When will the teacher shortage end?

At the meeting to deploy tasks for this school year, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also "anxiously" asked localities to explain why the whole country lacks more than 100,000 teachers but there are still tens of thousands of unfilled teacher positions.

Following the situation of teacher shortage that has lasted for many years, outsiders are also full of worries and questions. The 2018 General Education Program has passed its first cycle, the first batch of students have also completed the high school graduation exam, but the shortage of teachers for new subjects has not been resolved but has become more serious.

When the new general education program began, English became a compulsory subject from grade 3. A mountainous district in the north with almost no primary school English teachers had to ask for help and received it for 3 years.

However, during those 3 school years, the locality did not really find a way to solve the problem of teacher shortage. When the students graduated from primary school, the (new) communes asked the project to help teach English for a few more years.

No one has committed to whether there will be teachers in the next few years or how to get them. Asking other provinces for help with teachers should only be a temporary solution for the first few years. Even if we have to contract teachers from other places to teach online like your school is doing, local resources must be mobilized to demonstrate the locality's interest and initiative in education.

Right in Quang Ninh , according to a recent statement by the leader of the Department of Education and Training, from 2021 until now, there has been no teacher recruitment exam even though this locality reported a shortage of about 4,000 teachers at all levels.

The Ministry of Education and Training itself, although directly managing pedagogical universities, is not proactive in assigning quotas and ordering training for teachers of new subjects, leading to a serious shortage of recruitment sources in localities.

Before this school year, which is also the time to implement a two-level local government, when there is no longer a district level or an education department like before, the Ministry of Education and Training has had many instructions on recruiting teachers, suggesting that the focal point be assigned to the Department of Education and Training so that it can proactively regulate the situation of teacher surplus and shortage.

However, most localities are still waiting for a more legal document from the Government, so they have not recruited teachers. Some localities such as Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Quang Tri are impatient, so they have proactively advised and proposed solutions.

The new school year cannot wait, and students cannot wait for enough teachers to start school. The government has repeatedly directed that "where there are students, there must be teachers". However, localities are still waiting. Waiting for other schools to help, waiting for documents, waiting for a source of teachers to recruit, waiting for a staff position; and once it is granted, they wait to reduce the staff position (10%) each year to avoid having to lay off anyone...

If we keep waiting like this, the teacher shortage will never end.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/cho-den-bao-gio-moi-het-thieu-giao-vien-185250916000715201.htm