The whole country lacks nearly 120,000 teachers: Immediately remove the recruitment bottleneck

As of May 2025, the country still lacks nearly 120,000 teachers at all levels, including nearly 45,000 preschool teachers. Notably, out of 66,000 assigned staffing quotas, localities have only recruited nearly 6,000 teachers over the past three years.

Class at Bui Thi Xuan Primary School, Lien Chieu District, Da Nang - Photo: PT

Therefore, in a recent dispatch, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) to coordinate with the Ministry of Home Affairs to review, urge, and inspect the recruitment of teachers in localities to ensure that all assigned positions are recruited; continue to review and propose to competent authorities to supplement the remaining preschool and general education teacher positions compared to the prescribed norms of the education sector.

This is considered an urgent task to overcome the persistent teacher shortage over the years, especially in the context of having to ensure enough teachers to teach two sessions per day in the coming time.

Teacher recruitment from Ha Giang

In May 2025, Meo Vac district (Ha Giang) held a review of a project to support teaching English to primary school students for three years. The project was supported by Marie Curie Inter-level School (Hanoi) which sent teachers to teach online.

At the time teacher Nguyen Xuan Khang - representing Marie Curie School - decided to support, Meo Vac only had one primary school teacher, while there were about 2,500 third grade students required to learn English under the 2018 General Education Program.

After three years of implementation, 2,500 students have completed the primary school program. However, according to Mr. Ngo Manh Cuong - Vice Chairman of Meo Vac District People's Committee, the locality is facing a difficulty when next school year, 8,400 primary school students must study the English program, while the whole district has only 5 primary school English teachers.

Thus, in three years, this locality has only recruited four more teachers. Teaching English to primary school students mainly depends on individual projects and some volunteer support groups and units.

Unlike Meo Vac, many other areas of Ha Giang province are still lacking teachers, especially in the subjects of art, information technology, English, math... According to Mr. Bui Quang Tri - Director of the Department of Education and Training of Ha Giang, by the end of the 2024-2025 school year, the province will still lack nearly 3,000 teachers compared to the quota. Mr. Tri affirmed that there is no source to recruit teachers.

"Mountainous areas are difficult, while the compensation mechanism is not attractive enough for those who have many job options. Creating a source of local teachers also has barriers when teacher training colleges recruit students with scores that are too high, making it difficult for students in difficult areas to meet the requirements," said Mr. Tri.

According to Mr. Tri, training on "order" basis also has some shortcomings because the regulation is that after two unsuccessful recruitment attempts, the recipient of the support fund can do other jobs without having to pay back the money. Therefore, there have been cases where those who are eligible for support for teacher training funds have "failed" themselves in the recruitment round to avoid having to pay back the money!?

Teachers and students of Khanh Yen Primary School (Van Ban, Yen Bai) during a class - Photo: V.HA

Nearly 60,000 positions are still "unfilled", why?

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the shortage of teachers is greatest at the secondary school level. And the shortage or surplus of teachers also varies greatly between localities, grades, and subjects.

However, many localities have a common point: they lack teachers of information technology, English, fine arts, music, and physical education; some other localities lack teachers of natural sciences. According to some departments of education and training in the northern mountainous region, the trend of students enrolling in teacher training in recent years has mainly chosen social sciences. Therefore, at present and in the next few years, there will be a shortage of teachers of natural sciences.

Sharing about this situation, Mr. Vu Minh Duc - Director of the Department of Teachers and Educational Managers (Ministry of Education and Training) - said that the shortage of teachers has been happening for many years, but after implementing the 2018 General Education Program, the shortage has become even more severe.

"Localities do not recruit all assigned positions, mainly due to lack of recruitment sources. However, there are also some localities that retain positions without recruitment to implement a 10% reduction in staff. The implementation of mergers and streamlining from the end of 2024 has also caused some localities to temporarily stop recruiting teachers," Mr. Duc analyzed.

The representative of the Department of Teachers stated that although the salary and allowance regime has improved, it is not attractive enough, and the difficult working conditions in some localities cause teachers to suffer from deprivation and hardship in terms of material, mental and daily life. In addition, the pressure from educational requirements and goals are the reasons why it is difficult to attract capable people to the education sector.

New subjects, subjects that were changed from elective to compulsory in the 2018 General Education Program such as English for primary school, fine arts, music, information technology, and physical education are lacking in many areas, but the ability to compensate is slow, partly because teacher training schools also have difficulty recruiting students; partly because those who are properly trained in their majors after graduation, or even after passing the teacher recruitment exams, have changed their minds about choosing the teaching profession.

Source: Ministry of Education and Training report updated to May 2025 - Graphics: TAN DAT

Do not let the situation of having a payroll but not recruiting

The Prime Minister's dispatch assigned the Ministry of Home Affairs to inspect and urge localities to recruit teachers according to the assigned payroll, overcome the surplus and shortage of teachers in educational institutions, and ensure the principle of "where there are students, there must be teachers in the classroom" but must be suitable to local realities and effective in arrangement.

Provinces and cities have synchronous and effective solutions to recruit the right and sufficient teachers according to the number of positions assigned by competent authorities, not allowing the situation of having positions but not recruiting; signing teaching contracts to promptly supplement the number of missing teachers according to regulations; considering, prioritizing recruitment, and signing contracts according to authority for teachers who have had time to perform teaching contracts at educational institutions if they meet professional requirements and are in accordance with regulations.

