Proposal to facilitate early retirement for preschool teachers

On the afternoon of March 25, a full-time National Assembly delegate gave his opinion on the draft Law on Teachers. According to the draft, preschool teachers can retire earlier than the regulation (60 - 62 years old), but not more than 5 years older and will not have their pension percentage reduced if they have paid social insurance for 20 years or more.

The representative of the examining body of the Standing Committee of Culture and Society said that this policy is reasonable, based on the professional characteristics of preschool teachers. At the same time, the draft needs to have transitional provisions to ensure consistency with the Law on Social Insurance.

Mr. Mai Van Hai, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Thanh Hoa Province, suggested considering this issue. According to the Social Insurance Law, employees who have paid for 15 years will receive a pension, but the draft Law on Teachers stipulates up to 20 years.

"It is unclear whether this regulation is intended to limit teachers from retiring early or what. We went to meet voters and the teachers only wanted to retire at the age of 55," he said. Therefore, this delegate suggested that the regulation be made in the most favorable way for teachers if they want to retire early.

Delegate Trinh Tu Anh, Dalat University, agreed. He also proposed to remove the above condition. Meanwhile, Mr. Le Thanh Hoan, a full-time member of the National Assembly's Law Committee, said that there is no need to have a separate regulation on this in the draft Law on Teachers, nor is there a need to amend or supplement the Law on Social Insurance.

Mr. Hoan analyzed that in Clause 3, Article 169 of the Labor Code, it is stipulated that some groups can retire earlier than the general regulations, up to 5 years old. These are workers with reduced working capacity; working in especially arduous, toxic, dangerous jobs; working in areas with especially difficult socio-economic conditions.

Therefore, if the Government thinks that preschool teaching is a hard job, it can completely follow the above regulations.

There are currently about 372,000 preschool teachers nationwide, both public and private. Public school teachers receive a fixed salary of about 4.9 - 15 million VND/month, lower than at other levels. The Ministry of Education and Training said preschools are short more than 51,000 people compared to the norm (1.2 - 2.5 teachers per class).

Managers recognize the need for better treatment policies for preschool teachers. Reducing the retirement age is also a boost and motivation for them to stick with the profession.

Since 2020, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Vietnam General Confederation of Labor have repeatedly proposed to include this group in the list of arduous, toxic, and dangerous occupations so that workers can retire early. However, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids, and Social Affairs rejected the proposal, saying that there was no basis.

In the draft Law on Teachers, the drafting agency continues to include this proposal.

According to a 2020 survey by the Vietnam Education Trade Union, 10,700 people (accounting for 96% of the total number of respondents) petitioned for female preschool teachers to retire at the age of 55.