Non-public teachers quit, schools face difficulties

Non-public teachers "jump" jobs

Graduated from the Preschool Education Department of Nghe An Pedagogical College, teacher Phuong Ha has worked for nearly a year at a private preschool in Vinh city. The job is hard, the income is less than 5 million VND/month, and she has to pay for rent and living expenses, making her life quite difficult.

Since May last year, due to the prolonged pandemic, preschools have had to stop studying for many months, causing difficulties for her and many other colleagues. In this situation, she switched to learning eyelash extensions and has been living off this side job ever since. Although the new job is “a world apart” from the major she studied, and there is no organization or union, she still has a good income.

Up to this point, preschools in Vinh city have been closed for 8 months and many non-public preschools are in difficult circumstances. Photo: MH

Currently, although she does not have a store, every day through relationships and through referral channels on her personal page, she has 5-10 customers "booking" appointments to have eyelash extensions done at home. If things go well, she can earn over ten million VND per month. "Because I love teaching children, I chose to be a preschool teacher, but in reality, this job is too unstable at this time, the income is low and it is unknown when schools will be able to reopen. For now, I am sticking with this part-time job, to return to teaching, I may have to consider it, depending on the actual situation," Ms. Ha shared.

Graduated nearly 8 years and worked in many units, both preschool and primary school. but at the beginning of this year, Ms. Hoang Thi Binh - a communications staff also decided to quit her job and switch to online sales. Before that, although she had experience and had a good working relationship, after many years working in non-public schools, Ms. Binh was forced to make this difficult choice, because the income of staff and teachers was too precarious "depending on tuition and attracting children".

Teachers of Vinh City's Tuoi Tho Kindergarten instruct students on how to use masks safely. Photo: PV

Meanwhile, for about 2 years now, due to the impact of the pandemic, the operation of private schools has been particularly difficult. For many months in a row, schools have been closed, not welcoming students, which means there is no source of income to pay teachers' salaries. From this reality, despite loving the profession, loving children, and wanting to stick with the job for a long time, many teachers are forced to change careers and move to a new job to make ends meet.

Struggling to "retain" teachers

More than 1 year of fightingpandemic, the operation of non-public kindergartens in the province, most of which are concentrated in Vinh city, has fallen into difficulty due to being closed for many months. Along with dealing with the epidemic and waiting for schools to close again, many schools are also facing the risk of lacking human resources because many teachers have quit their jobs and changed careers.

At Rainbow Kindergarten (Vinh city), up to this point, according to the synthesis, out of 30 teachers, 3 teachers have resigned and the number may continue to increase if from now until the end of the school year the school cannot organize teaching.

Schools without students. Photo: MH

Ms. Hoang Thi Trang - Vice Principal of the school said: "Before Tet, we were looking forward to going back to school, but the outbreak of the epidemic caused all plans to change. During the 8 months of closure, not only teachers but also the school's leadership were not paid, so everyone's life was very difficult and many teachers had to take on a second job, or even change careers.

This also makes it difficult for the school to arrange and reorganize the teaching staff for the coming time, because this is not an easy time to recruit teachers and it will take time to retrain the staff. We are also very sorry because the 3 teachers who changed careers are all experienced teachers and have been with the school since its early days.

There are no complete statistics, but the situation is muchteacherNon-public schools quitting their jobs after a long period of unemployment is a reality in many schools. Even at Arita Kindergarten, one of the schools that cares about teachers' lives, 2 teachers have officially quit their jobs, including 1 teacher who went to study abroad in Korea. Faced with the increasing risk of workers quitting their jobs, the investor has made efforts to "retain" teachers by such means as the school still tries to maintain support of 30% of the basic salary each month for teachers; fully pay social insurance.

Teacher Dang Thi Nhu Huyen - Principalschoolalso said: “Although the school has adequate policies to support teachers and accompany teachers during this difficult period, due to their own conditions and circumstances, not all teachers can stick with the profession for a long time. We also sympathize with teachers and for now still encourage teachers to try to overcome this time. Currently, while waiting to reopen, most teachers have additional jobs, commonly selling online, selling insurance or supporting work with their husbands and families.”

Teachers at Rain Bow Kindergarten are preparing to welcome children back to school. Photo: MH

Since the fourth wave of the pandemic, Vinh City has been the most affected locality, with 40 non-public kindergartens and more than 120 private kindergartens still unable to resume operations. This not only directly affects investors, thousands of teachers and workers, but also affects the long-term care and education of children once schools reopen.

Currently, most schools are in extremely difficult circumstances and the number of schools that can still care for and look after teachers' lives after the pandemic can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

In that context, due to no salary and no insurance, the binding between the investor and the employee is extremely limited. Many employees, if given the opportunity, are willing to change jobs or move to another stable job or one with better income to earn a living and stabilize their lives.

Mr. Le Truong Son - Deputy Head of Education and Training Department of Vinh City

Faced with this reality, although the time to reopen kindergartens has not been set, the lack of teachers is something that the education sector has taken into account. To limit this situation, Mr. Le Truong Son added: “We have grasped the situation and have a plan to ensure that students go to school safely. Accordingly, before students return to school, we will ask schools to grasp the actual needs of parents and develop specific plans, arranging enough teachers to teach in the classroom. If there is a situation where schools lack teachers, classes lack students, we will ask schools to combine classes to arrange enough teachers according to regulations.

In addition, students can be transferred to other schools to ensure safety. In the long term, schools also need to consider recruiting additional teachers and have support policies to stabilize the team and not disrupt the organization of teaching and learning.