Delegate NGUYEN THI VIET NGA (member of the Committee on Culture and Society):

Proposal to arrange teachers to teach inter-school

The current shortage of teachers is an urgent problem in the education sector. This seriously affects the quality of teaching and learning in many localities, especially in remote areas.

The main reasons are limited recruitment sources, unattractive remuneration, and difficult working conditions, causing many teachers to leave the profession. Some new subjects in the 2018 General Education Program such as information technology, music, and foreign languages ​​are even more difficult to find teachers.

Faced with this situation, some key solutions can be considered. First, urgently organize the recruitment of teachers according to assigned targets, prioritizing subjects and areas with serious shortages.

Along with that, there are policies to attract students to study pedagogy through scholarships, recruitment commitments or training orders according to local needs. Third, improving the treatment of teachers, especially in difficult areas such as increasing allowances, supporting housing, reducing administrative pressure, creating conditions for professional development.

With the National Assembly passing the Law on Teachers in this 9th session with many regulations on incentives for teachers, it is hoped that this will attract more excellent students to pedagogical schools, improving the shortage of teachers in the near future.

In addition, in the context of many new communes being merged after the district level was abolished - leading to one commune being able to manage up to three kindergartens, three primary schools, and three secondary schools - I propose considering the arrangement of inter-school teachers for subjects with serious shortages. This is a temporary but practical solution, helping to optimize existing teacher resources and ensure that students do not have their studies interrupted.

Finally, it is necessary to review and rearrange the school network in a reasonable manner to effectively utilize the teaching staff, especially to study the adjustment of school and class sizes to suit the current situation and conditions.

Ensuring enough teachers is not only a personnel solution, but also a prerequisite for effectively implementing the new education program and ensuring the right to education of all students, especially from the 2025-2026 school year. Under the direction of General Secretary To Lam, the education sector will organize teaching 2 sessions/day in primary and secondary schools depending on the conditions of each locality.

Ho Chi Minh City: "ordering" human resource training

According to the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City is currently collecting data from facilities to finalize the number of teacher recruitment for the 2025-2026 school year.

In previous years, Ho Chi Minh City had difficulty recruiting teachers for music, fine arts, English, computer science, and physical education for primary schools. Secondary schools had difficulty recruiting teachers for computer science, music, fine arts, English, and technology.

For high school level, there is also no "source" to recruit music and art teachers. However, this year at primary level, there are places that lack and places that have excess English teachers, so the transfer will solve the above local situation.

In addition, to improve the quality of the team, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City said that this year it will continue to innovate in teacher recruitment. Specifically, it will promote decentralization of recruitment authority to schools; increase recruitment from excellent students; build many policies to attract local human resources and attract resources from provinces and cities to work in Ho Chi Minh City.

In particular, continue to order human resource training at universities in Ho Chi Minh City to recruit teachers at all levels...

The whole Dak Lak province is still short of more than 1,200 teachers, creating pressure on teachers' shoulders - Photo: TRUNG TAN

Dak Lak: urgently recruiting teachers before July 1

Speaking to Tuoi Tre, Mr. Nguyen Thien Van - acting chairman of the Dak Lak Provincial People's Committee - said that recruiting teachers is an urgent task to ensure the effectiveness of the new general education program. However, time is running out, and many places are having difficulty keeping up with the schedule.

Dak Lak currently has more than 505,000 students at more than 1,000 educational institutions. The total number of cadres, teachers and employees is more than 35,000 people. Meanwhile, the Provincial Pedagogical College has only 190 students, showing that on-site training resources are very limited.

The province is currently short of about 1,200 teachers. Hundreds of them are teaching on short-term contracts, receiving only nine months' salary and no summer income.

The People's Council recently passed a resolution allowing the contract of 1,297 more teachers in 2025, equivalent to 70% of the shortfall compared to the norm; the budget of more than 78 billion VND is taken from the local budget. The province is currently directing localities to urgently complete the work to ensure teaching and learning in the new school year.

Mr. Bach Van Manh, director of the Dak Lak Department of Home Affairs, said he is asking localities to urgently complete teacher recruitment before July 1 to ensure teaching and learning after implementing the policy of abolishing the district level.

Long An: worried about human resources and facilities difficulties

Ms. Phan Thi Da Thao - Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Long An province - said that in the last school year, nearly 20% of schools in the province organized the second session with a fee for students. Most of the schools organized this second session at the primary level, mainly concentrated in urban centers such as Tan An city, Ben Luc town, Duc Hoa town... and a few schools in remote areas where parents have a need.

Regarding the policy of teaching 2 sessions/day for free from the 2025-2026 school year for primary and secondary schools, Ms. Thao said that the department is still waiting for specific instructions from the ministry to advise the Provincial People's Committee to implement in accordance with the policy.

"Once implemented, the locality will certainly be able to do it, however, we must also wait for specific instructions to be able to arrange and prepare human resources and facilities appropriately and in accordance with regulations. Because human resources and facilities are also two issues that the locality still has difficulties with," said Ms. Thao.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/ca-nuoc-thieu-gan-120-000-giao-vien-go-ngay-nut-that-tuyen-dung-20250528085204745.htm