Hard pressure

The low pay deters many people from becoming teachers, while hard pressure of the job has made many teachers leave schools. Many schools announced they had enough teachers one day, but complained they lacked teachers the next day, because the recruited teachers left schools just after a short period of working.

Le Thi Kim Van, Headmaster of Hoa Lu Nursery School in District 1 in HCM City, said that there are two teachers and one babysitter in every class of her school, and she has been criticized that this is a “waste of teachers” in the context of serious teacher shortage. “In the 2011 academic year, the district’s education sub-department only pays for seven babysitters, therefore, I have to ask for permission from the parents’ association to employ more teachers and babysitters,” she said.

“Everyone has his own job and obligation. It would be a “waste of teachers” only if I ask a teacher who graduates pedagogical school to clean toilets,” she continued. “The Ministry of Education and Training has called to ease the burden on teachers. However, it will be an impossible mission if one person has to undertake the responsibilities of many people”. 

Under the current regulations, a preschool teacher has to work from 7 am to 5 pm every day. However, in fact, teachers have to come to schools very early in the morning to greet children and they leave schools late in the afternoon, only after all the children are picked up by their parents.

“Many teachers tell me that they do not have time for breakfast. They dare not leave for meals in break time, because they do not want to leave the classes unsupervised. If something bad happens at the time when they are absent, they will be penalized,” Van said.

Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, Head of the Preschool Education Department of the HCM City Education and Training Department, also said that the teachers, who have to take care of many children are always under hard pressure. Thanh admitted that at many schools, since headmasters want to save money and refuse to recruit new teachers, teachers complain that they suffer from stress.

Many teachers related that parents nowadays set high requirements on teachers. Many parents even threatened to beat teachers because of a mosquito bite on children’s skin.

Recruiting first, training later?

Having realized that HCM City is seriously lacking preschool teachers, the HCM City Education and Training Department has been organizing activities, including meetings on career guidance, to persuade high school grades to become teachers. However, even educators do not think that the activities will be helpful.

Van said that in order to ease the pressure on teachers, it is necessary to reduce their working hours. She said that it is necessary for teachers to work in shifts and allow them to leave schools at 12 pm. If so, poor teachers can work extra hours if they want to earn more money, and other teachers can spend time to learning more material or training.

Van stressed that only by doing this will schools be able to retain teachers. In order to increase the number of preschool teachers, it is advisable to recruit high school graduates and then train them later following a model of “recruit first, train later”.

A recent survey on the education environment in nursery schools conducted by Saigon University shows that when asked about job pressure, 87 percent of preschool teachers said the hardest pressure comes from their superiors, such as inspectors do not show goodwill, or have casual behaviors, or assign work unsystematically.

Meanwhile, only 64 percent of teachers said they bear pressure from children. The working environment is also a problem, as the survey pointed out that only 40 percent of teachers feel satisfied with the relationship between teachers and their colleagues

C. V