Teachers' actual teaching time reduced from 37 to 35 weeks

This afternoon, March 7, the Ministry of Education and Training announced that it has issued Circular No. 05/2025/TT-BGDDT regulating the working regime for general education and university preparatory teachers (Circular No. 05) with many new points compared to current regulations.

The provisions of Circular No. 05 are an important legal basis for localities to arrange and assign staff to ensure the quality and effective implementation of the 2018 general education program.

Reduce the number of actual teaching weeks, set a ceiling for overtime

Circular 05 supplements regulations on principles for determining teachers' working regimes. Accordingly, teachers' working time is implemented according to the school year and converted into teaching periods, including the number of teaching periods in a school year and the average number of teaching periods in a week.

Regulations on actual teaching time of teachers and teaching hours of teachers in charge of general education have also been adjusted. Specifically, according to the new circular, the actual teaching time of secondary and high school teachers is 35 weeks instead of the regulation of 37 weeks, and 2 reserve weeks are added for teachers to complete educational content in the general education program. Teaching hours of teachers in charge of general education teams are regulated by hours/week (instead of the current rate).

Circular 05 also stipulates that the assignment and arrangement of tasks for teachers must ensure the provisions on teaching hours, working hours, and rest hours according to the provisions of law; ensure publicity and fairness among teachers in the same school. In case of having to arrange for part-time teachers, the principal shall give priority to assigning part-time teachers who do not teach enough average teaching hours per week and ensure that teachers meet the requirements to perform assigned tasks.

In case teachers must be assigned to teach more than the average teaching hours per week (including converted teaching hours for concurrent tasks), the total number of excess teaching hours per week must not exceed 50% of the average teaching hours per week, and the total number of excess teaching hours per school year must not exceed the number of overtime hours as prescribed by labor law.

Teachers teaching in general schools with multiple levels of education are assigned the professional title of teacher at which level of education, then the teaching period norm prescribed for teachers at that level of education is implemented. In case a teacher is assigned to teach at the level of education according to the appointed title and is also assigned to teach at another level of education, each teaching period at the other level of education is counted as 1 standard period.

The new circular adds regulations on the teaching period norm for high school teachers in schools, for people with disabilities is 15 periods/week; adds regulations on reducing 3 periods/week for teachers who also hold positions of clerical work, information technology, library, and support for education of people with disabilities.

Addition of teaching hour norm conversion

The Circular supplements a number of cases where teaching hours are converted. Accordingly, for teachers teaching Vietnamese to ethnic minority children before they enter grade 1, 1 teaching hour is counted as 1 standard hour (if taught during the school year), 1.5 standard hours (if taught during the summer) and is included in the total teaching hour norm.

Teachers teaching students to review for entrance exams and graduation exams, 1 teaching period is counted as 1 standard period.

Teachers who teach remedial classes for students with poor academic performance or teach extra classes for students whose final semester results are below the required level can have 1 teaching period converted to a maximum of 1.5 standard periods.

Teachers assigned to be judges in school-level teacher competitions or contests will have 1 period of direct judging counted as 1 standard period.

Teachers participating in training excellent students, training students to participate in Phu Dong sports festival, guiding science and technology competitions, guiding students to participate in student competitions with startup ideas, 1 teaching period can be converted to a maximum of 2 standard periods.

Each teacher does not hold more than one position.2mission

The Circular adjusts and increases the number of reduced periods for homeroom teachers at primary level and homeroom teachers at schools and classes for the disabled from 3 periods/week to 4 periods/week; increases the number of reduced periods for teachers who are also heads of functional departments at preparatory colleges from 3 periods/week to 6 periods/week; and increases the number of reduced periods for teachers who are also deputy heads of functional departments at preparatory colleges from 1 period/week to 5 periods/week.

Reduce 3 periods/week for part-time teachersAdministrative staff positions in functional departments for university preparatory schools; reducing teaching hours for group leaders and deputy group leaders in student management groups in ethnic minority boarding schools and ethnic minority boarding schools such as group leaders and deputy group leaders of professional subjects.

Each teacher cannot hold more than 2 concurrent tasks (including concurrent professional tasks, Party work, mass organizations, other organizations and some other job positions). If concurrent tasks have received remuneration or allowances, the teaching hour norm cannot be reduced or converted into teaching hours (except for concurrent tasks of head and deputy head of professional groups, concurrent tasks of head and deputy head of functional departments, concurrent tasks of party work, trade unions, youth union).

The Circular also adds regulations on summer vacation for principals and vice principals, on maternity leave coinciding with summer vacation, and on converting teaching hour norms.

Specifically, principals and vice principals are entitled to summer vacations like teachers. This summer vacation is flexibly arranged during the school year and during the summer break. To ensure the normal operation of the school and avoid the situation where all managers are on vacation at the same time, the summer vacation schedule of managers must be reported to the management agency.

For female teachers whose summer vacation time (before maternity leave) or remaining summer vacation time (after maternity leave) is no longer available or is less than the annual leave time prescribed by the Labor Code, the teacher will be arranged to take additional days off to ensure that the total number of days off or remaining days off and the number of additional days off are equal to the number of annual leave days prescribed by the Labor Code (Clause 2, Article 6).

The Ministry of Education and Training said that before promulgation, Circular 05 had been widely consulted by the Ministry. In addition to posting it on the Government and Ministry of Education and Training's electronic information portal, the Ministry had sent it to ministries, branches, 63 provinces, cities and preparatory colleges for comments.

In addition, the Ministry of Education and Training organized a direct consultation with more than 585,000 teachers and managers of general education institutions on the TEMIS online training system. Many contents stipulated in the Circular received consensus from over 90% of the participants.

The Ministry of Education and Training has also organized many professional seminars with teachers and education administrators to discuss in depth the contents of the draft Circular.