Developing preschool education in the new situation

For preschool education to develop and achieve high efficiency, it requires synchronous development. In recent years, with the attention of the Party, the State, and authorities at all levels, they have invested in facilities and equipment to meet the needs of preschool education development in the locality. However, for synchronous development, in addition to investing in facilities and equipment, the issue of training management staff and preschool teachers needs to be given attention and placed first.

Children's study hours at Anh Nguyet Kindergarten, Ward 6, Ca Mau City.

In Ca Mau, the total number of existing kindergartens is 133, including 119 public schools and 14 private schools; 106 schools meet national standards. The total number of classes is 1,166, with 99.60% of 5-year-old kindergarten children attending class. The total number of managers and teachers is 2,294. The percentage of teachers with standard and above-standard qualifications is 96%.

In general, policies on salaries, insurance, rewards and other benefits for teachers are given attention and gradually improved. Every year, teachers are given the opportunity to fully participate in professional training courses organized by the education and training sector.

However, according to Joint Circular No. 06/2015/TTLT between the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Home Affairs (Circular 06), by December 2022, the province still lacks 127 teachers and the number of teachers who have not met the standards according to the 2019 Education Law is 81/1,991, requiring training to upgrade standards from intermediate to college for preschool teachers.

Currently, the teacher/class ratio is only 1.7 teachers/class. Due to the lack of teachers, the rate of mobilizing children under 5 years old to attend class is still low compared to the regional average and the national average. Mr. Le Hoang Du, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, said: "The lack of preschool teachers has caused great pressure on teachers, especially for boarding classes, where the workload has doubled compared to classes with 2 teachers. The prolonged shortage of teachers will greatly affect the health of teachers; affect the quality of care, nurturing and education of children; especially ensuring the safety of children still has many potential risks. Because there is only 1 teacher/class, parents are not confident in sending their children to school, which has made the rate of mobilizing children under 5 years old to go to class still low. Therefore, finding solutions to attract preschool teachers, developing a team of preschool teachers with increasingly solid professional qualifications, high skills, ensuring educational innovation to meet the increasing demands of society is a very necessary and urgent task in the current period".

Caring for and educating preschool children is quite a hard job. (Illustrative photo, taken at Pink Lotus Kindergarten, Ward 8, Ca Mau City).

Cai Nuoc district is the locality with the highest rate of shortage of preschool teachers in the province. In the 2014-2015 school year, the whole district had 11 preschools, 76 satellite schools, 169 classes, 3,128 children, an average ratio of 18.5 children/class; the total number of managers, teachers and staff was 225 people. In the 2020-2021 school year, the district organized civil servant recruitment exams for all levels, thereby adding 20 preschool teachers, but there was still a shortage of more than 40 preschool teachers to ensure that according to regulations, a maximum of 2.2 teachers/class must be arranged for preschool classes with 2 sessions/day. The shortage of teachers has significantly affected the work of nurturing, caring for and ensuring the safety of children at preschool education facilities.

Mr. Nguyen Minh Phung, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Cai Nuoc district, suggested: “To increase the ratio of preschool teachers/class to ensure compliance with regulations in the coming time, the education sector needs to implement synchronous solutions, including continuing to implement the project of arranging the school network in the direction of eliminating extra classes; doing a good job of reviewing and forecasting the scale of preschool development in each period to determine the need for teachers. At the same time, innovate the management of educational institutions, focus on building a modern, safe, healthy and friendly working environment; arrange working hours and rest time for preschool teachers appropriately and in accordance with regulations. Have policies to attract preschool teachers to work in districts, avoid the situation of preschool teacher contracts while there are still many recruitment quotas and positions in schools".

From the above situation, the Ca Mau education sector has proposed many solutions and orientations for training and developing the teaching staff in the coming time. Mr. Le Hoang Du, Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training, shared: "Effectively implementing Plan No. 06/KH-UBND dated January 19, 2021 on implementing the roadmap to improve the standard qualifications and training of managers, preschool and general education teachers in Ca Mau province for the period 2021-2025, the sector innovates communication work, management of training activities, and training of teachers and managers of preschool education facilities; arranges and assigns teachers to preschool education facilities reasonably, ensuring convenience for teachers to both work and study; coordinates with local teacher training facilities; innovates training work, improves the quality of training of teachers and managers of preschool education facilities; promotes socialization of training and training of teachers and managers. Implements policies and regimes for teachers participating in standard training, creating consensus among the teaching staff; conducts evaluation of preschool teachers according to GVMN professional standards. In addition, carry out inspection and supervision of the training process, summarize and evaluate the quality of training annually".

The work of a preschool teacher is a special job, a process of using personality to educate personality. Caring for and educating preschool children is like building the foundation for a house. If preschool children form a solid foundation of psychology and personality right from the first years of life, it will be a good condition for comprehensive development later. To do this, the effort, intelligence, and personality of each preschool teacher is indispensable./.

Quynh Anh

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