Part 2: The 'gap' in teachers and investment in facilities
Among the limitations and shortcomings due to many objective factors as mentioned (in article 1 of this topic - PV), the lack of vocational teachers, or facilities that do not meet teaching and learning needs is a reality in vocational training establishments in Nghe An in particular.
Thanh Nga My Ha• August 26, 2024
Nghi Loc District Economic and Technical College was previously expected to be a vocational training unit in the gateway area of Vinh City with occupations that meet the needs of students and workers in the area and surrounding areas. There were times when the school attracted up to 400 - 500 students studying in the fields of sewing, welding, electricity, refrigeration, mechanics, etc.
However, in recent years, enrollment has faced many difficulties, partly because many parents and students do not want their children to learn a trade, and partly because the school's teaching conditions are still difficult. Sharing about this, teacher Luong Anh Tuan - Principal of Nghi Loc District Economic - Technical College worried: "Our school has 1 sewing class, 1 electricity class, 1 refrigeration class, 1 welding class, which are professions that require adequate facilities to meet the teaching and learning needs of teachers and students of the school. However, at present, only the sewing class meets the facility needs per student, meaning 1 machine/1 student, classrooms are airy and spacious enough, industrial sewing machines meet international standards. Meanwhile, for the welding and electricity classes, the school is having to reuse facilities from many years ago, there are no high-quality welding machines according to international standards".
Sharing about this, teacher Luong Anh Tuan added: Now when going to vocational guidance to attract students, they all ask the question "Can I go to work abroad after studying at your school, how much is the salary, what profession can I work in?". Saying this shows that vocational training today is not only oriented towards the domestic market but also has to reach out to the world, paying attention to the quality of output skills. Students need to be equipped with skills according to international standards. We also really want to invest in facilities and teaching equipment, but the budget allocated in the past few years has been very limited, not enough to buy new ones.
Vinh City College of Economics and Technology is also one of the schools that is active in recruiting. However, in recent years, attracting students has become increasingly difficult and in the past two years the number of students per year has been only about 300 (the lowest in recent years).
To overcome this shortcoming, the school has recently encouraged teachers to write innovative experiences in upgrading and perfecting vocational training equipment such as adding smart features for electrical and electronic occupations; renovating old equipment into smart drying racks, and these equipment have won high prizes in provincial vocational training equipment competitions. However, it is not possible to say that it meets the needs of high-quality skills. Most recently, 3 years ago, the school was granted funding to buy a laminator and a sewing machine. And since then, the school has not been proposed to purchase or upgrade facilities, said teacher Nguyen Huy Luong - Vice Principal of Vinh Economic - Technical College.
Through the recent inspection and supervision of the People's Council of Nghe An province, it has also been shown that in recent years, investment resources for vocational education and investment in facilities and training equipment for vocational education are still scattered, not synchronized, and not reasonable. High-quality vocational education facilities, training in key occupations, and specialized schools for training workers in ethnic minority and mountainous areas of the province have not received proper investment attention.
In addition, investment work is focusing on building classrooms but not on investing in teaching equipment inside. Some investment projects to build vocational education facilities have lasted for many years, leading to a situation where the facilities have not been handed over for use and have degraded and damaged, causing waste in investment. In particular, the Bac Nghe An Economic and Technical College has been invested for more than 10 years, with a total cost of nearly 100 billion VND, but has not yet been put into use.
In addition, the facilities and teaching equipment of most vocational training institutions are still inadequate, the number of practice classrooms, practice workshops, and vocational training equipment is still lacking, many equipment is outdated, old, not keeping up with the development of science and technology, not meeting the requirements of practice. Specifically, the Western Economic and Technical College invested in building a 5-storey theoretical building that is not used to its full capacity, while there is a lack of practice workshops.
Or like Vinh Economic and Technical College, in the period 2015 - 2020, the school was supported to invest in building facilities and purchasing training equipment with an amount of 5.9 billion VND; in which, building facilities alone was 5.2 billion VND, but the investment in purchasing equipment was only 700 million VND and only ensured the purchase of equipment for some low-cost occupations such as: Mobile phone repair, information technology, electronics.
The crisis of vocational teachers is also a difficult problem for vocational schools today and that has a significant impact on the training work of the school. At Nghe An Ethnic Boarding Secondary School, teacher Le Anh Tuan - Principal of the school said: "Every year, our school trains intermediate and primary vocational students for 700 - 900 students. However, the school currently has only 30 teachers, of which 18 are on the payroll and 12 are contract teachers, 40 teachers short of the actual need."
