Many advantages but not a few challenges

Ho Chi Minh City was newly established on the basis of merging Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and Ba Ria - Vung Tau . Before the merger, the number of students was: Ho Chi Minh City over 1.7 million, Binh Duong 520,700 and Ba Ria - Vung Tau 295,000. Currently, Ho Chi Minh City has only about 2.6 million students, leading the country.

Regarding the school network, before the merger, Ho Chi Minh City had 2,334 schools, Binh Duong 738 and Ba Ria - Vung Tau 469. After the merger, this number increased to 3,541 schools, from kindergarten to high school.

The number of teachers has also increased significantly: Ho Chi Minh City (old) has 83,146, Binh Duong 23,219, Ba Ria - Vung Tau 5,147. In total, the new Ho Chi Minh City currently has 111,512 teachers.

Despite being a dynamic city with developed education , every year Ho Chi Minh City lacks teachers and cannot recruit enough to meet demand. This has been a burning issue for many years.

Last school year, the city needed to recruit 5,762 teachers but only recruited 2,556, short of 2,215. The shortage of teachers still occurs locally in some subjects, schools and areas. In addition, the structure of the teaching staff is not consistent between subjects. After the merger, the number of teachers has not met the training standards according to the 2019 Education Law.

In fact, the number of people working in public general education institutions is lacking compared to the norm (especially when implementing the 2018 General Education Program in all grades of primary, secondary and high schools), especially teachers of Foreign Languages, Information Technology, Music, Fine Arts, Technology, and Physical Education.

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Students of Saigon Practical Primary School on the first day of school. Photo: Nguyen Hue

In the old Binh Duong, although there were support policies for managers and teachers, many policies still did not ensure living conditions, leading to teachers quitting their jobs and failing to attract pedagogical students to work at public educational institutions.

These difficulties have had a certain impact on the building of the teaching staff.

Ho Chi Minh City has the advantage of having established policies and educational development programs focusing on the key goal of comprehensively developing education and training, approaching regional and international standards. In the city, specific mechanisms and policies in the education sector are always given priority to be issued and implemented synchronously and uniformly, creating a clear change in the work of fundamental and comprehensive innovation in the education and training sector.

However, there are still many challenges: The planning and management of the school network is not reasonable; facilities and teaching equipment have not kept up with the annual growth rate of students. The number of students per class is still higher than the regulations; the rate of students studying 2 sessions per day has not met the target, especially in some localities, it is very low; modern teaching equipment has not been invested synchronously and promptly between classrooms and schools.

Not to mention, the team of managers, teachers and staff is still lacking in quantity and not uniform in structure. Some of them do not meet the requirements of foreign language and IT proficiency, leading to the failure to keep up with the requirements of innovation in education and international integration. Particularly, the Foreign Language Education - Continuing Education Centers and some educational institutions in Region 2 (former Binh Duong) still have many difficulties in recruiting teachers.

The merger of Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong, and Ba Ria - Vung Tau into a new megacity brings many advantages to the Ho Chi Minh City Education sector but also many challenges, including: Large administrative boundaries, diverse in many types from rural, urban, island communes, and special economic zones; uneven physical facilities in localities, especially in disadvantaged and densely populated areas. Therefore, the requirement is to focus on researching solutions to ensure quality and teaching conditions suitable to the new situation.

What tasks does the city of 2.6 million students set for the new school year?

In the 2025-2026 school year, Ho Chi Minh City will increase by about 40,000 students. Of the 4 levels of education, the number of students at preschool, junior high school, and high school all increased. Preschool has more than 478,000 students, an increase of nearly 5,000; junior high school has more than 759,000 students, an increase of about 43,000; high school has 352,000 students, an increase of nearly 1,500. Primary school alone has 939,000 students, a decrease of 9,000 students. In addition, there are tens of thousands of students at continuing education centers, specialized schools, etc.

Entering the new school year, the city put into use 1,434 new classrooms (an increase of 1,072 classrooms) with a budget of 4,522 billion VND from the budget. All levels of preschool, primary, secondary and high schools increased the number of classrooms, the most being primary and secondary schools. Hundreds of classrooms from socialized investment sources were also put into use, ensuring 100% of school places for children in the area.

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Students in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Nguyen Hue

With the largest student population in the country, Ho Chi Minh City currently needs to recruit more than 6,000 teachers. In mid-August, the Department of Education and Training announced a broad recruitment plan. High schools need to recruit 671 teachers, while preschools, primary schools, and positions under the People's Committees of wards and communes need more than 5,300 people.

Region I (formerly Ho Chi Minh City) recruited 460 general education teachers and 3,098 teachers of preschool, primary and secondary schools. Region II (formerly Binh Duong) recruited 157 high school teachers and 1,990 teachers of other levels. Region III (formerly Ba Ria Vung Tau) recruited 54 high school teachers and 467 teachers of other levels.

“Maintaining discipline, inspiring creativity, boldly making breakthroughs, aiming for the goal of sustainable development of Ho Chi Minh City education” is the theme that the city's education sector has identified for the 2025-2026 school year.

Many tasks have been set, in which priority number 1 is to perfect institutions, improve the effectiveness and efficiency of state management of education, innovate school governance, and promote autonomy for public educational institutions.

The second is to ensure fairness in access to quality education for learners, paying attention to disadvantaged groups, ethnic minorities, island students, orphans, homeless children, people with disabilities, and people from poor and near-poor households.

Third is to continue to innovate and improve the quality of preschool education, general education and continuing education; Improve the quality, standardize and develop the team of teachers and educational managers at all levels.

Fourth is to innovate political and ideological education; National defense and security education for teachers and students; Continue to build a happy school model.

In addition, the education sector will focus on physical education, sports, school health; ensure school safety, modernize vocational education, expand international integration and promote digital transformation. At the same time, the city will increase investment in infrastructure, attract and effectively use resources to implement the 2018 preschool and general education programs. The goal by 2030 is to reach 300 classrooms for every 10,000 people aged 3-18 and ensure 100% of children go to school.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/tphcm-voi-2-6-trieu-hoc-sinh-can-tuyen-6-000-giao-vien-truoc-nam-hoc-moi-2438965.html