Vietnam plans to apply a new general education program

Pedagogy universities only produce a modest number of teachers every year. The remaining teachers graduate from local universities or junior colleges. The number of teachers graduating from non-specialized schools is four times higher than regular universities specializing in teaching.

According to MOET, secondary education will see the biggest redundancy of teachers. In the first four years of implementing the new education program, 4,000-6,000 teachers will become redundant each year. By 2023-2024, the figure will soar to 21,663.

Pedagogical universities who’ve been criticized for unplanned training which has led to an oversupply of teachers and  big waste of society’s resources. However, the schools said that they had reduced the training scale in recent years, and that they were surprised about the huge number of teachers.

An MOET’s report showed, in 2017, Vietnam planned to enroll 50,000 students for pedagogical majors. The seven key pedagogical schools (the Hanoi University of Education, the Hanoi University of Education No 2, Thai Nguyen University of Education, Vinh University, Da Nang University of Education, Hue University of Education and the HCM City University of Education) received only 10,000 students.

Tien Phong reporters have found that the seven schools plan to enroll 7,000 students this year. Meanwhile, MOET said there are 35,000 seats for pedagogical training. As such, key pedagogical schools will only undertake 20 percent of the ‘quota’.

Seven regular pedagogical schools are a modest figure if noting that there are 152 universities (4-year training), junior colleges (3-year training) and intermediate schools (2-year training). These include 45 pedagogical specialized schools of different education levels. Meanwhile, the other 107 schools are local multi-disciplinary schools, or 2.4 times more than specialized pedagogical schools.  

Nguyen Quang Huy, rector of Hanoi University of Education No 2, said the school began scaling down training before MOET requested it. 

The school can train up to 2,000 students a year, but it has enrolled 1,200 students only in recent years. Since 2017, it has stopped enrolling students for non-pedagogical majors (graduates receive bachelor’s degree, but do not work as teachers).

Pham Hong Quang, rector of Thai Nguyen University of Education, also said the school has narrowed the training scale. In 2018, for example, it plans to enroll 900 students only for pedagogical majors.

Quang pointed out that oversupply or shortages of teachers only occur in some localities. While some provinces report an excess of physics and IT teachers, Lang Son province is lacking teachers of these subjects.

MOET decided to cut the training ‘quota’ sharply by 40 percent in 2018.

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Mai Thanh