Teacher and first-grade students at Phuong Mai Primary School in Hanoi's Dong Da District (Photo: SGGP)

From July 1, the base salary will increase from VND1.49 million to VND1.8 million. The turnover increases were not massive. But they were meaningful. This is considered a temporary solution so that civil servants, public employees and employees make ends meet.

However, in the long term, the National Assembly has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2023, to submit to the competent authorities a roadmap to implement the overall reform of the wage policy as required in the Central Executive Committee's Resolution No. 27-NQ/TW dated on May 21, 2018 with special attention paid to salaries and preferential allowances for preschool teachers and primary school teachers.

With low wages, budget payers can't live on their salaries. They have to do all kinds of extra work to make ends meet. In particular, teachers are facing many difficulties due to the specific nature of the teaching profession but the income regime is not commensurate, especially preschool teachers.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Phuong, Principal of Quynh Phuong Kindergarten in the Central Province of Nghe An’s Hoang Mai town said that among all occupations, the salary of a preschool teacher is the lowest. Teachers with university degrees have been teaching for 6 years, but only receive VND3.7 million a month. Receiving low salaries, they hardly make ends meet; so many female teachers decided to quit their jobs.

Those who are still working in education are also burdened with daily difficulties; subsequently, to some extent, their love for the job is also reduced, said Phuong. Some preschool teachers don’t have university degrees, their salaries are even lower. There are preschool teachers who work full-time with a total of 11 hours a day, but they receive only VND 3 million-VND4 million a month.

She revealed that many teachers are teaching daytime while they will sell items online at nights. Surfing social networks, many teachers have been selling goods including clothes, food, utensils to cosmetics online. Teachers also work as real estate brokers or insurance sellers to earn additional income. Many teachers said that they were at first shy to appear on the social network to sell items but later, they are used to it.

Mr. Hoang Quoc Khanh, Deputy Head of the National Assembly Delegation of Lai Chau Province, said that the shortage of teachers in the lowland provinces is already difficult, and it is more severe in mountainous areas a.

Currently, the locality has faced the most shortage of preschool teachers; teachers of English, Informatics for primary schools; Music and Fine Arts teacher for high schools. Recently, Lai Chau Province posted a recruitment ad for nearly 100 English teachers, but just 10 teachers applied for the position.

Worse, meanwhile, a large number of teachers quit and change jobs every year due to low income, increasing pressure to innovate education, and living conditions in remote areas discouraged many teachers.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Ve, who has been teaching for 27 years in Bat Xat mountainous district of Lao Cai Province, said that she is happy to know that the base salary will be increased from July 1. For 27 years, Ms. Ve has been teaching at Lung Po 2 school in the difficult area of Bat Xat district. In the early years, the salary was not enough to eat, the rice had to be filled with potatoes and cassava.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training show that, in the past 2.5 years, more than 16,000 teachers, 40 percent of them are preschool teachers, quit their jobs because of the increasing pressure of work, the requirements of teachers' standards and low salaries which does not deserve their efforts.

Deputy Chairwoman of the National Assembly's Committee for Culture and Education Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa said that pedagogy graduates are not interested in teaching, especially preschool teachers. This leads to great consequences for the future development of the country. From 2006 up to now, it has been nearly 17 years and many times the basic salary has been increased, but the preferential policy on allowances for teachers has not been considered and revised.

The education sector has a strong team of more than 1.2 million teachers out of a total of more than 1.7 million employees in the country and in recent years, teachers’ salary regime has been hotly debated at almost every session of the National Assembly.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa said that the Government should soon have specific mechanisms and policies to support teachers in general and preschool teachers in particular so that teachers can focus on work and contribute to the teaching profession.

Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son said that according to the education sector and the home affairs’ calculation of the number of teachers, the country is lacking 107,000 from now until 2026. Worse, this number may still fluctuate due to the situation of teachers leaving their job.

If the policy for teachers is not resolved soon, the shortage of teachers will continue to be more serious. In fact, many localities are bumping into difficulties in recruiting primary and preschool teachers due to the lack of resources. It is not easy for students to study pedagogy to enter the payroll, many places have to teach contracts with uncertain futures and low salaries, so their parents decided not to allow their children to study pedagogy.

Source: SGGP