The wrong approach to downsizing the teacher workforce.

Many schools have long complained about a shortage of teachers but have been unable to recruit them. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Training has repeatedly urged localities to fill all allocated teaching positions each year. Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son has repeatedly stated that despite the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Interior 's efforts to secure additional teaching positions for the education sector, and the Politburo allocating 65,980 teacher positions for the 2022-2026 period, many localities still have thousands of unfilled positions over the past four years.

Responding to recent voter petitions regarding the teacher shortage that has been slow to be addressed, Mr. Nguyen Kim Son also pointed out that one of the main reasons is that many localities are not recruiting all the allocated positions, instead reserving quotas for downsizing the workforce.

A high school principal in Hanoi shared that the school is short of teachers in some subjects like computer science, technology, and art, but has an excess of teachers in subjects like literature, geography, and biology, some of whom do not meet the requirements of educational reform. The school hopes to recruit new teachers for the subjects in need and streamline the workforce in subjects with an excess of teachers, or where teachers still do not meet the requirements after training. Currently, however, "higher authorities" only look at the total number of teachers in schools A and B to allocate staffing quotas, rather than considering the actual shortage or surplus in each subject.

Therefore, this principal believes that downsizing is still necessary, but it must be done with thorough review, eliminating teachers in subjects where there is an excess of teachers or teachers who do not meet the job requirements; using those quotas to recruit teachers in subjects where there is a shortage, and selecting talented individuals.

Clearly, saying that downsizing the education sector is unnecessary due to a shortage of teachers is not entirely convincing if we understand the true meaning of downsizing. In reality, the education sector not only faces a shortage of teachers but also a surplus in some subjects; and a segment of teachers do not meet the required professional and technical standards, or even ethical standards…

According to Government Decree No. 154 dated June 15, 2025, on downsizing the workforce, one of the categories considered for downsizing is those who are redundant in terms of job positions but cannot be assigned or arranged to other jobs; those who have not met the required training standards but there are no other suitable job positions available, etc.

However, observations and feedback from the Ministry of Education and Training show that many localities have long been using the method of reserving allocated annual staffing quotas to gradually reduce the number of civil servants to be laid off. This is the easiest and least disruptive approach for the management agency. However, this is also the method that causes many schools to complain year after year about the surplus or shortage of teachers without any resolution. This approach also leads to many graduates with good or excellent academic records in education, who are well-trained to meet the requirements of educational reform, being unemployed or working on temporary contracts because they lack opportunities to apply for jobs.

Public opinion expects that from 2026, under the Law on Teachers, the education sector will be granted the power to recruit and assign teachers in a manner that closely follows the actual processes of teaching and education, overcoming the current limitations of applying a general mechanism for civil servants without considering the specific characteristics of the profession.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/cach-lam-sai-ve-tinh-gian-giao-vien-185251222221057586.htm