Decree 116 includes financial support for tuition and living expenses for pedagogical school students in the 2021-2022 enrollment season onwards. 

According to the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), certain achievements have been gained after three years of implementing the decree. The number of students interested in teacher training majors has increased, and the number registering to study the majors has risen sharply in comparison with other majors.

MOET believes that the figures show the positive effects of the decree in attracting capable students. However, the ministry has also pointed out that problems still exist.

Over the last three years, the number of pedagogical students that localities have requested and assigned tasks to just accounted for 17.4 percent of total students and 24.3 percent of the students registering under the policy.

Only 23 out of the country's 58 provinces and five major cities have placed orders, assigned tasks and invited for bids in training over the last three years, which means that the number of students listed as ‘trained to society’s orders’ accounted for 75.7 percent of students registering under the policy, accounting for 82.6 percent of total students admitted to schools.

MOET therefore concluded that the teacher order plan has not succeeded as expected. 

Also according to the ministry, six teacher training establishments got orders from authorities in the same localities and neighboring localities, but still have not paid for the training service or have just paid a very small part of the total amount of money they must pay. 

This has affected the implementation of the policy on supporting pedagogical school students and is unfair to pedagogical students.

The Hanoi University of Education is considered one of the most prestigious pedagogical schools in the country, but it has a small order of only 13 teachers. The figure was 51 for the HCM City University of Education.

The problem is that large cities such as Hanoi and HCM City have advantages in attracting a high-quality labor force, and have high numbers of candidates applying for jobs at schools without having to place orders at universities.

MOET has also discovered problems in allocating budgets to give financial support to pedagogical university students. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) just allocated 54 percent of total required money to provide to pedagogical school students at teaching training establishments under MOET. 

Therefore, the allowances provided to these students are late, and training establishments always have to ask for additional quotas. This poses difficulties for both teacher training establishments and pedagogical school students.

In addition, because of the uneven development levels of localities and their resources, many localities cannot arrange their budgets to place orders for teachers with pedagogical schools.

Problems have also arisen in recovering expenses. MOET said Decree 116 assigns provincial people’s committees to watch over administration but local authorities have not instructed relevant agencies to implement the decree, thus causing difficulties for deployment.  

To solve the problems, MOET thinks that pedagogical schools should work with municipal and provincial people’s committees and make proposals directly to state agencies on assigning training tasks under the framework of Decree 116.

Reports show that despite the high number of pedagogical school graduates, the number of graduates attending exams to become teachers is modest. 

By the end of the 2022-2023, the total number of general school teachers nationwide had reached 862,000, an increase of 10,314 teachers compared with the 2018-2019 academic year.

However, the number of teachers could not satisfy demand. Localities complained that they lacked teachers of some subjects, but had an abundant number of teachers in other subjects. English and Informatics were previously optional subjects, but they are now mandatory subjects for third graders. In addition, the majority of high schools don’t have art or music teachers.

Thanh Hung