Proposal for the Department of Education and Training to have full authority to recruit and transfer teachers: A breakthrough for education

The Ministry of Education and Training has just announced a draft circular guiding the functions, tasks, and powers of the Department of Education and Training under the People's Committees of provinces and cities and the field of education and training of specialized departments under the People's Committees of communes, wards, and special zones. Notably, a new point is that the Department of Education and Training has full authority to recruit, manage, and mobilize teachers.

According to the proposal of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Department of Education and Training of provinces and cities will have full authority to recruit and manage teachers at all levels. Illustration photo: Xuan Phu

Proposing the Department of Education and Training to recruit teachers

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the draft was developed to specify the provisions in Decree No. 142/2025 regulating the division of authority of two-level local governments in the field of state management of the Ministry of Education and Training and Decree No. 143/2025 regulating the decentralization and delegation of authority in the field of state management of the Ministry of Education and Training. Compared to the current document, this draft has many notable adjustments.

First of all, it is to expand the authority and scope of management of the Department of Education and Training. In particular, 7 tasks under the authority of the Minister of Education and Training are now decentralized to the Department of Education and Training to advise the provincial People's Committee to implement, including recognizing the province as meeting the standards of universal education level 1 and level 2, eliminating illiteracy level 1; establishing preschool education institutions, general education institutions by foreign diplomatic missions, intergovernmental international organizations; approving joint organization of foreign language proficiency exams; granting, extending, amending, supplementing decisions allowing the establishment of representative offices of foreign educational organizations and institutions in Vietnam; granting, amending, supplementing, extending, re-granting, terminating operations, revoking licenses to establish representative offices of foreign vocational education organizations and institutions in Vietnam...

Notably, according to the draft, the Department of Education and Training is assigned to carry out all recruitment, management, use, reception, mobilization, secondment, transfer, appointment, promotion of professional titles, change of professional titles, training, fostering, and evaluation of teachers, management staff, civil servants, and employees in all publiceducational institutions in the province according to the provisions of Decree No. 142. Previously, for preschool, primary, and secondary schools, these tasks were performed by the District People's Committee and the Department of Education and Training.

In addition, two new tasks are added to the Chairman of the People's Committee at the commune level, which are to decide on recognition, appointment, reappointment, extension of working time to retirement age, dismissal, resignation from office, secondment, change of job position, reward and discipline for heads and deputy heads of public educational institutions under their management; decide on the establishment of school councils; recognition, appointment, dismissal of school council chairmen; addition and replacement of school council members at public educational institutions.

At the same time, decide to recognize or not recognize the school board, chairman, vice chairman of the school board, principal, vice principal at private educational institutions in accordance with the title standards and legal procedures prescribed.

Clearly defining the scope of consultation and the limits of authority at the commune level is a necessary step to perfect the decentralization mechanism in educational management, contributing to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of policy implementation at the grassroots level.

Strengthening management responsibility

Previously, according to decentralization, the Department of Education and Training managed high schools; while the district level managed preschools, primary schools, and secondary schools, including facilities and management staff and teachers. This decentralization was assessed as quite effective, promoting the proactive and positive role of local authorities, especially in the investment in building national standard schools.

For example, in Quang Nam province, the rate of national standard schools at preschool, primary and secondary levels was twice as high as at high school, while the number of schools at each level managed by the district was four times as high as the number of high schools.

However, according to a previous leader of the Department of Education and Training of Quang Nam, the reality is that at the grassroots level, there is a lack of schools, degraded classrooms, or a lack of teachers, students dropping out of school... all "call" to the Department of Education and Training while the district level has full authority to decide from funding to personnel at all levels of education managed by the locality.

Even recruiting teachers at the district level is very difficult, especially in terms of creating exam questions, organizing exam supervision, and grading. Therefore, some localities in Quang Nam previously asked the Department of Education and Training to help organize the recruitment.

Therefore, in the current two-level local government situation, it is clear that giving full authority to the Department of Education and Training to recruit, manage, use, receive, mobilize, second, transfer, and appoint teachers is necessary and correct. This also contributes to solving the current problem of "freezing" teachers at preschool, primary, and secondary levels.

Da Nang city has a large area, mountainous areas, remote areas, and many teachers from the plains come to work. Due to the long-standing decentralization of management at the district level, in reality, every locality has very limited the transfer of teachers outside the area because of concerns about the shortage of teachers.

Therefore, while high school teachers managed by the Department of Education and Training are mobilized throughout the area, many preschool, primary and secondary school teachers are not transferred to the delta. Therefore, this is an opportunity and a breakthrough for the Department of Education and Training of Da Nang city to strengthen management and reasonably regulate the teaching staff in the city, contributing to improving the quality of education.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/de-xuat-so-gd-dt-toan-quyen-tuyen-dung-thuyen-chuyen-nha-giao-buoc-dot-pha-cho-giao-duc-3265378.html