(PLO)- The income of newly graduated teachers is only 3.3 million VND, much lower than the average income in HCMC.
On the morning of February 7th, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training held an opinion gathering on the development of a project to attract primary school teachers in Ho Chi Minh City.
Missing 3,643 primary teachers
At the meeting, Mr. Nguyen Minh Thien Hoang, Deputy Head of Primary Education Department, Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, reported on the draft outline for developing policies to support primary education in Ho Chi Minh City.
Mr. Hoang said that in the school year 2022-2023, the whole city has a total of 663,426 students. According to the regulations of 35 students/class and 1.5 teachers/class of the elementary school’s regulations, the total number of classes must be 18,955 classes, corresponding to 18,955 classrooms, the total number of teachers must be 28,432 teachers.
| A class of students at Luong The Vinh Primary School, Binh Tan District. Photo: NGUYEN QUEEN |
Therefore, in this school year alone, HCMC lacks 1,758 classrooms and classrooms; lack of 3,643 teachers, equivalent to 12.8% of the number of teachers required. This means that each teacher now has to shoulder 12.8% more work than the actual amount of work they are undertaking.
Many teachers quit their jobs
At the consultation meeting on the morning of February 7, the data of managers and teachers who no longer work in the education sector was also announced. The data is as of December 2022.
In the three school years from 2020-2021 up to now, a total of 219 managers and 2,483 teachers have left the education sector. In which, the cause is partly due to the COVID-19 epidemic that heavily affected the team (39 people), the other part left the education industry because of reaching retirement age according to the regime (1,181 people), leaving jobs (1,233 people). . The total number of staff who have left the education sector compared to the current state of the education sector is as follows, managers accounted for 16.20%, teachers accounted for 10.01%.
Low-income primary school teacher, working too many jobs
The number of obligatory periods of teachers is 23 periods/week, including both homeroom teachers and subject teachers, besides having to do many other unnamed jobs.
Recruiting teachers is difficult. Specifically, in the past three years, the number of teachers recruited for many subjects was only close to the demand. The remaining teachers lack a lot, especially the teachers of informatics, fine arts and the general in charge, the number of recruitment annually only reaches regarding 10% of the demand.
In particular, the demand for recruiting foreign language teachers is very high, second only to the need to recruit teachers of many subjects. However, the number of foreign language teachers recruited only reached approximately 25% of the demand.
Report of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training
According to Article 8 of Circular 02 of the Ministry of Education and Training, in public schools, the salary of newly recruited teachers has a starting salary coefficient of 1.86. Therefore, calculating the total income following subtracting social insurance, each new teacher who graduated from school will receive regarding 3.3 million VND. However, teachers also have other mandatory contributions.
Moreover, when implementing the 2018 general education program, the teaching of the second session becomes compulsory and no longer charges, so the teachers of the grades following the schedule will not have income from teaching the second session. 2.
Resolution 03 should be maintained
Sharing the fact, Mr. Trinh Vinh Thanh, Head of Education and Training Department of Go Vap District, said that in this district, compared to 2021, the operating expenses per primary school student to pay salaries and organize activities compared to 2022 is greatly reduced, leading to many activities to be narrowed and unorganized.
Due to two years of the impact of the epidemic, Go Vap district might not recruit officials, so it had to hire teachers. Schools deduct from the operating budget allocated per student to pay, so at the end of the year, the increase in income for teachers in Go Vap district is greatly reduced.
“Many schools don’t have any money, some schools have 2-3 million dong, the best schools only get 8-9 million dong. I suggest that the Department of Education and Training should work with the Department of Finance to find out why it was cut like that, in previous years it is still guaranteed why this year?” – Mr. Thanh stated.
Regarding solutions to support the development of primary education, Mr. Thanh suggested that the city should continue to maintain Resolution 03 in 2023. Thus, excellent teachers will be spent 1.8 times, salary will increase triple. This is the most basic solution. If Ho Chi Minh City cannot maintain the whole system of civil servants, the city should give priority to the education and health sectors.
In addition, currently there is a policy for teachers to buy a house, but they have to pay 50% of the house value, so many teachers can’t afford it, so it is possible to calculate for them to rent cheap housing.
It is necessary to develop a resolution of the People’s Council to support primary education
Mr. Le Hoai Nam, Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training, recognized that it is now necessary to have policies to support primary education in order to retain and attract teachers. However, the support policy needs to be financially focused because the mechanism is very difficult.
According to the Law on Education, elementary school does not charge tuition while other levels do. Therefore, it is necessary to provide tuition reimbursement for schools to have more operating funds. Moreover, according to the 2018 general education program, primary school students attend two sessions per day, of which the second session is compulsory without charge. Previously, primary school only attended one day, if the second session was to be charged, it was also part of the school’s funding.
In addition, it is very difficult to recruit teachers at schools, so schools need more funding to contract and meet the program.
The income of newly graduated teachers is only 3.3 million VND, much lower than the average income of people in HCMC. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a resolution of the People’s Council on supporting policies on primary education. Specifically, financial support for schools to be eligible to increase salaries and increase income for teachers.
NGUYEN QUEEN
