VietNamNet Bridge – Ministry of Education and Training’s (MOET) pilot program to teach English to third graders has begun inthe 2010-2011 academic year. However, schools cannot recruit enough teachers.

Good teachers do not want to teach at primary schools

In big cities, schools have many opportunities to recruit English teachers, but the problem is that they cannot offer high enough salaries . Meanwhile, in poor provinces and remote areas, there are no teachers to recruit. The difficulties have made many localities hesitate about whether to  join the pilot program.

In Hanoi and HCM City nine primary schools joined in the 2010-2011 academic year. With the 12-year experience of providing intensive English courses (eight hours per week), HCM City has the most favorable conditions to implement the program. However, the schools here still complain that face more difficulties than expected.

The problem is that the schools cannot compete with foreign language centers in terms of finding English teachers. “There are 700 foreign language centers in the city, whereGood teachers can get 20-25 dollars per hour. Therefore, they do not want to work for primary schools,” says Le Ngoc Diep, Head of the primary education division under the HCM City Education and Training Department.

Pham Thi Yen, Headmaster of the Thanh Cong B School in Hanoi says that under the current regulations, every school has one English teacher in the payroll, while there are 31 classes in the school. Therefore, the school has to recruit two more teachers who work under on short term contracts.

Meanwhile, English teachers are paid modestly. According to Pham Xuan Tien, a senior official from the Hanoi Education and Training Department, due to the modest income, schools can only offer 17,000 dong for a teaching hour.

With 216 primary schools, Hoa Binh plans to have 43 primary schools to join the English teaching program by the 2011-2012 academic year. In order to be able to join English teachers have to pass the tests organized by the Ministry of Education and Training.

Hoa Binh’s eight teachers attended the tests, but only three met the requirements set by the ministry.

It’d better to cooperate with foreigners?

After getting the license to joint the pilot program, the Trang An Primary School in Hoan Kiem district in Hanoi decided to withdraw. So in the 2010-2011 academic year, only eight schools in Hanoi are in  the program.

TheTrang An school explained that it could not meet the requirements to carry out the program. However, people all know that Trang An is one of the few schools in Hanoi with best teaching facilities.

Tien phong newspaper has pointed out that Trang An refused to join the pilot programme because it is already following DyNet, a US programme.

many other primary schools cooperate with prestigious English centers to teach English to students following modern curricula. Some even hire native English speakers.

An official from the Hanoi Education and Training Department has expressed his worry that it will be very difficult for Hanoi to increase the number of schools joining the English teaching program. “The schools with good facilities want to use the curricula that meet the expectations of their students’ parents. Meanwhile, other schools have big difficulties,” he says.

Source: Tien phong