VietNamNet Bridge - Hundreds of teachers in HCM City have not been paid over the last year, while hundreds of teachers in Nghe An province have only received 85 percent of basic wages.

Dan Tri reported that by early of the 2016-2017 academic year, Nghe An had 507 teachers working under labor contracts signed with district authorities and 622 under contracts with schools. 

This means that teachers don not receive pay from the state budget as other civil workers, but from districts’ localities or schools where they work.

Nguyen Thi Tinh, a teacher of Ho Tong Thoc Primary School in Yen Thanh district, who has been working there for the last 14 years, receives VND2 million a month.

Like Tinh, the other seven teachers of the schools also work under the labor contracts with districts or the school and receive modest pay. Since the employers don’t pay social insurance for them, they have to pay themselves, which means their real monthly income is just VND1.2 million.

Phap Luat reported that 117 teachers in district 1 in HCMC have been working without pay for 15 months. The teachers passed the exams to become civil servants in August 2015, but they still have not received decisions on appointment and thus have not been paid.

Hundreds of teachers in HCM City have not been paid over the last year, while hundreds of teachers in Nghe An province have only received 85 percent of basic wages.

Le Thi Binh, head of the district 1’s education sub-department, said management agencies still had not reached an agreement about positions and wages for teachers because of problems in new regulations stipulated in an inter-ministerial circular.

If referring to the circular, the newly recruited teachers, though having university’s and master’s degrees, would still be ranked at the lowest salary level.

Meanwhile, Le Hoai Trung, deputy director of the HCMC Interior Affairs Department on November 1, said the department has not received any official report from the district 1’s authorities about the problem.

While waiting for the decision from the Interior Affairs Department, the district 1’s authorities on October 31 decided to pay temporary salaries to the teachers (80 percent of salaries for the probation time from August 2015 to July 2016 and 100 percent of salaries from August 2016) until a final decision is made.

In 2011-2016 alone, Ca Mau province owed VND139 billion in salary to local teachers. Ca Mau’s chair Nguyen Tien Hai said though the local authorities have used advanced money from the 2017 budget to pay teachers, the problem still has not been settled. 

More than 600 teachers and officers in Thanh Hoa province in Vinh Loc district have had their contracts terminated.

Ha Phong