Second language 'waiting' for teachers: The biggest challenge of the English project

TPO - Since October 2025, when the Prime Minister approved the Project to make English the second language in schools for the period 2025-2035, with a vision to 2045, the expectation of improving foreign language proficiency for students nationwide has been placed at the top. However, in many localities, especially remote areas, the shortage of English teachers is creating a big gap in the implementation process when some schools have only one teacher, and at times students have to "skip school" because there is no one to teach the class.

Teachers on maternity leave, students "skip school"

In October 2025, the Prime Minister approved the Project “Making English the Second Language in Schools for the 2025-2035 Period, with a Vision to 2045”, aiming to improve English proficiency for children, pupils and students. The goal of the project is to make English the second language in schools and this language is widely, regularly and effectively used in teaching, communication, management and educational activities of the school.

Mr. Pham Duc Vinh, Principal of Phuc Khanh Primary and Secondary School No. 1 ( Lao Cai ), shared that when implementing the 2018 General Education Program, teaching English as a compulsory subject from grade 3, the school was in a difficult situation. The whole school only had one teacher teaching this subject, so they were forced to "work at full capacity".

This school year, the English teacher went on maternity leave for 1 month, and no replacement could be arranged, so the students “skipped school” and the school arranged other subjects for English class. Recently, the commune has been able to arrange teachers to teach inter-school.

“The school is in a poor area, and there is no one to sign a contract with. Hopefully, in the near future, the Department of Education and Training will recruit more staff and the school will have more teachers,” said Mr. Khanh.

Teachers at Marie Curie School Hanoi teach English online to students in remote areas.

According to Mr. Khanh, the school is very happy but also worried about the policy of making English the second language in schools. "In favorable areas, students have the conditions to go to the center to study and study by themselves, but in difficult areas, teachers teach for free and students are still reluctant to study, not to mention that there are not enough teachers for this subject," he said.

Mr. Nguyen Van Chien, Director of the Department of Education and Training of Son La province, said that the whole province is currently short of nearly 200 English teachers. To implement the 2018 General Education Program, the sector has had to come up with many solutions.

Specifically, in the 2025-2026 school year, schools will only allow students in grades 1-2 to get acquainted with English once a week; students in grades 3 to 5 will have compulsory English lessons. With a shortage of teachers, the Department of Education and Training requires schools to develop a priority timetable for English, ensuring one teacher teaches online for one class at the same time or arrange teachers to teach inter-school, using video lectures. In particular, recruiting subject teachers is very difficult because there is no recruitment source, and graduates in this field have many job opportunities with more attractive income.

Leaders of the Hanoi Department of Education and Training also informed that in recent years, the locality has sent hundreds of teachers to support online English teaching in mountainous provinces such as Tuyen Quang, Yen Bai, Cao Bang, Dien Bien, etc.

Training teachers of culture to meet English standards

The representative of the Ministry of Education and Training shared that the project “Making English the second language in schools” aims to create an environment for students to communicate more. At that time, students will change the habit of learning English as a subject into a need and passion, thereby improving their language skills and abilities. English will be an important tool for them to establish their careers in the international environment in the future.

“Thus, making English a second language in schools is new and different from the previous subject. In the past, students focused on studying to achieve exam goals, but in the future, schools will create an environment for students to communicate and practice,” he said.

Also according to the representative of the Ministry of Education and Training, the roadmap of the project is from now until 2045, so we have a long time and many solutions to implement. When building the project, we have calculated and researched the experiences of countries with similar population size and culture.

In particular, building an English learning environment will have a number of subjects and educational activities to help students complete their learning tasks through the English language. Therefore, there will be a number of subjects that students will learn and experience in English.

Explaining the decision to make English a compulsory subject from grade 1, a representative of the Ministry of Education and Training said that when implementing the 2018 General Education Program from 2020 to now, 85% of students nationwide have been introduced to the subject from grade 1. Only 15% of students have not studied from grade 1, and these are in remote, isolated, and disadvantaged areas. Therefore, if we take one more step and make English a compulsory subject from grade 1, all students will be able to study it, ensuring fairness.

To solve the problem of teacher shortage, the Ministry of Education and Training determined that about 22,000 subject teachers are needed for preschool and primary schools, but it is not mandatory to recruit teachers at a certain time or with the right major. Besides recruiting teachers is very important, the application of information technology (IT), with the support of forces to implement the project with schools, is also taken into account. For example, the Ministry of Education and Training will build a learning materials warehouse, in which, IT will be used to implement English teaching with the current teaching staff.

In addition, localities must also identify mechanisms to attract, train and foster teachers to take on tasks at facilities.

Pedagogical colleges will have new teacher training models such as primary school teacher training but with English standards. At that time, teachers will integrate tasks, teach English and Vietnamese as language topics, experiential learning...

The Ministry of Education and Training calculates that to implement the project, it is expected that there will be an additional 12,000 positions for preschool English teachers in public preschools nationwide; and 10,000 in primary schools. Instead of teaching English as compulsory for grade 3 as at present, in the near future schools will teach from grade 1.

Source: https://tienphong.vn/ngon-ngu-thu-hai-cho-giao-vien-thach-thuc-lon-nhat-cua-de-an-tieng-anh-post1800876.tpo