Ministry of Education and Training: Teacher shortage has reached alarming level

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, as of May 2025, the whole country still lacks 102,097 teachers at all levels of preschool and general education in the payroll compared to the norm.

The Ministry of Education and Training informed that the local teacher surplus and shortage situation has lasted for many years and has not been resolved due to recruitment authority. (Photo: Vu Minh Hien)

The Ministry emphasized that the shortage of teachers has reached an alarming level, directly affecting the implementation of the education program. This situation overloads the existing staff, reducing the quality of teaching and learning, especially in preschool and new subjects of the 2018 general education program.

Explaining this issue, the Ministry of Education and Training informed that the local teacher surplus and shortage situation has lasted for many years and has not been resolved because the authority to recruit and second teachers is currently decentralized to the People's Committees at the district level for preschool, primary and secondary schools.

This causes "fragmentation" of management: when one district has a surplus of teachers and another district has a shortage of teachers, they cannot mobilize due to different authorities.

In addition, recruitment is not led by the education sector, leading to incorrect subject structure; the exam is the same as other sectors, so it cannot evaluate the pedagogical capacity of candidates who want to become teachers.

The National Assembly 's draft Resolution on specific mechanisms and policies for education and training development also sets out many policies on human resources in the education sector.

Accordingly, the Government will prescribe a special preferential allowance regime, ensuring the minimum level according to Resolution 71-NQ/TW: 70% for preschool, general and vocational secondary school teachers; 30% for school staff; 100% for teachers in educational institutions for the disabled, specialized schools and particularly disadvantaged areas.

Localities are allowed to develop flexible and competitive recruitment, employment and remuneration mechanisms, not necessarily following the general civil servant salary scale, in order to attract and employ leading experts, international scientists and Vietnamese intellectuals abroad.

Source: https://baoquocte.vn/bo-giao-duc-va-dao-tao-tinh-trang-thieu-giao-vien-da-den-muc-bao-dong-329144.html