All teachers of English in Hanoi who meet the English standards in accordance with the Vietnamese six-level framewirk will have to attend the exam.

The results of the exam will be used to classify teachers for further training.

From 2020 to 2025, every two years, teachers of English will attend a refresher course to improve their qualifications. Under the plan, 50 percent of teachers in Hanoi are expected to have English skills meeting 6.5 IELTS or higher by 2025.

The education department said it is necessary to improve the qualifications of teachers to satisfy training requirements in the new development period. IELTS is one of the testing systems of English proficiency considered the most prestigious in the world.

However, many teachers are dissatisfied about the requirement to attend the exam. A teacher of English in Hanoi said it is unreasonable to require teachers who studied at least four years at university and satisfied very strict requirements set by employers to attend exams so regularly at work.

From 2020 to 2025, every two years, teachers of English will attend a refresher course to improve their qualifications. Under the plan, 50 percent of teachers in Hanoi are expected to have English skills meeting 6.5 IELTS or higher by 2025.

“IELTS certificate is valid for two years only. So will teachers have to take IELTS test once every two years?” she said.

“If so, teachers will have to be busy preparing for exams and won’t have time to teach students,” she warned.

The headmaster of a private school in Hanoi stressed that improving the qualifications of teachers of English is a must, but the education department should give private schools the right to control and train their teachers.

The demand for learning English in large cities, including Hanoi, is very high. Private schools organize many English teaching programs to satisfy learners’ diverse requirements.

There are bilingual and dual-degree classes in which students have to follow two programs, one set by the Vietnam Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and the international program (Cambridge or Oxford). Besides, there are also intensive English classes.

According to the headmaster, the teachers of the classes are professional native speaking teachers. They are from the UK, US and Australia, trained to teach English to foreigners.

Vietnamese teachers at the classes also have to go through very strict tests before admission. And they have to improve their qualifications during the work, or they will be dismissed.

“With this way, the effectiveness of fostering teachers' professional qualifications is higher than the method applied by the education department,” she said, adding that private schools should be allowed to control their own teaching staff. 

Le Huyen

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