Difficult to implement 'teachers' salaries ranked highest'

The content "teachers' salaries are ranked highest in the administrative career salary scale system" in the revised Law on Education is considered by many experts to create excitement for the teaching community, but is difficult to implement in reality.

On December 7, the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations held a workshop to contribute ideas to the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education.

Delegates discuss at the workshop to contribute ideas to the draft Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Law on Education. Photo: Thanh Hung.

Regarding the proposed new policy for teachers, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Cuong (former Vice Principal of Hanoi National University of Education) agreed to include it in the draft Law on Education. However, he himself acknowledged that this is not an easy task.

Professor Cuong believes that there needs to be some way, in the Law or additional documents explaining the Law or in Government decrees, to ensure that the salary policy is implemented.

“If it is just included in the Law, teachers will be excited, but to ensure implementation, there needs to be more specific regulations in the guiding decrees. If possible, we think we should add some sentences that clearly show the guarantee and appreciation for teachers' contributions,” said Mr. Cuong.

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Cuong.

Similar to the proposal to exempt tuition fees for secondary education in public schools, Professor Nguyen Lan Dung said that these are very good things but also difficult to implement. According to him, the current state budget can hardly afford it.

Sharing the same opinion, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Bich San (Institute for Consulting and Development Research) shared: "That is an encouragement for teachers, but when a cadre after decades of work only receives a pension of 1.3 million VND, I think this is not much consolation."

Therefore, Mr. San suggested that the Ministry of Education and Training should focus on solving more practical problems such as building public kindergartens in industrial parks.

"Currently, there are almost no public kindergartens for children of workers in industrial zones. Therefore, they have to send their children to spontaneous classes that lack professionalism and safety. This is the cause of child abuse, destabilizing society and not creating a solid foundation for future stability," Mr. San further explained his proposal.

Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Bich San (Institute for Consulting and Development Research). Photo: Thanh Hung

Agreeing with the above opinion, Dr. Le Viet Khuyen also stated that the proposal to abolish secondary school tuition fees is not necessary as it is concerned about the fact that many workers' children are currently "helpless".

"We need to think of ways to have more public schools for this group, so that industrial zones can have free public kindergartens," Mr. Khuyen suggested. According to Mr. Khuyen, the cost of kindergarten is currently the most expensive for workers' and poor families.

Regarding teachers' salaries, Mr. Khuyen said that along with this, the Ministry of Education and Training needs to have a mechanism to attract talented people to the teaching profession. "Only when teachers are talented can we talk about educational innovation," Mr. Khuyen affirmed.

According to Dantri