On training quality and the development of teacher training institutions, Chau instructed the ministry to continue reviewing and restructuring the network under the approved master plan. The aim is to reduce the number of institutions and end teacher training at non-specialist and poor-quality schools.

Resources should be concentrated on developing selected leading teacher training universities, guided by clear standards and criteria and supported by substantial, systematic investment. These institutions must develop across three pillars: education, scientific research and technology transfer.

The ministry must review and standardize teacher education curricula and graduate outcomes, establishing mandatory requirements across the system to eliminate quality disparities between institutions and ensure graduates genuinely meet professional demands.

Particular attention must be paid to personal qualities, ethics, responsibility and professional integrity; subject knowledge, teaching methods and assessment; classroom management and understanding student psychology; digital competence and AI applications. Both the duration and quality of teaching practice must be substantially increased.

The ministry must also reform admissions, adding assessments of applicants’ professional aptitude and psychological suitability for teaching. Accreditation should be improved to ensure that it is substantive and measures its actual impact on graduate outcomes and graduates’ ability to adapt.

Graduate assessment must become more rigorous, with graduates’ practical competence used as one criterion for evaluating training institutions.

The ministry must also review and reform programs leading to teaching qualifications, making them streamlined, flexible, high-quality and consistent with professional standards to attract skilled people from other disciplines and sectors into teaching.

It has been assigned to lead a comprehensive review with the Ministry of Finance and propose changes to financial arrangements for teacher training institutions. The review must identify shortcomings and obstacles involving tuition fees, state budget support, financial autonomy, salaries, allowances, benefits and lecturers’ incomes.

A development plan for teacher training institutions

The Ministry of Education and Training will also work with relevant ministries and agencies to prepare a plan to develop teacher training institutions and improve training quality, for submission to the prime minister in the fourth quarter of 2026.

The plan must specify how many institutions will receive priority investment, along with the projects, facilities and laboratories to be developed. It must also identify total investment, funding sources, financial mechanisms, policies to develop teaching staff, expected outputs and completion deadlines.

Chau instructed teacher training universities and other teacher education providers to work closely with local authorities to identify staffing needs and organize initial and continuing training through commissioned programs.

They must shift decisively from “training in whatever they can offer” to “training according to the needs of the education system, localities and society.”

Priority should go to subjects, education levels and areas facing persistent shortages and recruitment difficulties. Training must also be aligned with reforms to general education curricula and textbooks, digital transformation, STEM and foreign-language teaching, and other emerging requirements in general education.

School curricula and teacher education programs must be reviewed and updated in coordination.

Chau called for stronger partnerships between schools and teacher training institutions, with teaching practice becoming a central component of teacher education.

Institutions must establish standardized data systems to track graduates and take responsibility for training quality, the proportion of graduates entering the profession and their ability to meet practical requirements.

Teacher training institutions selected for priority investment must commit to specific outputs in education, scientific research and the transfer of educational technology.

Thanh Hung