Vietnam to Face Serious Shortage of Teachers

Vietnam will not have enough preschool teachers in the near future, since working teachers want to give up their jobs, while high school graduates do not want to become teachers, educators have warned. The country is now lack 20,000 preschool teachers to carry out the universal education program for 5-year old children by 2015, said the Preschool Department under the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). The shortfall has caused many difficulties for many schools. Some have had to use babysitters instead, the department added. Low income and high pressures have prompted teachers to quit their job even though the demand for educators is very high in society, it explained. Teachers in private kindergartens receive an average salary of VND2 million per month, while their colleagues in state-owned ones often need to work about four years to achieve this level of salary. Under the current regulations, a preschool teacher has to work from 7 am to 5 pm every day. In fact, teachers have to come to schools very early in the morning to greet children and they leave schools late in the afternoon, only after all the children are picked up by their parents, a teacher said.
“Many teachers tell me that they do not have time for breakfast. They dare not leave for meals in break time, as if something bad happens at the time when they are absent, they will be penalized,” he added.
A recent survey on the education environment in nursery schools conducted by Saigon University shows that when asked about job pressure, 87% of preschool teachers said the hardest pressure comes from their superiors, such as inspectors do not show goodwill, or have casual behaviors, or assign work unsystematically. Meanwhile, only 64% of teachers said they bear pressure from children. The working environment is also a problem, as the survey pointed out that only 40% of teachers feel satisfied with the relationship between teachers and their colleagues. The Southeast Asia country now has more than three million children aged 0-6 being taken care at 12,000 preschools, of which 50% are private ones. It has targeted to bring education chance to 97% of five-year-old children in the next ten years. (Vietnamnet Mar 29)