The director of the Department of Education and Training (DOET) in provinces will be responsible for recruiting personnel for public educational institutions within each province and for deciding transfers, secondments, appointments, or changes in job positions in cases under their authority or involving two or more communes.

The resolution on mechanisms and policies to create momentum for education and training development was passed by the National Assembly on December 10 and will take effect on January 1, 2026.

The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) said the Government had incorporated feedback and revised the draft toward improving mechanisms for recruitment, utilization, and management of human resources, while clearly decentralizing authority.

Under the new regulations, the director of the DOET is responsible for recruiting and receiving personnel for public educational institutions in each province.

The chair of commune-level People’s Committees has the authority to transfer, reassign, second, appoint, dismiss, and change job positions for personnel working at public educational institutions under the commune’s management.

Previously, some opinions suggested assigning teacher recruitment to schools themselves, as they best understand their own needs and bear primary responsibility for education quality and student outcomes. The belief was that transfers, placements, reassignments, secondments, appointments, or job position changes when necessary should be handled by DOET or by communes and wards.

MOET believes that when commune-level civil servants in charge of education are insufficient in number and many lack experience in state management of education, assigning DOET to lead recruitment, reception, transfers, secondments, and reassignments of teachers and staff at educational institutions across the province is appropriate to the DOET’s current conditions and capacity.

According to the MOET, assigning DOET as the lead agency will help reduce intermediary parties, standardize recruitment quality, save costs, and increase opportunities for applicants. It will also help address teacher and staff surpluses and shortages and ensure balanced staffing structures by education level and learning subject.

The principal of a secondary school in Hanoi told VietNamNet that the new decision would make recruitment more closely aligned with reality. Deeper participation in the hiring process would help schools find candidates with strong expertise, suitable teaching styles, and compatibility with current reform requirements.

“Increasing the proactiveness and accountability of the recruiting authority, namely the DOET, will streamline and add flexibility to the process, reducing overlap among agencies which was seen in the past,” the principal said.

DOET, as a specialized agency, can design recruitment criteria with specific characteristics. For example, recruiting teachers with experience teaching ethnic minority students, integrated subjects, or specialized and bilingual schools, he said.

The resolution also adds autonomy mechanisms for vocational education and higher education institutions in determining job positions, recruiting, and signing contracts with experts and scientists (PhD holders) who are foreigners or overseas Vietnamese. These institutions are also allowed to certify labor permit exemptions for up to three years for invited experts engaged in teaching and research.

Regarding remuneration, the resolution stipulates the implementation of occupational preferential allowances on a roadmap, with a minimum of 70 percent for teachers and at least 30 percent for staff. Teachers working in especially disadvantaged areas, ethnic minority regions, border areas, and islands are entitled to a 100 percent allowance.

The resolution also allows vocational education and higher education institutions to autonomously decide on additional income for employees from lawful non-budget revenue sources that the units are permitted to retain.

Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet, former teacher at Vo Thi Sau Primary School (Cua Ong Ward, Quang Ninh Province), said that to recruit quality teachers who meet actual needs and quotas, DOET should be responsible for organizing the examinations, as this aligns better with professional expertise. Local authorities, specifically wards and communes, should only monitor the number of teachers needed and report this for appropriate allocation.

According to Nguyet, the current situation where teachers are public employees managed by the Department of Home Affairs (DOHA) in localities also presents certain inadequacies. For instance, while the reduction of public employees and streamlining of the apparatus are underway, teacher shortage in localities has not improved, making it a difficult problem to solve.

"If the civil service recruitment regulations fall under the DOHA, the education sector will always face a staff shortage. The teaching workforce is not only in urban areas but also in difficult and remote educational institutions, places where few people want to work. Therefore, having the DOET manage recruitment, allocation, and deployment will be better," Nguyet said.

Le Huyen