Many schools suspend classes

Mr. Trinh Quoc Viet, Principal of Giao Thien Secondary School (Lang Chanh District, Thanh Hoa) said that at the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year, the school had 2 teachers of Music and English transfer jobs, and there was no one to replace them, so the school had to temporarily suspend these two subjects.

“The school has reported the lack of teachers and the suspension of subjects to the district and the Department of Education and Training. For Music (8 periods per week), teachers can be arranged to make up for it later. The biggest concern is English (24 periods per week). If the first semester is not taught, it will be pushed into the second semester, and the students will have to study all day, which is very difficult,” said Mr. Viet.

According to Mr. Viet, it is very difficult for English teachers to have contracts now.

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Giao Thien Secondary School, Lang Chanh District, is having to temporarily suspend two subjects due to a lack of teachers. Photo: Le Duong

Sharing the same situation of the school having to temporarily suspend classes, Mr. Nguyen Van Nhan - Principal of Yen Khuong Primary School, Lang Chanh District said that according to the quota, the school was assigned 34 positions, but up to now there is still a shortage of 3 teachers, including the subjects of Information Technology, Library Equipment, and English.

“Every year, to complete these subjects, the district has to send teachers from different schools to teach. It has been almost 2 months and no teachers have returned,” Mr. Nhan shared.

According to VietNamNet's research, most mountainous districts in Thanh Hoa such as Quan Hoa, Ba Thuoc, Muong Lat... are facing a shortage of teachers and have had to temporarily stop teaching some subjects.

For example, in Lang Chanh district, there are currently at least 5 schools that have temporarily suspended IT and English classes.

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Mr. Trinh Quoc Viet, Principal of Giao Thien Secondary School, shared about the lack of teachers. Photo: Le Duong

Difficult to find recruitment sources, lack of funds to pay overtime

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Lang Chanh district said that in the 2024-2025 school year, the whole district is still short of 92 positions compared to the number assigned by the province.

Specifically, the primary school is short of 38 teachers. The most short of them are Yen Thang Primary School with 8 teachers; Giao Thien and Tri Nang Schools each have 6 teachers; Tan Phuc School has 5 teachers. The secondary school is short of 22 teachers, including Lam Phu School with 6 teachers; Yen Thang with 5 teachers; Lang Chanh Town with 5 teachers...

Teachers are mainly lacking in the subjects of English, Computer Science, Fine Arts, Chemistry, Primary Culture, and Geography.

“To overcome the shortage of teachers, at the beginning of the year, the province assigned the district 58 targets for signing contracts according to Decree 111 of the Government . By May 2024, the district had organized recruitment, but only recruited 25 teachers. At the end of September, the Department of Education and Training submitted a proposal to the district chairman to approve the policy of contracting work for the remaining 92 teachers according to the payroll to meet the needs of teaching and learning,” said Mr. Son.

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In mountainous districts, recruiting contract teachers is quite difficult. Photo: Le Duong

According to Mr. Son, the biggest difficulty now is the recruitment source, besides the funding for contracting work to teachers.

Mr. Quach Van Hoan - Head of the Finance Department of Lang Chanh district said that the district is lacking nearly 100 teachers. To ensure enough class hours, there must be substitute teachers and extra teachers.

However, currently, the Department of Finance estimates that the budget is allocated based on the actual number of people, so the budget is only enough to cover professional expenses for the current number of teachers.

“In the second semester of the 2023-2024 school year, the district has not been able to balance the source of payment for teachers to teach extra hours (5 months) at more than 2.1 billion VND. The 4 months of the first semester of the 2024-2025 school year are also in the same situation, estimated at nearly 2 billion VND,” said Mr. Hoan.

Also according to Mr. Hoan, through the above calculation, the finance department is advising the District People's Committee to draft a document requesting the Provincial People's Committee to supplement the budget, because the district cannot balance the source.