A many as 118 lecturers of the Quang Nam College of Economics and Technology have received a notice from the school’s board of management that the school will not extend labor contracts with them because it does not have money to pay to lecturers.

“We have been informed that the school will not hire us anymore. We have to sign the letters of resignation prepared for us by the school,” a female lecturer said.

“Hundreds of lecturers will lose jobs, which means that hundreds of families will meet difficulties,” she said.

Nguyen Anh Dung, head of the school’s personnel division, confirmed that the notice about terminating labor contracts with 118 lecturers has been released. As many as 44 lecturers still have to stop working from now to the end of the year. 

Another 40 will stop working in 2016 and the remaining will leave in 2017.

Dung said the school has no other choice than laying off some lecturers. “The enrollment has been bad in recent years with the number of students on the decrease,” he said.

“The situation is especially serious in 2015, when the Ministry of Education and Training applies the new enrollment scheme. Students rush to go to universities which require low exam marks, leaving junior colleges idle,” he explained.

Also according to Dung, the college has enrolled 1,300 students, while it planned to enroll 3,750 students for the 2015-2016 academic year. There are 3,325 students studying at the school, while there 326 workers and lecturers. 

Of 173 workers working under fixed-term labor contracts, 118 will lose their jobs in the next three years. Meanwhile, the lecturers who are regular members of personnel will also be cut or asked to take other jobs.

Luong Van Vui, rector of the Quang Nam College of Economics and Technology, said the school ‘has done everything it can to find more students’ but it cannot improve the situation. 

“We went to every hamlet and commune to persuade students to go to our school. However, the number of students enrolled is still modest,” he said, adding that cutting the number of lecturers is a must.

The college receives VND11 billion from the provincial authorities as financial support, while it can earn VND17 billion every year. Meanwhile, it has to pay VND1.5 billion in wages to lecturers. 

Not only the Quang Nam College of Economics and Technology, many other universities and junior colleges need students. The final enrollment campaign of the year will finish on October 25, but many schools still lack thousands of students.

NLD