Shortage of 4,000 teachers, Department of Education and Training leader explains surprising reasons behind

According to the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province, since 2021, the Department has not had any teacher recruitment period, leading to a shortage of thousands of staff in the education sector every year. Currently, the whole province is short of about 4,000 staff in the education sector.

Mr. Trinh Dinh Hai, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province, said that the new education program needs many new job positions, with the number of subjects and the way of implementing the subjects also different from the old program.

According to Mr. Hai, the shortage of teachers occurs in many subjects, especially English, Information Technology, History, Geography, National Defense and Security Education, leading to the need for recruitment. In particular, the shortage is the highest at the secondary level due to the sharp increase in the number of students in recent years. On the other hand, in recent years, recruitment has been difficult while the staffing has continued to be streamlined.

From 2021 to now, the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh has not had any teacher recruitment period, leading to the fact that every year the education sector lacks thousands of personnel, most of whom are teachers.

As a temporary solution, the province overcomes the above situation by signing labor contracts with teachers according to Decree 111 of the Government . However, this faces a problem: a school year has 2 semesters, lasting for 2 different years, while the contract with teachers is only signed for one year at a time, so it must be renewed every December.

In addition, the current source of teachers is only in the form of labor contracts and has not been recruited into the payroll because of the streamlining policy.

Mr. Trinh Dinh Hai, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province, discussed the shortage of human resources in the education sector. Photo: Pham Cong

Mr. Hai said that the province will continue to increase the recruitment of contract teachers, arrange teachers to teach inter-school and inter-commune, and increase their hours. In addition, it will encourage and motivate teachers, on a voluntary basis, to transfer to schools in other commune-level administrative units where there is a shortage.

Recently, 30 former students of Ha Long University were also encouraged by the leaders of the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh to volunteer to teach in 5 mountainous communes.

Mr. Hai said that the recruitment and transfer of cadres is currently carried out according to Circular 15, which stipulates that commune-level cadres have the right to appoint or dismiss school principals in the area. In particular, the transfer of teachers must be carried out by the Department of Education and Training (if authorized), to avoid the situation of local surplus or shortage of teachers.

He also said that when the Law on Teachers officially takes effect from January 1, 2026, the work of mobilizing and rotating teachers will be carried out more closely and synchronously.

Regarding the fact that some teachers are still "stuck" at difficult schools in remote areas after many years of work but have not been able to return to their old schools, the Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh shared that the Department has gone to those schools to encourage and explain to the teachers.

Mr. Hai explained that in the past, localities (before the administrative units were reorganized) such as Ha Long City, Cam Pha City, Mong Cai City, Ba Che District, Tien Yen District carried out the assignment and reinforcement of teachers on duty to schools in difficult circumstances. However, each locality implemented the assignment according to different regulations. Now, since the district-level unit no longer exists, the responsibility for that transfer belongs to the Department of Education and Training.

However, the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province cannot solve the problem individually for each locality but must implement it on a province-wide scale. Therefore, the Department needs to advise on building a general regulation on the transfer and rotation of teachers when the Law on Teachers comes into effect.

"From now until the Law on Teachers takes effect, there will be a circular guiding the implementation of the Ministry of Education and Training on rotation. These teachers will be recognized for their time of service. I am sure that the mobilization and rotation of teachers from now on will never stop because of population fluctuations in localities. Therefore, the situation of having a surplus of teachers today and a shortage of teachers tomorrow is inevitable," said Mr. Hai.

Previously, to prepare for the new school year 2025-2026, the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province and communes and wards recruited many teachers on labor contracts. Of which, the Department of Education and Training of Quang Ninh province recruited 71 labor contract positions at the high school level, including 64 teachers and 7 staff for 30 public high schools across the province.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/thieu-4-000-giao-vien-lanh-dao-so-gd-dt-noi-ly-do-bat-ngo-phia-sau-2441014.html