Tran Van Thuc, director of the Thanh Hoa Education and Training Department, told VietNamNet that the province is seriously lacking teachers and is one of the localities facing the most serious shortage.

In the 2021-2022 academic year, Thanh Hoa lacked 8,968 teachers, including 4,174 teachers for preschools, 3,380 for primary schools, 1,096 for secondary schools and 318 for high schools. The subjects most seriously lacking teachers are music, arts, informatics and English.

The situation is expected to become even more serious in the 2022-2023 academic year, with a 19 percent shortage (10,276 teachers for different education levels).

The number of teachers has been decreasing steadily in recent years, according to Thuc, because the educational sector has been streamlining the workforce and it hasn't recruited new workers. Meanwhile, many teachers have retired.

“The workforce is cut by 2 percent each year. The educational sector needs more teachers to implement the new national general education program,” Thuc said.

Under the new general education program, students begin studying some subjects from third grade, such as Informatics and English, but there are no teachers to recruit.

The lack of teachers for recruitment, according to Thuc, comes from the concentrated training of teachers at seven key pedagogical schools that the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) ordered to create new teacher training programs and train teachers (the Hanoi University of Education, Thai Nguyen University of Education, Hue University of Education, HCM City University of Education, Hanoi 2 University of Education, Vinh University of Education and Da Nang University of Education).

The problem is that graduates want to stay in the localities where they studied, and don’t want to return to home provinces, especially graduates in informatics and foreign languages. 

A new graduate in informatics can earn VND10-15 million a month in the non-educational sector, but can earn only VND3 million if working for a school.

Within a province, it is difficult to recruit teachers in some areas and easier to recruit teachers in other areas. “In the districts of Muong Lat and Quan Son, for instance, there are no teachers to recruit,” he said.

In Phu Tho province, local schools need more than 3,000 teachers for the 2022-2023 academic year, including 2,000 preschool teachers. The other teachers needed, according to Phu Tho Education and Training Department Nguyen Van Manh, are majoring in informatics, English for primary schools, and music and arts for high schools.

According to Manh, the temporary solution for the 2022-2023 academic year is using music and arts teachers from other schools. As for other subjects, schools will have to recruit teachers and sign labor contracts with them. However, the pay would be offered based on local minimum wage, and teachers would get no additional income.

Temporary solutions

To overcome difficulties, the Phu Tho Education and Training Department decided to train teachers to serve at local schools.

The redundant teachers majoring in informatics finishing intermediate school (2 years of training) are encouraged to get training to become eligible for teaching informatics at primary schools.

Thuc said teachers are under pressure. “The salaries don’t increase, and teachers don’t have additional income from private tutoring classes. The general education program is new,” he said.

Heavy work, low pay

According to managers, teaching is tough, but the income teachers earn is not enough to cover basic needs, which explains why many teachers want to give up their jobs. In order to become self-sufficient in teacher supply, it is necessary to build 5-10 year plans.

According to Statistical Yearbook, at the beginning of 2021-2022, Vietnam had 813,200 teachers. The figure was 861,300 in the 2015-2016 academic year. This means that the number of teachers fell by 48,000 after six years.

The problem is that while the number of general school teachers has decreased, the number of students has increased. In 2021, there were 17.9 million students, while in 2015, the figure was 15.35 million only.

Localities are racing against time to recruit new teachers for the new academic year. HCM City plans to recruit 5,214 teachers. Gia Lai, a province in the Central Highlands which is 500 kilometers away from HCM City, needs at least 3,700 teachers.

After every summer, localities have to recruit new teachers, up to thousands of teachers. But why is the number of teachers decreasing?

Ngan Anh - Thanh Hung