Psychological "shield" gap

School pressure, school violence and the lurking traps on the internet, especially the risk of "online kidnapping" are becoming a burning issue in schools, directly threatening the physical and mental safety of students. More than ever, schools need a psychological "shield" which is a school psychology teacher. However, in many schools in Tuyen Quang province in particular and the whole country in general, this position is still vacant. Psychological counseling is often assigned to part-time teachers, who do not have enough expertise and time to undertake the task. The lack of professional "soul doctors" is leading to unpredictable consequences.

Báo Tuyên Quang•04/11/2025

Listening and supporting students is something teachers can do within their reach.

When school psychology is left open

According to experts, the percentage of Vietnamese students with mental health problems that need to be monitored, counseled and treated is estimated at 10-20%. The lack of psychologists in schools creates a “risk gap”, causing psychological problems in schools to not be detected and intervened in a timely manner, leading to serious consequences. Untreated behavioral disorders can cause even more serious consequences, from disturbing school and public order, to deviant behaviors such as causing injuries, resisting law enforcement officers, or dangerous racing...

In schools, the problem of school violence is increasing in both frequency and complexity. Violence is not limited to physical fighting, but has also spread to more sophisticated forms such as boycotting, verbal violence, or mental violence.

Not stopping at violence between students, violence between students and teachers has also occurred and is on the rise, causing public outrage.

Mr. Nguyen Tien Quang, Principal of Dong Tho High School, shared: Exam pressure, family expectations and the psychological changes of puberty make students easily fall into crisis. When the school does not have an official and professional counseling channel, students often find negative solutions or keep them to themselves, which can easily lead to violent behavior or self-harm.

In particular, in the context of students accessing social networks at an increasingly early age, the risk of being scammed, bullied and even threatened in cyberspace has become an urgent issue. A typical example is the phenomenon of "Online kidnapping" - a term used to refer to the act of deceiving and luring students by means of financial, emotional or threatening enticements to force them to do as requested, even leading to physical danger such as appointments and blackmail.

At the end of September, HTT (11th grade student, a high school in Tuyen Quang province) was the victim of this trick. He received a phone call from an unknown number, the subject claiming to be a "police officer" investigating a "drug and money laundering case". With the trick of "soft manipulation, hard release", sometimes threatening, sometimes encouraging, they lured T. into an online call, forcing him to believe that his personal information had been used by bad guys to commit illegal acts.

The subjects created a scenario for T. to tell his parents to transfer 350 million VND to resolve the case. When they did not agree, they created a scenario in which T. had just had a traffic accident and demanded 10 million VND in hospital fees. Fortunately, as soon as the unusual signs were discovered, the family coordinated with the school and local police to promptly intervene and rescue T. from this scam trap.

This is not an isolated case. Male student M. (born in 2007, in Hanoi ) also received a call from someone claiming to be a police officer, informing him that M. was a suspect in a money laundering case, asking him to transfer all the money in his account to "prove his innocence". The subject also forced M. to maintain a connection via the Zoom application and forbade him from revealing the incident to anyone, even asking him to go to a motel to "lock himself up" to prepare for the money transfer order.

In the above cases, psychology teachers play an essential role in educating "digital skills" and "online psychological defense". They are the ones who help students identify traps, protect personal information and know how to react when threatened. When this position is left vacant, students easily fall into a state of confusion, fear, and do not dare to seek help from family or school.

A lesson of teachers and students at Hoa An Primary School.

The story of 3 "no"s

The current state of school psychological counseling in Tuyen Quang and many other localities can be summarized in the story of three "no's": No specialized counseling room, no staffed specialist, and no stable operating budget.

The paradox is that from state management agencies to schools and society, the role of school psychology teachers is highly appreciated, but in reality, this department is extremely temporary and patchwork. According to regulations, schools need to have personnel to do psychological counseling, but the staff for this position is almost non-existent. The vast majority of schools apply the form of part-time work, entrusting it to the teacher in charge of the Team, the Secretary of the School Youth Union, or the homeroom teacher.

At Dong Tho High School, a psychological counseling room has been established for many years and is assigned to the Secretary of the School Youth Union to be in charge of it concurrently. Mr. Nguyen Tien Quang, Principal of Dong Tho High School, shared: "We open the counseling room every Thursday. However, at the school, not only teachers in the counseling team participate in supporting psychological counseling for students. The homeroom teacher is the one who eats lunch and takes a nap with the students, so the school assigns the task of listening to the students' thoughts and wishes and coordinating with the teacher who is also in charge of the psychology room to thoroughly resolve problems in order to prevent bad things that may happen in school life. But in terms of management, I think if the school psychological counseling room in the school had an official person in charge, on the payroll, this would be much better for the operation of the psychological counseling room in the school."

The situation of holding multiple positions becomes even more difficult in remote areas. Mr. Do Trong Son, Principal of Thang Mo Primary Boarding School, said: "The school psychology counseling room is very important to the school because it helps to resolve many concerns of boarding students, prevent school violence, and help parents recognize abnormalities in their children. However, because the job position is not included in the recruitment and there is no compensation policy, we have to assign the homeroom teacher, the Team Leader, the medical staff and the Vice Principal to direct the counseling team to hold multiple positions."
Mr. Son also frankly raised the challenge: Attracting teachers who have been professionally trained in school psychology to work long-term in schools is really a difficulty because human resources in the psychology field are always scarce, and the income and benefits for school psychology teachers are not really attractive enough for them to feel secure in their commitment.

