Promote the role and responsibility of school boards

Tightening school discipline is the goal set by Nghe An Provincial Party Secretary Nguyen Dac Vinh for the province's education sector. Photo: Quoc Son

The issue of resolving the surplus of teachers was raised by the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee, requiring the Provincial People's Committee and the Education sector to find solutions from the 2017-2018 school year. However, before the new school year, this story was stirred up, discussed, and suspicion was focused on the heads of schools.

In the 2017-2018 school year, to deal with the surplus of teachers, the solution proposed by the Nghe An Department of Education and Training is to assign the “surplus” teachers to teach at primary and preschool levels. In a sense, secondary school teachers will have a higher “level” than primary school teachers and primary school teachers will have a higher level of training than preschool teachers.

In reality, this is not the case. Each level of education has its own characteristics, specialties, age, and student psychology, so different teacher training majors are formed. Arranging surplus teachers into levels that are not in the right major is just a last resort when it is impossible to remove them from the system because of legal factors such as the Labor Law, the Education Law, etc.

Regarding the direct cause of the surplus, according to information from the Nghe An Education Department, by the end of the 2017-2018 school year, the number of surplus teachers signed by districts was more than 500 people, accounting for about 50% of the total number of surplus teachers currently. However, this is a statistical number recorded on the books...

At a meeting with the Standing Committee of Nghe An Provincial Party Committee on July 31, Director of Nghe An Department of Education and Training Nguyen Thi Kim Chi said that it is very difficult to manage and control, and prevent school principals from arbitrarily signing contracts with teachers. The head of the provincial education sector also requested the provincial People's Committee to have strong solutions to solve this problem.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Chi - Director of Nghe An Department of Education and Training requested the provincial leaders to have solutions for school leaders who arbitrarily recruited contract teachers. Photo: Quoc Son

There are two realities here. Firstly, schools have long been lacking teachers, especially for non-core subjects such as Music, Fine Arts, Foreign Languages, etc. In the absence of a staffing structure, school principals have had to “tailor-make” and contract teachers from outside to ensure the quality of education. This also means that the budget “pie” for schools will have to be divided into many parts, causing the average income of staff and teachers to shrink. This is also a difficulty for school principals.

The second issue is that school principals are hiring contract teachers not to ensure the number of classes, subjects and quality of education for students; this is a matter that is raising questions in public opinion. Regardless of the justification, the surplus of teachers is a fact and the principals are the ones who play a direct role.

But not only that, in terms of school security, Colonel Nguyen Huu Cau - Director of Nghe An Police said that the heads of schools have been causing instability in security and order by collecting extra fees, teaching extra classes, and studying extra classes. Of course, here there is the role of management and leadership of the provincial Department of Education and Training.

Explaining his opinion, the Director of Nghe An Police affirmed that in 2017, there were a number of hot spots in the province, the cause of which was parents protesting against extra teaching, extra learning and extra fees from schools. In addition, “borrowing” the form of socialization, the illegal over-collection of fees in schools has not changed despite the strong reactions of public opinion for many years. Is there a systematic, tacit acquiescence of the education sector, with school leaders being the most obvious link?

Flag-raising ceremony at the beginning of the week by teachers and students of Tri Le 4 Primary School (Que Phong). Illustrative photo

Rectifying the team of principals and vice principals of schools is the content raised by Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Nguyen Dac Vinh at the meeting between the Standing Committee of the Provincial Party Committee and the leaders of the Provincial Department of Education and Training. The head of the Nghe An Provincial Party Committee requested to supplement and tighten ethical standards when appointing, assigning, and arranging the positions of principals and vice principals of schools. Saying so does not mean that the team of principals and vice principals have not had ethics for a long time, but in fact there are ethical problems. That is the awareness of complying with the principles and discipline according to regulations of cadres in performing assigned tasks; it is a problem of discipline, violations in management and operation...

Supplementing and tightening ethical standards means making school leaders not act arbitrarily but must work and operate within the permitted framework and scope on the basis of compliance with the law and regulations of the industry and superiors. In fact, for a long time, there has been a phenomenon of principals and vice principals who violate the law but are not strictly handled but are only transferred from one school to another, one locality to another. It seems that there is a gap that allows school leaders to "break the rules" for personal gain. This is a big concern.

Before entering the new school year 2018-2019, Provincial Party Secretary Nguyen Dac Vinh requested the Provincial People's Committee and the Education sector to convene a meeting with the participation of all Chairmen of District People's Committees and principals and vice principals of schools in the province. The purpose is to tighten discipline in the educational environment and also a "therapy" for the leaders of the school system of Nghe An. If held, this will be the first time there is a conference aimed at improving ethical values ​​specifically for principals and vice principals of schools.