An English lesson at the Huoi Tu 2 Primary School in Ky Son district, the central province of Nghe An. The province faces severe shortage of teachers. (Source: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) – The new school year is already over a month old, but many schoolsare suffering teacher shortages.
According to theMinistry of Education and Training, preschools nationwide lacked 49,000teachers.
The reason for this isthat since 2015, the number of preschool students has been rapidlyincreasing and has reached 1.2 million, but the number ofnewly-recruited teachers remains far behind the requirement.
Like many localitiesacross the country, the central province of Nghệ An was facing a severeshortage of teachers for the 2019-2020 school year, reported onlinenewspaper baotintuc.vn.
This had led to teachersbeing forced to cover different subjects they had no expertise in.
Tran Thi Tuyet, a mathsand literature teacher at Hung Thong Primary School in Hung Nguyen district,Nghe An province, has also had to stand in to cover art, music and sport.
Her working hours are much longer than those regulated, but she has beenleft without a choice because the school has been unable to recruit new staff.
Deputy principal Tran ThiHuyen said: “The school is three teachers short in art and physicaleducation, so the other teachers have had to cover these classes.
“Besides, our school hashad to open IT classes in accordance with new national criteria,” Huyensaid.
Phan Thi Kim Hoa, an English teacher at Hung Nguyen district's Nguyen Thi MinhKhai Secondary School, said: “My profession is English teaching, but I'vehad to teach art for more than three years.”
“It's been very difficult even though I've attended some trainingcourses. But frankly, sometimes I do not know how to teach,” Hoasaid.
This school year, Hung Nguyen district recruited more than 30 teachers, butstill lacks 50 others at pre and primary school levels.
The problem is particularly serious in mountainous schools which shouldbe given priority.
The Ta Ca EthnicBoarding School has no English or IT teachers.
“From third grade, students are meant to study English and IT, but thisseems like ‘mission impossible’ in mountainous areas because wecannot recruit teachers for these subjects”, said Le Van Hoang, the school’svice principal.
“The school is also unable to hire teachers on short-term contracts due to lackof money,” Hoang said.
According to Phan Van Thiet, head of the Ky Son district's Department ofEducation and Training, there were only seven English and two ITteachers to cover the 29 primary schools in the district.
“The teachers are sent to two national-standard schools aspriority,” Thiet said.
“The district was given a recruitment quota but we could not found theteachers,” he added.
Statistics fromthe Nghe An Department of Education and Training showed the provincelacked nearly 4,300 teachers this year.
At primary level, the teacher-class ratio is meant to 1.5, but it'sactually only 1.2.
The situation is partly due to a plan to streamline payroll staff.
According to experts,the plan was sound and would help increase labour productivityamong public servants.
But the plan has exposedshortcomings in each specific sector, especially the educationsector, because at present poor, rural, mountainous and remoteareas where populations are scattered are suffering teachershortages.
At present, thousands ofteachers are working under direct contracts with their schools. Thestreamlining plan says that teachers must be instead on theGovernment payroll. This means they have to reapply for their jobs or theschools will have to end their contracts.
The consequences of this have been classes being merged togetherand increased working hours for the remaining teachers.
Some schools have cutclasses from 44 to 39, causing student overload.
According to theMinistry of Education and Training, many localities were short of teachersincluding Kien Giang (1,008), HCM City (1,290), Binh Duong (2,811), Dong Nai(1,762), Gia Lai (2,572) Thanh Hoa (2,877), Nam Dinh 1,169, Thai Binh (3,167),Hung Yen (1,742), Hai Duong (1,823), Bac Ninh (1,479), Vinh Phuc (2,300), BacGiang (1,019), and Son La (3,355).
Hoang Duc Minh, head of the the ministry's Department of Teachers andEducation Managers, said the education sector and local authorities had beenlooking for solutions to deal with the situation in order to ensure teachingquality.
The Ministry of Education and Training had set up a database tocalculate teacher shortages in different areas to guide the Ministry ofInternal Affairs to adjust the streamlining plan, Minh said./.
VNA
