VietNamNet Bridge – The news that five school headmasters in Ha Dong district decided to resign from their posts for the acknowledged shortcomings in the management capability has stirred up the public.

At the conference reviewing the 2012-2013 academic year held some days ago, the Head of the Ha Dong district’s education sub-department Pham Thi Hoa reported the great achievements the district obtained over the last three years.

Six capable managers of the inner district’s schools have been sent to the schools in the suburbs to help upgrade the schools’ training quality.

A deputy head of the district’s education sub-department has been appointed as the headmaster of a secondary school, while two qualified teachers have been promoted to the post of headmaster and deputy head of a school in the suburbs. Especially, the sub-department made the decisions to change the boards of management of some schools which had bad education quality.

However, what caught the public’s highest attention in Hoa’s report were not the achievements, but the information that five headmasters in Ha Dong district have resigned due to the low management capability. They have been sent to other schools where they take the post of deputy head.

Hoa emphasized that the management staff plays the decisive role in the education quality. Therefore, the district has been focusing on upgrading the qualification of the staff in order to improve the education quality.

Also according to Hoa, in Ha Dong district, the headmasters and deputy heads of the schools may be dismissed or sent to other places if the schools cannot improve the education quality and settle the internal disunity after two years.

The news about the resignation of the five school headmasters has immediately has appeared in most of the local newspapers. Especially, the editorial board of some newspapers even put the news on the “odd things” column. It is because leaving the high posits spontaneously is not a familiar thing in Vietnam.

While a lot of people have raised their voice applauding the behavior of the former headmasters, describing them as the “brave men,” others keep doubtful about this, because they are not sure if the headmasters decided to leave themselves or they were forced to do that.

Phan Dang Long, Deputy Head of the Hanoi Party Committee’s Propaganda and Education Council, when answering Infonet’s reporters, also said that the behavior of resigning from posts should be praised, but it’s still necessary to find out the driving force behind the resignation and why they resigned.

Nguyen Tung Lam, Chair of the Hanoi Education Psychology Association, also noted that in most of cases, people resign from the posts just because they have to do that. In Vietnam, no one would give up the posts which bring them money and power.

“I myself am curious about the reasons behind their resignation decisions,” Lam said.

He said on Kien Thuc that if the five headmasters really think they need to leave the posts because of their low capability, their behaviors should be glorified.

“In my opinion, there are still many educators who have honor and professional conscience, and they would leave the posts once they feel the works are not suitable to them,” he said.

He went on to say that it’s the right time for Vietnam to develop the “culture of resigning”, i.e. the people on high positions should think of stepping down from the posts if they feel they cannot fulfill the tasks.

Resigning from posts seems to be not a “habit” of Vietnamese people.

Compiled by C. V