The new 2022-2023 academic year has begun, but many localities are still complaining about teacher shortages. This is not only attributed to the new national general education program, but also to the resignation of teachers.

Vu Minh Duc, director of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET)’s Department of Teachers and Education Administrators, said the ministry is reviewing teacher resignation and job switching after the 2021-2022 academic year. 

“Preliminary statistics show that the number of teachers quitting their jobs to date has accounted for more than one percent of total teachers at preschools and general schools throughout the country,” Duc said.

The number of teachers resigning is higher in large cities and industrial zones such as HCM City, Hanoi, Da Nang and Binh Duong, and in areas with difficult conditions such as Son La and Gia Lai. The proportion is not too high compared with other professions, but it still causes a headache to leaders of the educational sector.

A report released by MOET in mid-August 2022 showed there are 1.6 million teachers for different education levels. This means that 16,000 teachers (1 percent) have resigned or switched to other jobs within a year.

In HCM City, from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2022, as many as 5,501 public employees resigned and the number of employees in the educational sector was the highest - 2,436.

From January 2021 to April 2022, the number of teachers who resigned in Binh Duong reached 527. In Dong Nai, 1,218 teachers have resigned since 2020.

The chief cause is the unreasonable wage policy. Teachers receive professional and seniority allowances, but the incomes in general, especially for new teachers in particular, are still very low, which are not high enough to cover basic needs. 

This has prompted teachers to seek other jobs which bring higher incomes to cover daily needs. It is easy to seek other jobs in large cities and industrial zones because of high demand from enterprises.

Also, many teachers cannot adapt to the new circumstances which require them to satisfy new professional skills (application of information technology and new teaching methods). 

Many teachers who have poor health want to retire sooner than planned or switch to other jobs more suitable to their health conditions. Many preschool teachers complain that their daily working hours are too long, and that they bear pressure from parents and society.

Many teachers also don’t want to work in localities far from their homes and families, where social and infrastructure conditions are still poor.

Duc said that MOET is collecting more information to figure out reasonable solutions to attract and retain teachers. 

“MOET is joining forces with the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to draw up and propose a new wage policy, under which wages will be paid commensurate with the nature and complexity of work, the specific characteristics of the profession,” Duc said.

MOET has released documents on the tasks of teachers and it will continue strengthening the application of information technology to help ease the teacher workload. The ministry is also working with the Ministry of Home Affairs to adjust the number of teachers for every class to fit the new general education program and actual conditions in localities.

Thanh Hung