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The new school year 2024-2025 is approaching, but many schools are still struggling to find teachers. This is a common situation not only in Hai Duong, schools are making efforts to overcome it to ensure the quality of education.
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In the 2024-2025 school year, Thanh Tung Primary School (Thanh Mien) is still short of 4 teachers according to the assigned staffing quota, including 2 English teachers and 2 culture teachers. Due to not being able to find a culture teacher, the school had to continue the contract with 1 retired teacher.
Teacher Tran Thi Thuy, Principal of Thanh Tung Primary School, said that although she was “looking for teachers with red eyes”, there was no source of recruitment. It was very difficult to persuade a retired teacher to sign a contract. “Temporarily, teachers have been arranged well for the next school year, but if this situation continues, the school will face many difficulties. It is all for the students and the quality of education, so we have to find a way to resolve the situation,” said teacher Thuy.
Thanh Tung Primary School is difficult, but Doan Tung Primary School (Thanh Mien) is even more difficult. Ms. Thuy added: "I will soon be transferred to be the Principal of Doan Tung Primary School. Through my understanding, the whole school only has 1 English teacher, while we need at least 2 English teachers. But we cannot find a source of contract right now. I have planned to combine classes or prioritize teaching English to students from grade 3 and up," Ms. Thuy shared.
At Tien Dong Secondary School (Tu Ky), the Board of Directors also "red-eyed" looking for teachers but there are none. This school year the school is still short of 6 teachers. The teacher shortage has been happening for 3 years now. Although recruiting, each year only 1-2 teachers are recruited due to lack of recruitment sources.
The school has tried many ways to find teachers. For math, biology, and physical education, teachers have to increase their teaching hours from 19 to 28-29 periods per week. The whole school has no geography teacher. Therefore, for geography, computer science, chemistry, and fine arts, the school has to sign contracts with teachers with college degrees who are studying at university and sign contracts with teachers from some neighboring middle schools, and even high schools in the district.
However, the contract teaching made the school passive and difficult to arrange the staff. All teachers taught extra hours, and at times the school leaders also taught as support. The payment for contract teachers was also higher than the regulations to retain them. Some teachers were recruited to the school but left the profession after a while. There were sources of contracts but teachers did not meet the qualifications.
These are just two of many schools in Hai Duong that share the same shortage of teachers. However, all schools have to make efforts to “pull and pull” to overcome the situation with the view that if there are students, there must be teachers in the classroom.
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The whole province is currently lacking many teachers according to the assigned staffing quota. In particular, all localities lack teachers at all three levels: preschool, primary and secondary schools. In particular, high schools are basically stable, the number of teachers lacking is not much.
According to the assigned staffing quota, Kim Thanh district is still short of more than 300 teachers. Kinh Mon town is short of 134 teachers, including 60 preschool teachers, 24 primary school teachers, and 50 secondary school teachers. Tu Ky district is short of 113 teachers, including 11 preschool teachers, 43 primary school teachers, and 59 secondary school teachers. Thanh Mien district is still short of about 100 teachers, mostly primary school teachers. Thanh Ha district is still short of more than 70 teachers...
The most lacking are preschool teachers, cultural teachers, English teachers for primary schools and secondary school teachers for integrated subjects, information technology and English. According to some school principals, the shortage of preschool teachers can still be "stretched out" because 1 teacher can also look after children. But for primary and secondary schools, it is impossible to not have teachers because it is related to knowledge transfer, ensuring the curriculum and quality of education. No matter how difficult it is, schools must find many ways to "patch up" to overcome it while waiting to recruit teachers.
Teacher shortages have been going on for many years. Teacher contracts, inter-school teacher contracts, and even retired teacher contracts are solutions that localities have been implementing to overcome this situation.
A representative of the Tu Ky District Department of Education and Training said that last school year, the district directed schools to sign contracts with 22 teachers. This school year, they will continue to sign contracts with these teachers, and at the same time, organize guest teaching contracts with inter-school teachers and retired teachers.
