More and more teachers in Vietnam’s southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City had given up their teaching to find higher-income careers, ringing an alarming bell with local authorities about the problem. Low salaries and bonuses as well as boring working environment are main reasons for the trend, the Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper reported Dec 17, citing a local teacher. “We can not live on the current salary levels when daily expenses are increasing days by days,” the teacher added. Every year, the city reports around 1,000 teachers shifting to private educational institutes or companies, where salaries are higher. Many teachers even accept unprofessional careers if they are well paid. The number of university students has increased by 13 times between 1987 and 2009, while the number of lecturers has only tripled, an expert from the Department of Education and Training said, warning that the situation would become worse if the city authorities have no measures to hold on them. The southern metropolis is now home to 1.5 million students and more than 53,000 teachers and lecturers from over 1,628 schools and 30 colleges. (Nguoi Lao Dong - Labor Dec 17 p11)
