Part 1: Schools without English teachers
Although it is a compulsory subject, in the mountainous districts of Nghe An, many schools still do not have an English teacher. The lack of English teachers is a common situation, causing the popularization, teaching and learning of English in the mountainous areas to face many difficulties and challenges for many years.
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My Ha - Tien Hung• April 12, 2025
Over the years, the quality of teaching and learning English in mountainous districts has gradually improved. However, compared to the general level, English is still a "lowland" because teaching conditions and the lack of teachers are still quite common. Meanwhile, every year, many English teachers still ask to move to the lowlands and mountainous districts are still red-eyed to recruit teachers.
In October 2024, just under a month after the opening ceremony of the new school year, Tri Le 2 Primary School for Ethnic Minorities (Que Phong) received information that teacher Le Huyen - the school's only English teacher - had requested to transfer to the lowlands. Although this was undesirable, at that time, the school's Board of Directors understood that this was a legitimate action. Because the teacher had spent many years teaching in remote areas. Meanwhile, her husband and young children were in the lowlands. The job transfer stemmed from the family's essential needs.
Tri Le 2 Primary School is currently one of four primary schools in Que Phong district that does not have an English teacher. To help the school overcome the difficulties, since the beginning of this year, the district Department of Education and Training has assigned four English teachers from the secondary school to teach English to students from grades 3 to 5. Although the students' studies have not been interrupted for the time being, the situation of having to rely on additional teachers has made the school's teaching organization difficult. Sharing about this, teacher Le Viet Minh - Principal of the school said: We have difficulty arranging the timetable. According to regulations, each week students will have 4 periods and will be divided equally among the lessons. But because it also depends on the English timetable in secondary schools and for the convenience of teachers' travel, we have to put English on the last two days of the week, Thursday and Friday, and students have to study English continuously for 4 periods. This will clearly affect the quality and learning of students, especially when they are of primary school age.
Due to the lack of English teachers, while all other schools in Que Phong district have taught the enhanced English program according to the province's support policy, Tri Le 2 Primary Ethnic Minority Boarding School has not been able to do so. Previously, according to a summary of Que Phong district, the whole district is lacking 12 English teachers at both primary and secondary levels, and the shortage of teachers is happening in many schools. Therefore, the district has proposed to add more teachers or support teachers from other schools to teach English online, and encourage foreign language centers to participate in enhanced teaching.
In Tuong Duong district, Mr. Nguyen Van Hien - Deputy Head of the District Department of Education and Training said that every year the department must simultaneously implement many solutions such as rotation, secondment, inter-school and inter-level to teach English in schools due to the shortage of English teachers that has been happening continuously for many years.
According to current statistics, the whole district is lacking more than 20 English teachers at both primary and secondary levels. Recruiting English teachers is very difficult due to lack of recruitment sources, despite having more than enough quotas. In 2025, Tuong Duong district has 8 English recruitment quotas but only 3 applications have been registered. With this situation, despite "weighing and measuring", the district can only basically arrange 1 English teacher for each school. In addition, there are 2 schools with no English teachers: Tam Quang 1 Primary School and Luu Kien Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities.
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Currently, Tam Quang 1 Primary School is also the most "struggling" school in Tuong Duong district when there are 3 teachers from 3 different schools in the area also joining to teach English for grades 3, 4, 5 of the school, including 2 teachers from the primary school and 1 teacher from the secondary school.
The school schedules and classes of the four schools are different, so we have to consider very carefully before arranging the timetable for teachers and students. The school itself also wants to have local teachers who will stay long-term and know the abilities of each student to have a suitable teaching plan."
Teacher Nguyen Huu Hoan - Principal of Tam Quang 1 Primary School
For many years, English has been one of the three subjects chosen by Nghe An as the official subject in the 10th grade entrance exam. While the quality of Literature and Math among localities in the whole province is quite even, the quality of English in mountainous districts is still quite different and very low.
Specifically, according to the Department of Education and Training, from the 2020-2021 school year to the 2022-2023 school year, the average English scores of schools in mountainous and disadvantaged areas of Nghe An were 3.06 - 2.7 and 3.36, respectively. In particular, the entrance exam scores for some schools were very low, such as Tuong Duong 1 High School in the 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 school years were 2.67 and 2.93; the entrance exam scores for Tuong Duong 2 High School were 2.67 and 2.93. Meanwhile, the average entrance exam score for Que Phong High School was 1.88 - 1.55.
In this year's 10th grade entrance exam, while the average foreign language score of the whole province was 4.75 points, the foreign language scores in the mountainous districts of Nghe An only fluctuated from 2.92 to 3.64 points.
According to the Department of Education and Training, one of the reasons why foreign language scores are lower than those of Literature, Math and lower than the province's average is because in previous years, English learning in many mountainous districts was not implemented synchronously and was interrupted due to a lack of English teachers.
In many schools, English was only an elective subject in primary school, so students have not studied or become familiar with it. The lack of knowledge in primary school causes many difficulties for students in secondary school and affects their learning process and entrance exam for grade 10.
Speaking more about this, teacher Truong Thi Lan - English teacher, Ky Son High School shared: After each new enrollment season, I don't know how to describe or complain about the quality of English of the students, their test scores are very low. Even if the test is not in the form of multiple choice, there may be many students with a "0" score.
This situation is very likely to happen, because for many years, besides the town school, students have been able to learn English quite fully. The rest, most of the students in remote areas, schools do not have teachers or have teachers who are patchwork, so they do not have access to learn English fully.
According to Ms. Truong Thi Lan, with very low input quality, after students enter grade 10, English teachers have to "start from scratch", starting from a, b, c even though in theory the students have studied the English program for 7 or 10 years.
A recent sad reality is that due to low English proficiency, after the Ministry of Education and Training made English an elective subject instead of a compulsory subject in the High School Graduation Exam, the rate of 12th grade students registering for the English exam is very low, such as at Ky Son High School this year, only 13 students registered. According to a survey, only 5 students of 10th grade who just entered school this school year registered for the English exam.
At Que Phong High School, according to a survey by the school, among 550 12th grade students this school year, the percentage of students registering for the optional foreign language exam is less than 4%. While the percentage registering for subjects such as History, Geography, and Economic and Legal Education is nearly 50%.
For students in mountainous areas, English is always a difficult subject and it is not easy to get points compared to other subjects. Therefore, choosing alternative subjects is a safe solution and helps them reduce pressure during the review process.
Teacher Pham Hong Tu - Vice Principal of Que Phong High School
With many shortcomings, this school year, for the first time, Nghe An Education Department organized a conference of all principals of secondary schools in the whole province. In the conference, the results achieved, the difficulties and shortcomings of secondary education were also dissected and analyzed, in which the limitations and weaknesses in teaching English in schools were emphasized.
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Mr. Nguyen Tien Dung - Head of Secondary Education Department, Department of Education and Training said: We have analyzed many data to have many different channels to analyze the quality of education in each locality, each school, such as 10th grade entrance exam scores, academic rankings, training rankings, and conditions to ensure teaching and learning in schools.
In reality, compared to many districts in the plains and favorable areas, teaching and learning in mountainous districts still faces many difficulties and shortcomings, especially the lack of teachers, teachers having to teach cross-teaching positions, part-time teachers, and lack of facilities and teaching equipment...
This has also affected the quality of teaching and learning in schools. This is also something that the Education sector is concerned about and needs a synchronous solution to improve the quality of English in schools, starting from preschool, primary school...
(To be continued)
