A good sign

For many years, we have been worried about the high-quality human resources shifting from the public to the private system, but now there is a reverse trend, at least in the education sector. This is a good sign, an indicator of a strong, drastic change in public policy that has achieved results.

About 3 years ago, even public schools in Ho Chi Minh City had difficulty recruiting English teachers, not because of a lack of resources but because very few people were willing to register. From 2018 to 2023, Ho Chi Minh City implemented a policy to attract and create a source of staff from excellent graduates and young scientists , but according to the summary of state agencies in early 2023, during the 5 years of implementing the policy, Ho Chi Minh City could not recruit any excellent students or young scientists.

There are many reasons, but the most important is that competent people feel that there are not many opportunities to develop in the public environment due to the constraints and confinement. Besides, the salary and bonus policies are really not worthy.

About 3-5 years ago, one of the reasons why Ho Chi Minh City always lacked primary school English teachers was that graduates of this major had too many opportunities to choose from in the private sector or abroad with flexible working environments and high incomes. Similarly, in an interview with Thanh Nien at the end of 2023, an excellent graduate in Ho Chi Minh City said that he did not choose to work in state agencies because "the outside environment will be more dynamic, more comfortable to express and develop oneself".

Now there has been a significant change in the trend. In the September teacher recruitment period in Ho Chi Minh City, there are many subjects with a "competition ratio" of 1/14.7. While public schools are preparing to welcome carefully selected, high-quality teachers, the private sector said that more and more teachers are quitting and transferring to public schools, in some places nearly 40%.

According to many private school owners, the reason is that in recent years the public school system has undergone significant changes in terms of facilities, remuneration and, importantly, open thinking. Especially since the implementation of the 2018 General Education Program, due to innovation in educational goals, focusing on assessing students' skills instead of just knowledge, public school teachers have been able to develop their creativity and break free from restrictive educational patterns, something that only private schools could do before.

Although the private school sector is facing challenges, this is a positive change as it creates motivation for both systems to improve and develop together.

A similar trend is also taking place at the university level as the public-private gap is gradually narrowing. In addition to prestigious public universities, private universities with their own brands in each field are gradually being formed. If the world has prestigious private universities such as Harvard, Stanford (USA); Keio, Waseda (Japan); Yonsei (Korea) ... then with significant changes in policies in higher education, promoting public-private competition, we still have faith that Vietnam will form high-quality private universities on par with prestigious public universities.

Obviously, when properly invested, with appropriate remuneration policies, strong changes in educational perspectives, open thinking, and giving teachers creativity, it will be a driving force for development for both public and private systems.

At some point, there will be no more running around to schools and classes at the beginning of each school year. At that time, parents and students will choose schools and teachers will choose places to teach not because of whether it is public or private, or whether the school is in the center or not, but because of suitability.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/mot-tin-hieu-vui-185251018221221565.htm