The Cong Binh Primary School in Thanh Hoa province

Parents of the students at the primary schools in the communes of Nong Cong district of Thanh Hoa province have complained that their children are not taught English, though this is a part of the official curriculum designed for primary education.

The students include hundreds of students who will move up to the sixth grade, or secondary school, next year. The situation has existed for many years at schools in lowland areas, which are recognized as national standard schools. 

The parents told reporters this will deprive students of good job opportunities in the future.

Headmaster of the Cong Binh Primary School Tran The Dinh admitted that the school’s students cannot study English because of the lack of teachers.

“We are aware of the importance of English lessons to students, but we don’t have other choices,” he said. 

“We repeatedly ask for permission to recruit teachers of English every year, but the district’s education sub-department said there was no ‘quota’ for teacher recruitment,” he explained.

Also according to Dinh, in the 2017-2018 academic year, the district sent a teacher to the school to teach English for a short time. After the teacher ‘helped’ the school meet requirements to be recognized as national standard school, she left.

Vu Xuan Tin, deputy headmaster of the Yen My Primary School, affirmed that the students’ demand for studying English is high. Some parents have asked the school management board to organize English classes with teachers hired temporarily. The school will pay the teachers with money to be collected from parents.

However, Tin said, the school cannot do this because this is not stipulated in the laws.

According to the Nong Cong district’s education sub-department, the locality now has 67 teachers of English. The teachers are sufficient for secondary and complementary schools. However, for primary education, only 24 out of 35 schools have teachers of English.

Head of the district education sub-department Nguyen Van Binh confirmed that the district is seriously lacking teachers of English for primary schools.

“There is no new recruitment campaign, especially when Vietnam tries to cut out waste in organization,” he said. “We have to prioritize to reserve teachers of English for secondary school.”

According to the Thanh Hoa Education Department, the province lacked 258 teachers of English in the 2017-2018 school year, mostly for mountainous localities and some lowland districts.

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