According to the representative of the Thanh Mien District Department of Education and Training, this school year, schools will continue to seek new teachers for contracts; teachers who teach in inter-school or contract teaching sessions, and retired teachers.
According to the Department of Education and Training of Hai Duong, there is currently no exact data on the number of teachers lacking according to the new regulations of Circular 19/2023/TT-BGDDT and Circular 20/2023/TT-BGDDT for job positions at preschool and general education levels. The Department of Education and Training and the Department of Home Affairs are actively coordinating to review, compile data, and conduct seminars to serve as a basis for advising on the development of a plan to recruit staff as soon as possible. Temporarily, localities and schools need to make efforts to find solutions to overcome the shortage of teachers.
Despite the shortage of teachers, the entire education sector still has to cut staff every year. It is known that in the 2023-2026 period, the entire Hai Duong education sector will have to reduce more than 2,000 staff.
As of 2023, the whole industry recruited 1,353 positions but only recruited 708 positions. The main reason is that there is no recruitment source. Recruitment is not enough for the assigned positions but the education sector is facing the problem of streamlining the staff, making the already lacking team even more lacking. Teachers will have to shoulder more work and responsibility, especially when implementing the new 2018 general education program.
Education is a special sector, so it is necessary to consider not to rigidly implement the streamlining of staff in this sector, and at the same time, it is necessary to unify the allocation of the rate of streamlining of civil servants according to each region and area. It is necessary to study not to streamline staff in localities with many industrial parks and large populations to ensure that the teaching staff can meet the increasing needs of students.
It is necessary to study and implement streamlining the education sector in a flexible and appropriate manner. In the short term, it is possible to consider not streamlining the education sector at the level that has the most teacher shortages. It is not advisable to streamline the education sector by 10% to “equalize” between localities and regions. Streamline positions that do not affect teaching and learning activities.
Teacher Nguyen Van Hung, Lac Long Secondary School (Kinh Mon)
After finding all the sources of contract teachers such as retired teachers, guest teachers, teachers at units that teach extra hours, many schools have to look for new teachers with only college degrees.
In practical terms, it would be helpful to find new teachers with college degrees to teach students to solve the situation. In practice, new teachers with college degrees also teach very well.
According to regulations, primary and secondary school teachers must have a university degree. Therefore, it is necessary to consider and create conditions for primary and secondary schools that have no other solution to overcome the shortage of teachers to sign contracts with teachers who do not have a university degree. After teaching under contract, they will be encouraged to continue studying at university. In particular, there needs to be a mechanism to attract and treat these people, such as enjoying the right to pay social insurance...
If we allow the recruitment of college-level teachers, it will be suitable for the current situation. This will take advantage of the source of teachers who have not taught before due to problems with their qualifications. From there, it will help them have the opportunity to return to contribute to the education sector. On the other hand, it will create more recruitment sources for localities to immediately fill the gap of teacher shortages, meeting the demand for staff to implement the new general education program.
Teacher Nguyen Minh Toan, Principal of Tien Dong Secondary School (Tu Ky)
The main reason why many teachers quit their jobs is because their income is not enough to cover their living expenses. If this problem is not fundamentally resolved, many teachers will quit their jobs or take on extra jobs to make ends meet.
The average salary of teachers is currently 5-7 million VND/month/person. This is not a high salary, ordinary workers also have an income of 7-9 million VND/month. Therefore, teachers have many options to change careers with higher income.
To retain teachers in the profession, a comprehensive, long-term and sustainable solution is needed. Accordingly, it is necessary to reform salaries in a way that prioritizes the specific nature of the teaching profession; there are mechanisms and policies to increase income to reduce the worries about food and money for teachers. On the other hand, it is necessary to improve working conditions, each educational institution needs to build an open and democratic pedagogical environment so that teachers can express their thoughts and aspirations and feel happy every time they go to school.
Mr. Tran Van Phong, Ngoc Chau ward (Hai Duong city)