Need to remove the mechanism

A survey in Tuyen Quang shows that many primary, secondary and high schools are still unable to establish psychological counseling rooms because the biggest problems are lack of funding and staff.

Appreciating the role of school psychology counseling, Master Hoang Manh Hien - Psychological expert, life skills training - Tue Minh Life Skills Education & Training Company frankly admitted that school psychology counseling currently does not meet social needs. According to Master Hoang Manh Hien, there are three main reasons. First, the standards of school psychology counseling rooms in schools are not up to standard, many schools do not even have counseling rooms. Second, most schools requisition a number of teachers who are about to retire or a number of teachers with limited teaching skills to work as school psychology counselors. Therefore, the effectiveness as desired by society has not been achieved. Third and also extremely important is that due to the current recruitment mechanism and policy regime not being available and being quite complicated, very few people with real capacity and passion for the profession accept to work as school psychology counselors.

To improve the effectiveness of this work, since 2023, the Ministry of Education and Training has issued a Circular guiding job positions, stipulating that each school is allowed to arrange one person to be a student counselor. In case of not being able to arrange a staff, a labor contract or part-time teacher will be arranged.

However, from 2023 to now, most public schools have not yet recruited staff for this position, but mainly use part-time or contract teachers, leading to ineffective counseling work. Many school leaders still consider psychological counseling work as secondary, so they do not pay due attention to investing.

Master Hoang Manh Hien emphasized: "School counselors need to be professional personnel with the requirement to achieve at least the appropriate specialized level such as school counseling, school psychology, or educational psychology, clinical psychology with a practice certificate. Counselors must understand what is normal development, what is deviant behavior; must have skills in collecting information, analyzing data, knowing how to use testing tools; knowing the process of individual counseling, group counseling for teachers, and group counseling for parents".

A good sign is that the Ministry of Education and Training has just issued Circular No. 18/2025/TT-BGDDT (dated September 15, 2025) providing guidance on school counseling and social work in schools. This Circular stipulates that the Provincial People's Committee is responsible for directing, arranging, allocating personnel, funding, and facilities; developing a coordination mechanism and organizing inspection and supervision of implementation. This is an important step in the process of perfecting the policy system, especially in caring for the mental health and comprehensive development of learners.

It is time for us to be honest: Investing in "soul doctors" is not only an educational task, but also a social responsibility, to equip students with a strong shield against violence, pressure and dangers from cyberspace.

Article and photos: Ly Thu

Specialized prevention and counseling programs are needed.

Ms. Ha My Hanh, Head of the Department of Political Science and Educational Psychology, Tan Trao University

Ms. Ha My Hanh, Head of the Department of Politics and Educational Psychology, Tan Trao University

Current school psychological problems, especially school violence and cyberbullying, are at an alarming and complex level. This causes long-term psychological damage such as anxiety disorders, depression and other negative emotions and actions in victims, even leading to extreme consequences. The increase and complexity of these problems show that school psychological counseling is still open-ended, unprofessional and lacks specialized prevention and counseling programs.

In the educational environment, school psychological counseling plays an extremely important role and depends heavily on the staff doing the counseling work. A professional psychological counselor with in-depth training in Psychology not only consults individuals and groups, builds prevention programs but also has the ability to detect and solve more complex problems. For example, depression, anxiety, crisis, trauma in students and has professional intervention measures. From there, contributing to effectively solving the increasingly complex school psychological problems today.

Performed by: Thuy Le

Early recognition, timely support

Ms. Luong Thi Hoa, group 12, Minh Xuan ward

Nowadays, children are exposed to social networks from a very early age. Using social networks is like a double-edged sword. If exploited properly, it will bring a lot of useful knowledge, but on the contrary, it also has many potential risks. There is a lot of content on the internet that is not suitable for their age. Children are easily influenced by words and deviant behaviors, and are even lured, enticed, and chatted with strangers without realizing the risks. Besides, sometimes parents' expectations also unintentionally create pressure on scores and exams, making children easily fall into a state of stress, fatigue, withdrawal, and difficulty sharing. As parents, we are very worried because we cannot always monitor, understand, and accompany our children in time.

I hope the school will pay attention to integrating life skills training courses, and have a team of psychological teachers who are professionally trained to accompany the children in the development process, helping to detect early signs of instability, providing timely advice and support to guide them in the right direction in behavior, conduct and study. This is very necessary for children to develop comprehensively in a safe and healthy environment.

Performed by: Nhu Quynh

Hope to reduce pressure

Nguyen Quynh Anh, student of class 9A2, Chu Van An Secondary School, Quang Binh commune

Student Nguyen Quynh Anh, class 9A2, Chu Van An Secondary School, Quang Binh commune

Nowadays, we students receive a variety of knowledge and information, pressure from studying, exams, and some problems encountered in daily life, sometimes make me feel stressed and have difficulty concentrating. Therefore, I always need the support, encouragement and motivation of my parents and teachers.

Facing the explosion of social networks, gender issues, school violence or scams, I am also very afraid because my personal information can be revealed. I wish to listen and share more with my family and teachers about the difficulties and pressures I am experiencing to practice life skills, raise awareness of protection and self-control. If the school and family create conditions for students to exchange and share their thoughts and pressures, I will be more confident and proactive in studying and balancing my life.

Performed by: Moc Lan