Lao Cai City: Flexibly overcome the shortage of teachers

Despite receiving attention from many sides in organizing recruitment exams foreducation officials at all levels, the shortage of teachers is still a "never-ending story" of schools in Lao Cai city.

As a school located in the center of Lao Cai city with good quality of child care and education, modern facilities, but for many years, Hoa Hong Kindergarten has always been in a state of shortage of teachers. According to teacher Le Thi Lien Hoa, Principal of the school, in the 2023-2024 school year, the school has 530 students with 16 groups, classes and 28 teachers. According to the norms of Circular 19/2023/TT-BGDDT effective from December 16, 2023, this school year the school is short of 11 teachers. In addition, due to the large number of students, while the number of teachers is limited, the school has to squeeze and squeeze students into each class. Currently, on average, each class has about 3-6 students more than the regulations of Circular 19.

Teacher Le Thi Lien Hoa said: For many years, the school has faced a shortage of teachers, even at times mobilizing medical staff, accountants, security guards... to support teachers in taking care of children. In the 2023-2024 school year, we have an average of 1.69 teachers/class, the lowest compared to other preschools in the city. Teachers at the school have to flexibly support each other in raising children. These teachers also take on the role of assistant teachers, which is much harder. At the beginning of the school year, the school arranged 3 teachers to be in charge of 2 classes, of which 1 teacher is in charge of each class, the remaining person will "run around" between the 2 classes. The lack of teachers has more or less affected the quality of education and child care.

Faced with the above situation, the Board of Directors of Hoa Hong Kindergarten has developed many plans with flexible solutions to ensure the nurturing, care and education of children. In addition, the school actively posts on the media or asks acquaintances to introduce them to recruit contract teachers. After 2/3 of the school year, the school has recruited 4 contract teachers, helping to significantly reduce the workload of permanent teachers.

“Up to now, the school has basically met the needs of educating children. However, the current solutions are only temporary. Therefore, the school hopes that the competent authorities will have more policies for permanent teachers and contract teachers to soon completely resolve the current teacher shortage,” added teacher Le Thi Lien Hoa.

The lack of teachers is also causing many difficulties in the teaching work of Bac Cuong Secondary School. Ms. Nguyen Thi Minh Hue, Vice Principal of the school, said: According to the norms of Circular 19/2023/TT-BGDDT, this school year the school is short of 3 teachers in the subjects of Literature, Physical Education, and Geography. In addition, due to the large number of students, many teachers are having to teach more than the norm. Currently, on average, each class at Bac Cuong Secondary School has about 44 - 45 students. In addition, the number of 6th grade students recruited by the school also exceeded the plan (according to the initial target of 7 classes, but the mechanical population increased, so in the 2023 - 2024 school year the school has 9 classes).

To overcome the shortage of teachers, Bac Cuong Secondary School is increasing support for teachers from neighboring schools such as Ta Phoi Secondary School and Ngo Van So Secondary School. At the same time, teachers must teach "cross-class", specifically, Math teachers must teach Geography.

The rapid increase in population size leads to an increase in students and class sizes, leading to a shortage of teachers compared to the norm. In the 2023-2024 school year, Lao Cai city was assigned 1,886 positions for cadres, teachers, and employees in the education sector. Compared to the quota of the Ministry of Education and Training, in the coming time, the city will still lack 125 teacher positions. In addition, some schools have a student/class ratio exceeding the school charter such as Hoa Hong Kindergarten, Bac Cuong Primary School, Bac Cuong Secondary School, Le Van Tam Primary School, etc.

To overcome the above difficulties, every year, the City People's Committee issues a decision to assign staffing quotas to educational institutions and organizes guidance, direction, and inspection of the management and use of staff at educational institutions. Timely rectify and remove difficulties and obstacles in the process of ensuring staffing and working standards in schools. In 2022, after being assigned by the Provincial People's Committee to supplement 51 positions in education and training, the city recruited, however, some subjects had no candidates registered or registered less than the enrollment quota such as Informatics, Literature, Music, and primary school teachers teaching the subjects.

Ms. Tran Thi Thuy Dung, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Lao Cai City, said: The review and arrangement of staff was systematically implemented, with widespread consultation at educational institutions and specialized departments of the Department of Education and Training. Thereby, the staff for basic schools was arranged and restructured to ensure the general ratio of assigned staff and subject structure, quality and capacity of teachers, creating motivation for the working team. In the 2023-2024 school year, 77 people were mobilized and seconded. The mobilization and rotation of secondments were carried out in accordance with regulations, publicly and democratically based on reviews from schools.

The Department has also built and deployed a "Teacher Bank" consisting of excellent and experienced teachers from schools, and established a working group ready to support schools in the area.