August is the time of year when localities are frantically completing the recruitment of teachers and staff for the new school year. This year, recruitment has seen many positive developments, but it has still not been able to completely resolve the teacher shortage in schools.
Desperate search for a gifted teacher.
Last weekend, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training announced the list of successful candidates for the 2024-2025 school year's education staff recruitment. This year's recruitment results show that 13 out of 15 subjects have recruited enough teachers to meet their needs, including many subjects with very high competition rates such as Physics, Chemistry, and Biology. This is a more positive result than previous years, as there is no longer a shortage of teachers in many subjects.
However, the two subjects that failed to recruit enough teachers this school year are both arts-related subjects. Specifically, Music had 8 successful candidates out of 9 vacancies, and Fine Arts had 3 successful candidates out of 7 vacancies. Previously, in the application review round, Music and Fine Arts had the lowest number of applications, with 13 for Music and 5 for Fine Arts.
Mr. Tong Phuoc Loc, Head of the Personnel and Organization Department (Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training), said that the shortage of teachers for gifted subjects is not only happening at the high school level but also at the primary and secondary school levels. Besides Music and Fine Arts, primary and secondary schools also lack teachers for other specialized subjects such as English, Information Technology, and Physical Education.
Mr. Pham Dang Khoa, Head of the Education and Training Department of District 3 (Ho Chi Minh City), said that one of the reasons for the annual teacher shortage despite recruitment efforts is that local authorities currently conduct recruitment independently. This leads to situations where a single candidate applies to multiple places. Upon receiving the recruitment results, the candidate may not report for duty because they have been accepted elsewhere and have chosen a better working environment. This reality forces districts to organize multiple recruitment drives within the same school year or consider the option of "sharing" teachers between schools.
Representatives from many education departments in Ho Chi Minh City stated that the current income of teachers in public schools is insufficient to retain talented teachers. Many young teachers, after working in public schools for a period of time, have moved to the private sector or private training centers due to better income. This is a problem that the education sector has been struggling with for many years, as it involves many other areas such as finance and incentive policies.
Expanding decentralization for schools.
A new feature of recruitment for the 2024-2025 school year is the addition of two positions for the first time in the education sector: academic affairs staff and student psychological counselors. At the high school level, the results of the recruitment drive in early August showed that 10 candidates were selected for the academic affairs staff position out of a total of 12 vacancies. The student psychological counselor position has not yet been filled because schools are currently employing staff who perform this role in addition to their other duties. For many other positions, recruitment has not yet met the actual needs of schools.
For example, the IT staff position had only 5 successful candidates out of 14 vacancies; accounting staff had 4 successful candidates out of 6 vacancies; equipment and laboratory staff had 7 successful candidates out of 12 vacancies; and clerical staff had only 1 successful candidate out of 4 vacancies… At the preschool, primary, and secondary school levels, the annual demand for medical staff, IT staff, and librarians is very high, but localities consistently face a shortage of qualified candidates.
To address this challenge, in the 2024-2025 school year, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training will expand the decentralization of recruitment to 29 public educational institutions in the city. According to Ho Tan Minh, Chief of the Office of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, the expansion of recruitment authority aims to help schools be more proactive in recruiting teachers and staff, thereby enhancing the responsibility of the heads of institutions and ensuring operational efficiency.
Following the same approach, District 1 (Ho Chi Minh City) is the first locality to announce that it will pilot the decentralization of teacher recruitment to schools, initially focusing on schools following advanced, internationally integrated models. Alongside decentralizing recruitment, the management agency will continue to review, regularly inspect, and evaluate the process to ensure its implementation is on the right track, achieves tangible results, and contributes to improving the quality of education in these institutions.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training is currently finalizing a policy proposal to attract teachers to public primary schools in specialized subjects that are difficult to recruit for, including English, Information Technology, Music, Fine Arts, and Physical Education.
According to the department's proposal, newly recruited teachers in these subjects will receive support ranging from 30 to 50 million VND per academic year for the first three years of their employment. This support includes living expenses, housing, transportation, and costs for self-study and research.
MINH THU
Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/tran-tro-bai-toan-tuyen-dung-giao-vien-post753682.html
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