Thoroughly solve the problem of local teacher surplus and shortage

Building and strengthening the team of teachers and educational management staff is one of the key factors ensuring the success of implementing the new General Education Program.

Therefore, policies on recruitment, treatment, use and management of teachers need to be improved, contributing to improving the quality of education and training to meet the requirements of the new period.

The structure of the teaching staff is not balanced.

At the recent Thematic Supervision Session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on innovation of general education programs and textbooks, many difficulties and problems that the education sector is facing were pointed out.

The number of teachers has not met the prescribed standards. The situation of surplus or shortage of teachers is common in many localities, especially teachers of integrated subjects and new subjects (English, Information Technology, Music, Fine Arts).

Specifically, the country still lacks 62,877 general education teachers; there is a partial surplus of 5,091 teachers. By the 2024-2025 school year, primary schools will still lack 6,621 IT teachers and 5,780 foreign language teachers. At secondary school level, there is a shortage of 6,631 History and Geography teachers and a surplus of 375 teachers.

Besides, the structure of the teaching staff is not balanced between subjects in the same grade level, between regions; not synchronized between junior high school and high school, especially for some new subjects.

Many localities have a situation where they have enough assigned staff but do not ensure the teacher/class ratio according to regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training.

Analyzing this situation, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Trieu Van Cuong said that some localities lack balance in the structure of teaching staff between subjects and at the same level between regions with different socio-economic conditions. In fact, the allocation of teacher quotas has not yet ensured the maximum standards prescribed by the Ministry of Education and Training.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the reason is that current regulations on student/class and teacher/class quotas are being managed at maximum levels, which are regulated nationwide, regardless of region, meaning that a class must have a maximum number of students to have one teacher.

Therefore, this regulation makes it difficult for localities to arrange students. Many localities arrange students lower than the regulation, especially in remote areas. Meanwhile, some localities cannot recruit teachers according to the assigned number of positions.

Ensure structure and quality

National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue said that the situation of local teacher surplus and shortage is not only at the local level but also within each school, there is an inappropriate structure, lacking one subject but having a surplus of another.

“We cannot transfer science teachers to teach social studies, nor can we transfer literature teachers to teach math,” the National Assembly Chairman said, suggesting a solution to temporarily transfer teachers from one school to another school under a secondment regime to temporarily resolve the difficulty.

The National Assembly Chairman proposed research to fundamentally solve the problem of local teacher surplus and shortage using many different methods and approaches, both ensuring structure and ensuring quality.

Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Trieu Van Cuong requested the Ministry of Education and Training to urgently complete institutional contents to build standards, not to level different regions. Especially for remote, isolated and delta areas, there must be specific regulations. Localities should promote the arrangement and reorganization of preschool and general education facilities in conjunction with improving the quality of education, forming multi-level general schools; at the same time, review, arrange and adjust the classroom model reasonably, reduce the number of schools on the principle of convenience for people and suitability with the actual conditions of the region, area and locality.

Ministries, branches and localities direct and approve autonomy projects for educational institutions under their management, clearly defining the roadmap for financial autonomy based on career revenue allocated by order.

Public preschool and general education institutions with revenue sources will have the conditions to restructure human resources. Restructuring will be in the direction of gradually reducing the number of people receiving salaries from the state budget, increasing the number of people receiving salaries from career revenue sources corresponding to the level of autonomy (this level of autonomy will be specifically approved by localities).

The Deputy Minister of Home Affairs noted the need to be proactive and flexible in arranging and using autonomous staffing quotas; overcoming the surplus and shortage of teachers when changing the student population between school years; implementing a number of solutions to create additional sources of teachers such as doing a good job of planning, transferring, mobilizing and researching to submit to competent authorities for approval of policy changes.

Immediately after the thematic supervision session of the National Assembly Standing Committee, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh issued an Official Dispatch on ensuring timely textbooks and teachers for the 2023-2024 school year.

The Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Education and Training to coordinate with the Ministry of Home Affairs to direct the organization of teacher recruitment, review, restructure, arrange and use teachers to ensure that there are enough teachers to teach the correct and sufficient subjects according to regulations; flexibly implement plans to transfer and second teachers from places with surplus to places with shortage; proactively develop plans to have a source of timely, appropriate and effective teacher recruitment according to specific local conditions.

Along with that, the Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for inspecting and urging localities to urgently restructure, arrange and recruit teachers according to the allocated staffing quota, ensuring quantity and quality; guiding localities to implement Decree No. 111/2022/ND-CP on contracts for certain types of jobs in administrative agencies and public service units in cases where it is not possible to arrange enough teachers according to the quota, ensuring the implementation of the policy "where there are students, there must be teachers in the classroom" appropriately and effectively.