Ministry to take bold moves to keep preschool and primary teachers stay

Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Education and Training has announced that it will propose to Government to increase salaries and preferential allowances for preschool and primary teachers to help them feel secure and stay in their jobs for a long time.

It will also conduct adjustments to a series of policies, including reducing professional recruitment requirements, shortening the time for salary increases, and reducing the retirement age for preschool and primary teachers.

Speaking at a recent conference on development of policies to ensure the quality of early childhood education in Vietnam, Deputy Director of the ministry’s Department of Teachers and Educational Administrators Pham Anh Tuan said the ministry has made bold moves in an attempt to keep preschool and primary teachers in the profession.

Tuan said the country currently faces a shortage of roughly 107,000 teachers, of which pre-schools lack 44,000 teachers, accounting for over 40% of total.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education and Training also show that in the first ten months of this year, about 16,000 teachers quit their jobs, most of which were preschool educators.

To attract staff, he said that the ministry will adjust the ratio of teachers per classes to the ratio of teachers per students and adjust the required number of teachers following the number of school sites in disadvantaged areas.

Currently, the required rate of preschool teachers is 2.2 teachers per class, but the average level of all regions is below the standard rate.

The Central Highlands and northern mountainous areas have the lowest rate in the country of 1.6 and 1.58 teachers per class, respectively.

The ministry will also remove a regulation on certificates of foreign languages and informatics, reduce professional title standard certificates as well as the time of salary increase for preschool and primary teachers.

Regarding the issue of teacher training, Tuan said the ministry plans to remove the regulation on certificates of regular training and assign the authority to recognise completion of regular training to the department of education and training in localities.

It will update new training modules regularly to suit the innovation of preschool education and innovate training methods by combining face-to-face and online training to improve training quality.

In addition, the ministry will improve the capacity of pedagogical universities and set up modern preschool teacher training facilities to train the next generation of preschool teachers, he said.

Tuan said the ministry plans to propose changes in a series of policies to create favourable working conditions to teachers.

Preschool and primary teachers will be able to retire at the age of 55 instead of 60.

Localities will be allowed to recruit teachers who are qualified but have not met the training standards according to the Education Law 2019 and set out a training roadmap to raise standards for teachers later.

In particular, the ministry will recommend the Government urgently develop a new salary policy, in which teachers' salaries are given the highest priority in the administrative and professional salary system and there are additional allowances depending on the nature of the work by region.

Newly recruited teachers will be given the second rank level, equal to about 9.7 million VND (390 USD) per month while contracted teachers will have salary not lower than the average salary of enterprises in the same locality and preferential allowances.

Currently, the average income of preschool and primary school teachers who have worked for five years after graduation is 4.5 - 4.7 million VND (181-189 USD) per month, including salary and preferential allowances up to 35%.

Junior teachers only receive the income of 3 million VND (120 USD) per month for the first two to three years.

The ministry will propose to increase allowances from 35% to 70% for those who work in urban areas and to 100% for those in disadvantaged areas. About 200,000 teachers will get supported if the Government approves the proposal.

The ministry will also recommend the Government consider not streamlining teachers at preschool and primary schools over the next few years.

Localities will be assigned to review the number of teacher shortage and have roadmaps for supporting teachers to keep their faith in the profession, he said./.