Teacher Le Anh Tuan added: The shortage of teachers is mainly concentrated in the "hot" professions today such as: Fashion sewing, welding, veterinary medicine, civil electricity. Meanwhile, recruiting or contracting teachers in a remote area like Con Cuong district faces many difficulties. A few years ago, teachers under the school's contract when taking students to practice at a company in Bac Ninh province and after finishing the internship, both teachers quit their jobs because the local company attracted them to work with salaries 3-4 times higher than the salary received at the school. The school tried to persuade and offer some preferential policies but these teachers still "left". In fact, this is understandable because the income level at vocational schools is still low, while the school has not received the policy of long-term contract teachers.
Talking about the problem of teacher shortage, Mr. Tran Trung Thuan - Vice Principal in charge of Yen Thanh District Technical College shared the story of teacher Tran Van Tho (mechanical engineer) of the school who has been under contract for more than 10 years but has not been on the payroll. It is worth mentioning that with the current scale of more than 700 students, according to regulations, the school must have 35 teachers to be able to teach classes, but currently the school's payroll has only 16 people. Nearly 20 remaining teachers are on a contract to teach or have been under contract for many years but have not had the opportunity to be recruited.
Mr. Tran Trung Thuan - Vice Principal in charge of operating Yen Thanh District Technical College said: "I understand the feelings of contract teachers very well, because their income and benefits are less than those of permanent teachers. Contract teachers, although they have many opportunities to work in businesses with high and stable income, but partly because they have been attached to the job for a long time, partly because of family circumstances, so they stay. As for young teachers, it is impossible to attract them. This year, our school has 4 students who have just achieved excellent students in the province, the school encouraged them to stay for training so that they can develop into teachers, but no one is interested, because the income at our school is only a few million VND. Meanwhile, when they just graduated, businesses came to recruit them and paid from 9 to 10 million VND/month. Last year, our school was supplemented with a Tourism staff from Vinh. However, after only 1-2 days at school, they asked to transfer because our school is located in Far from the center, the income of new teachers is not guaranteed so that teachers can feel secure working far from home.
Regarding the structure of the teaching staff, previously, Decree 143/2016/ND-CP dated October 14, 2016 stipulated the conditions for investment and operation in the field of vocational education, vocational education institutions must "ensure the ratio of converted students to converted teachers is a maximum of 25 students/teacher; for occupations requiring aptitude, ensure the ratio of converted students to converted teachers is a maximum of 15 students/teacher".
Thus, according to the 2022 student data of 65,498, Nghe An must have more than 2,600 vocational teachers. However, as of June 30, 2023, the total number of vocational teachers in the whole province is only 2,260 (of which, 783 are on the payroll, 1,477 are on contract).
Mr. Hoang Sy Tuyen - Head of Vocational Training Department, Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs said: According to the department's surveys, from 2020 to now, the shortage of teachers in vocational training institutions has been increasing. If in mid-2020, according to a survey on the need to supplement the teaching staff of public vocational training institutions under the province's management, the number of teachers lacking compared to the need was 207 people, then by June 30, 2023, the number of teachers lacking had increased to 340 people.
While the shortage of teachers is widespread, the brain drain of vocational teachers is also a concern for schools. According to a report by the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, in the period 2015-2020, the whole province had 170 vocational teachers leave to work outside, mainly contract teachers. Since then, although there are no new survey data, through actual research in schools, the number of teachers leaving teaching jobs to work outside still happens every year.
In addition to the shortage in quantity, the current vocational teaching staff of the province has not met the requirements, especially in terms of vocational skills, when the whole province currently has only 1,191/2,260 teachers meeting vocational skills standards, accounting for 52.7%. At the same time, although the province has up to 4 vocational schools being oriented to be built into high-quality vocational education institutions (Vietnam - Korea Industrial Technical College, Vietnam - Germany Technical Vocational College, Trade - Tourism Vocational College, Digital Vocational College 4), the whole province has less than 300 teachers meeting level 3/5 standards.
In addition, the number of teachers with teaching certificates is only 2,225/2,260, which means there are still 35 teachers without teaching certificates who are still teaching. On the other hand, through discussions, leaders of some vocational colleges in the province said that the current trend of vocational training is moving towards meeting ASEAN and international standards. Therefore, requiring vocational teachers to be proficient in foreign languages is extremely necessary. However, most of the local vocational teachers currently do not have enough foreign language skills to communicate, research documents or teach in English.
(To be continued)
