VietNamNet Bridge – Educators have rung the alarm bell over the quality of teachers, stressing that the qualification degrading should be seen a big worry for Vietnam’s education.

 

Literature teachers misspell, physics teachers give wrong formulas

 

Specialist knowledge is really a big problem of many young teachers. In many cases, secondary school teachers also misspell, while literature teachers comment on student essays with ambiguous sentences.

 

Headmasters of primary schools in HCM City all express their worries about the quality of English teachers. The official of an education sub-department in HCM City said, that when showing students the way to read English words, many teachers transcribe the words in Vietnamese. He said all teachers are asked to attend training courses after they take the job as English teachers, so as to prevent the teacher’s non-standard pronunciation.

 

Nguyen Trong Khiem, Deputy Head of the Tan Phu District’s Education Sub-department in HCM City, admitted that though he knows many students still have problems in knowledge, he still has to employ many teachers in order to have enough teachers for schools.

 

Every year, Khiem has to attend the teaching hours at many schools and what Khiem has found out, is that most teachers have misunderstandings about the purposes of the school subjects.

 

For example, when teaching primary school students to read, teachers always skip the practice of reading skills, while they focus on practicing the skills to answer questions. In teaching mathematics, since teachers do not read questions carefully, they confuse with different question types.

 

Meanwhile, some physics teachers were found  giving wrong formulas to students.

 

Regarding pedagogical skills, especially the methods to manage and organize classes, school headmasters all complain that new teachers are very weak at the skills to present lessons on the black board, and that new teachers cannot take a control over the classes. It always happens that teachers have to give lessons in noisy classes because students are busy with private talks. Therefore, instead of giving lessons, many students relate stories during the teaching hours.

 

Experts have pointed out that the low quality of grammar school teachers can be explained by the fact that excellent students do not want to become teachers. School headmasters have admitted that it is very difficult now to find the teachers with high qualifications.

 

“If the problem cannot be settled, this will spoil Vietnamese next-generation students,” an educator has commented.

 

Where to find high quality teachers?

 

In the last three years, the HCM City Education and Training Department makes announcements about the recruitments of new teachers for local schools every year. However, it still cannot find enough teachers.

 

At the working session with the National Assembly’s Council on Culture, Education, the Youth and Children in mid March 2011, the HCM City’s Education and Training Department said that HCM City was still lacking 4000 teachers, especially the teachers for kindergartens and primary schools.

 

Tan Phu district employed 170 teachers this year, while it needs more than 200. Binh Chanh district needs 100 teachers, but it has recruited ½ of this amount. Can Gio district accepted all applicants, but it still needs 30 teachers more.

 

Ta Tan, Head of the Education Sub-department of Tan Phu district, said the number of students has been increasing steadily year after year, which would lead to a teacher crisis one day.

 

Tran Trung Hieu, Head of the district 12’s Education sub-department, admitted that the sub-department has to set less strict requirements on candidates in order to find enough teachers for schools.

 

Source: Tien phong