VietNamNet Bridge – Inexperienced university and college graduates looking to be employed as educators have difficulty finding work because the city already has a sufficient amount of teachers, said Nguyen Huynh Long, the head of personnel and organisation for HCM City's Education and Training Department.

The department said it received 949 applications for high school teachers in 2014, 394 more than its quota of 555. In 2013, it received 1,131 applications for high school teachers, more than doubling its quota of 443. The 2013 quota for all levels of education was 761.

Long said the problem didn't come from the pedagogic universities and colleges – they also needed to train teachers for provinces outside HCM City. The difficulties came when prospective teachers started to prefer to work in the city over rural areas.

In addition, those who obtained teaching certificates without being trained in pedagogic schools took up jobs, making it harder for people with university degrees to find work, he said.

He said that teachers also preferred to teach primary subjects, like math and literature, rather than secondary ones such as Technology and Civics. This also contributed to the problem.

In 2013, nearly half of all high school candidates applied to teach the primary subjects chemistry, literature, math and physics, according to the department.

For example, in 2014 in HCM City, almost every applicant who applied to be a technology teacher – nine out of 10 – got the job. But in the same year, 82 candidates applied for 58 English spots.

Those who could not teach in public schools had to look for opportunities in semi-public and private schools. However, those schools were having trouble attracting new students, so they were not interested in hiring more employees, Long said.

One principal said his private school needed very skilled, experienced teachers in order to compete with similar schools and attract more students. So young, inexperienced graduates who were not able to find jobs in teaching had to take positions in other fields, he said.

VNS