More than 120,000 applications for Pedagogy

On April 27, the Ministry of Education and Training held a press conference to inform about the national high school exam and university, college and intermediate teacher training entrance exam in 2018. This year, the number of candidates taking the national high school exam is nearly 926,000, an increase of 60,000 compared to last year. Of which, the number of candidates taking the graduation exam is more than 237,000; the number of candidates taking the university and college entrance exam is more than 688,000.

"The total number of applications for the Pedagogy major is 125,260, down 29% compared to 2017; of which the first application is more than 43,000, down 26.9%," said Director of the Department of Higher Education Nguyen Thi Kim Phung.

To solve the problem of teacher surplus for many years, in 2018 the Ministry reduced the total enrollment target for this industry by 38% compared to 2017 (the total target this year is 35,590). The Ministry also set a threshold to ensure input quality for teacher training.

Specifically, if applying for admission based on university transcripts, candidates must have a good grade 12 academic performance. For Music, Fine Arts, and Physical Education, students must have a good grade or higher. For college and intermediate levels, the 12th grade academic performance requirement for candidates for teacher training is good, except for the 3 special majors mentioned above and Physical Education (intermediate) which considers students with average grade 12 academic performance.

In the context of reducing quotas and raising input standards for the education sector, the fact that the number of applications for the sector is still 89,000 higher than the quota is a good thing, according to Department Head Phung."It shows that the Pedagogy industry still receives attention. Candidates who are willing to face the increase in entrance standards and reduction in pedagogical quotas may be good students who truly love the teaching profession," said Ms. Phung.

Determining the enrollment target for the Pedagogy major in 2018 is based on statistics on the demand for teachers in localities and research on the number of unemployed bachelors in this major. Specifically, by 2021-2022, provinces and cities across the country need 59,000 teachers. Meanwhile, about 50% of the 40,000 pedagogy students who have graduated and are expected to graduate from now until 2021 but do not have a job, want to work in the right field of training.

"We plan to attract 20,000 graduates to work, so we will only recruit 35,000 more students this year. Of these, the Ministry has assigned specific quotas to 6 large teacher training colleges, with a total of about 8,000. The remaining number will be decided by local teacher training colleges to suit the needs of their local teaching staff. This solves the current problem of local surplus and shortage," Ms. Phung explained.

This year, the intermediate teacher training sector will recruit 5,000 new positions, according to the Director of the Department of Education, to meet the large and early demand for preschool teachers in localities. Of the 59,000 newly recruited teachers according to the needs of the provinces, 40,000 are for primary and preschool levels.