacher

According to information from the Thanh Hoa Department of Education and Training, by the end of the 2023-2024 school year, the province is short of more than 10,000 teachers, and although it has just been allocated staffing and contract quotas, it is not easy to recruit enough teachers. Meanwhile, hundreds of teachers have been "wandering" for many years pursuing their aspirations of becoming civil servants in the education sector.

Ms. LM, a history teacher at a secondary school in Hoang Hoa District (Thanh Hoa), lamented: "It has been 12 years since I graduated and I have been living the life of a contract teacher, with my current salary of less than 4 million VND per month. I recently tried to take the exam but failed, so I have to continue working as a contract teacher and wait for the next recruitment period."

The case of teacher LM is not an isolated one. In Thanh Hoa province, there are hundreds of people living the "fate" of contract teachers at the commune and district levels. Some people have to pay the price for 10 years, even 20 years before being recruited.

ASSIGNED BUT CANNOT BE RECRUITED

In recent years, the Ministry of Education and Training has assigned more and more staffing quotas to localities, and provinces have also assigned more contract-based teacher recruitment quotas to quickly end the teacher shortage, but there are many paradoxes that have caused the teacher shortage problem to not cool down. For example, in Thanh Hoa province, when assigned staffing quotas, or assigned contract-based recruitment quotas (according to Decree 111/2022 of the Government), the recruitment source (candidates) is limited. On the other hand, localities have to streamline their staffing, so they do not dare to recruit all assigned quotas. The shortage of teachers has not been compensated in time, so the shortage of teachers has become even more urgent, when on average each year, localities like Thanh Hoa increase by 15,000 - 20,000 students, which means the demand for teachers must increase accordingly.

Mr. Doan Van Khoa, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Hoang Hoa District, said that from 2023 to August, the People's Committee of Thanh Hoa province assigned the teacher quota for this district to be 191, but because of the implementation of staff streamlining, the district only recruited 175 quotas, and has recruited 173 teachers. Regarding the recruitment of contract teachers according to Decree 111, Mr. Khoa said that Hoang Hoa District has just announced the recruitment of 303 quotas, but the recruitment will be very difficult due to the lack of sources to recruit, especially primary school teachers, IT teachers, etc.

According to the report of the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An, in the 2024-2025 school year, Nghe An will have more than 860,000 students with 1,418 schools at 4 levels, an increase of 291 classes at secondary and high school levels. In the coming school year, according to the staffing standards of the Ministry of Education and Training, the number of staffed teachers in Nghe An province is lacking 6,721 positions. Although at the beginning of this year, Nghe An was supplemented with 2,187 staffed teachers by the Central Government and the districts are recruiting these teachers, according to the report of the People's Committee of Nghe An province, there is still a serious shortage of staffed teachers.

To have additional resources, on June 13, the People's Committee of Nghe An province sent a document to the central agencies requesting to add 6,501 teachers to the province's payroll for the next school year; of which 1,688 are preschool teachers, 2,692 are primary school teachers, 1,795 are secondary school teachers and 326 are high school teachers.

In the past 2 years, Nghe An has received 5,056 additional teachers from the Central Government, but due to the rapid increase in the number of students in recent years, there is a shortage of teachers. A paradox is that despite the shortage of teachers, some districts are having to streamline the number of teaching staff according to the roadmap (reducing 10% in the period 2022 - 2025) so they do not dare to recruit teachers. In addition, the shortage and surplus of teachers in some subjects at the secondary level is making it difficult for localities to arrange teachers to teach classes with appropriate expertise.

Currently, districts in Nghe An are recruiting 2,187 teachers on the payroll that the Central Government has allocated since the beginning of this year. This is also an opportunity for newly graduated pedagogical students and teachers who have been teaching on contract for many years.

Ms. Tran Thi Anh Tuyen, Vice Chairwoman of Nghi Loc District People's Committee (Nghe An), said that next school year, the district will lack 239 teachers and the province has just allocated 186 positions for preschool and primary schools. Secondary schools are experiencing a local surplus and shortage in subjects, and for the past 13 years, Nghi Loc District has not had any recruitment targets for this level.

According to Mr. Nguyen Cao Thanh, Head of the Department of Internal Affairs of Thanh Chuong District, although there is a shortage of teachers at preschool and primary levels, when allocated recruitment targets, the district is "cautious" in recruitment because it has to calculate to ensure a 10% reduction in the number of teachers by 2025. Another difficulty is the shortage of teachers at preschool and primary levels, but the district has a surplus of more than 100 teachers at secondary schools.

"If there are not enough teachers for all levels in the next school year, the district must continue to second junior high school teachers to teach primary school," said Mr. Thanh.

DIFFICULTY FINDING RECRUITMENT SOURCES

According to Mr. Nguyen Trong Hoan, Chief of Office of Nghe An Department of Education and Training, solving the problem of teacher shortage for the next school year is not easy. Nghe An Department of Education and Training has created 3 plans to direct the education departments to implement in order to ensure the curriculum for schools lacking teachers.

"Schools will have to mobilize teachers to teach extra periods without receiving compensation or receive symbolic money to compensate for the shortage of teachers. For subjects lacking teachers such as IT and English, schools will send some teachers to training courses to be certified to teach these subjects. Teachers with few teaching periods will have to arrange to teach between schools, even between districts. In addition, schools lacking teachers will proactively make plans to ensure the program," said Mr. Hoan.

Mr. Tran Van Thuc, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa, said that in 2024, Thanh Hoa province will be the locality with the largest number of teachers in the country, with 2,700 positions. In addition, the People's Council of Thanh Hoa province has also decided to allow the recruitment of 3,800 contract teachers according to Decree 111 of the Government. By early August, localities had recruited about 3,000 teachers, and the remaining number is still being recruited.

According to Mr. Thuc, if 6,500 teachers are recruited in 2024, the problem of teacher shortage will be partly solved, but it is not easy to recruit enough, because the current situation is that many localities have difficulty finding sources of recruitment. Therefore, to have a source of recruitment, the Department of Education and Training of Thanh Hoa has placed orders with 2 universities that train teachers in the area, and it is expected that from 2025, the source of recruitment will be more abundant.