Children play at Nguyen Cu Trinh Kindergarten in HCM City’s District 1 (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committeehas petitioned the municipal People’s Council to increase salary and allowancesto raise incomes for kindergarten teachers in order to encourage them tocontinue working as the city has seen a year-by-year increase of kindergartenteachers quitting their jobs.
Under the petition, the total fund for the salary increase isestimated to be over 251 billion VND (11 million USD) each year.
In the 2013-2014 academic year, 706 teachers quit teaching to switchto other jobs. This figure increased to 823 in the 2014-2015 year and 885 inthe 2015-2016 year.
According to the city authorities, kindergarten teachers work for10 hours to 12 hours each day. The intensity of their work is also high. However,their income is too low.
While the city needs 1,965 teachers for kindergarten educationeach year, only 1,466 are employed.
Each year, nearly 5,000 students are enrolled to studykindergarten education at teachers training universities and colleges.
However, only 1,000 to 2,600 of them made it to graduation. Therest study other occupations because they recognise how hard it is to be akindergarten teacher during their internship.
Of those that graduate, only about 30 percent have the city’spermanent residence status, which allows them to teach in local publickindergarten schools.
The committee also suggested the city provide non-interest loansfor students who major in kindergarten education at teachers traininguniversities or colleges.
These students will be required to work at the city’s publickindergartens and repay the loan within three or five years after graduating.
People’s councils should also allow kindergartens autonomy inrecruiting teachers and school tuition. In addition, the schools should begiven permission to recruit teachers who do not have the permanent residencestatus in the city.-VNA
VNA
