Care for school staff

Students of Nguyen Tri Phuong Secondary School (Ba Dinh District, Hanoi ) during their weekly meeting. Photo: NTCC.

Lots of work, little income

Librarians in each school today do not only have the task of keeping books and lending books as before. According to the 2018 GeneralEducation Program, students have a reading period every week. Therefore, librarians must also prepare a reading period for students that is attractive, interesting, and appealing to students. In addition, depending on the requirements of each school, they organize reading for students in various forms to help foster students' reading ability and passion for books. That requires librarians to invest, research, and learn from other colleagues to improve work efficiency.

Similarly, with medical staff in schools, in addition to being in charge of the health of teachers and students at school, depending on the school, they also take on other tasks such as controlling the meals of students, keeping samples of meals, and doing clerical work. Due to the limited staffing quota of each school and often prioritizing the recruitment of new teachers to meet the requirement that there must be teachers when there are students, school staff is a position that schools rarely recruit for, but often take advantage of existing staff to take on additional tasks. This causes school staff to always take on many other unnamed tasks while their salaries and bonuses are always much lower than those of teachers with the same seniority.

Ms. Dang Thu Thuy, a medical officer at a primary school in Thanh Tri district, Hanoi, said that she was assigned to supervise the delivery of food for boarding meals for students, so she had to be at school at 6 am. During the school day, she had to be on duty at the school to prevent students from getting sick or having a fever. "The biggest worry is that if students have a collision or fall during class, they need to give first aid immediately and, depending on the situation, coordinate with teachers to take them to the hospital. There are more than a thousand students, so injuries are inevitable. Every day I go to work, I don't dare to neglect my work. Besides, I have other part-time jobs assigned by the school board, especially on days when the school organizes large and small events, so many logistical tasks come to hand," Ms. Thuy shared.

Hope to improve policy soon

According to statistics, nationwide there are currently about 150,000 people working in support and service jobs in schools; including more than 37,800 accountants; over 32,100 medical staff, over 35,100 librarians, nearly 32,300 laboratory equipment staff, more than 13,600 information technology staff, clerks, treasurers, education staff, and support for people with disabilities.

Low salaries make it difficult for many school staff to stay in the profession or have to do many other jobs outside. The Ministry of Education and Training stated that in reality, many accounting staff in schools have to quit their jobs to find other jobs. In the 2021-2022 school year, more than 1,300 employees on the payroll quit their jobs. By the 2022-2023 school year, more than 1,400 employees on the payroll quit their jobs.

According to National Assembly member Trinh Minh Binh (Vinh Long delegation), school staff have an important position and role in organizing teaching and learning activities of the school. However, the current salary of school staff is still very low. The representative proposed that there should be solutions to improve the salary for this group.

Responding to this issue, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra informed that school staff includes cashiers, accountants, and clerks with 150,000 civil servants. The salary regime of these people is currently very low, not ensuring the minimum regional salary as prescribed. These people are civil servants, not entitled to the 25% public service allowance, so if the new salary reform is implemented, they may be disadvantaged, while localities and ministries have not yet guided the civil servant promotion exam. Therefore, according to Ms. Tra, in the coming time, the Ministry will request localities to conduct a comprehensive review of school staff, have a plan to arrange the correct list of job positions to reform salaries for this group. At the same time, it will consider promoting school staff.

The Ministry of Education and Training has proposed that school staff receive a preferential allowance of 25% and when newly recruited, after completing the internship, are appointed and have their salary ranked at level 2 in the salary scale of the corresponding civil servant category. The reason is that the 25% level is the lowest preferential allowance that managers and teachers are currently receiving and this is also the public service allowance that civil servants are currently receiving. When newly recruited, after completing the internship, school staff are appointed and have their salary ranked at level 2 in the salary scale of the corresponding civil servant category.

From July 1, 2024, a comprehensive reform of the salary policy will be implemented according to Resolution 27-NQ/TW in 2018. School staff in general hope that in addition to applying the new salary scale, they will also receive an additional 25% allowance to further motivate them to stick with their profession.

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