Many localities in Nghe An allocate budget to support teachers who teach extra hours.

In the 2020-2021 school year, Dien Chau district lacks nearly 150 primary school teachers to meet the demand for teachers.teach 2 sessions/dayis 1.4 teachers/class. Among them, there are schools lacking 3-5 teachers, such as Dien Trung Primary School, Dien Thinh Primary School and Dien Tan Primary School.

The lack of teachers makes it difficult for schools to arrange teaching, especially when teaching 2 sessions/day with an average of 30-32 periods/week. Faced with this reality, the Department of Education and Training has advised the District People's Committee to propose financial support for schools to pay teachers more than the standard number of periods or to sign contracts with enough teachers according to regulations (while waiting for the quota to recruit new teachers) with a support level of 3,500,000 VND/teacher/month. Currently, Dien Chau district has provided more than 2 billion VND to support schools from September to December 2020 to help schools have enough funds to pay overtime wages for teachers in time.

Computer class of students at Lang Sen Primary School (Nam Dan). Photo: MH

In addition to primary school, Dien Chau district also provided more than 1.4 billion VND in funding in the first semester to support kindergartens lacking teachers. It is expected that the funding for both levels of education this school year will be about 11 billion VND. Mr. Mai Ngoc Long - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Dien Chau district said: This support level is not enough to pay for overtime for teachers according to the regulations of Joint Circular 07/2013/TTLT-BGDĐT-BNV-BTC on guidelines for implementing the overtime pay regime for teachers in public educational institutions.

However, the district hopes that teachers will share more difficulties with schools to perform their duties well as well as improve the quality of teaching in schools. Along with this level of support, students in the areaDien Chau districtno need to pay for 2 sessions/day

In addition to Dien Chau district, some other localities have also allocated funds to pay salaries to hire more contract teachers and pay teachers extra hours in the context of a serious shortage of primary school teachers in schools. Of which, Nam Dan district allocated about 3.5 billion VND and Que Phong district more than 200 million VND, ensuring that students do not have to pay extra for 2 sessions/day.

Previously, Nghe An was one of the localities that organized well the teaching of 2 sessions/day for primary school students with a rate of nearly 100%. However, since the beginning of the 2018-2019 school year, the organization of 2 sessions/day teaching in Nghe An province has encountered difficulties after the suspension of Decision 1517. In December 2018, the Provincial People's Committee issued a document guiding the teaching of 2 sessions/day to be implemented on the principles of voluntariness, democracy, publicity and agreement on the contribution level of parents and then issued an inter-sectoral document guiding the Department of Education and Training - Department of Finance - Department of Home Affairs on the guidance on organizing 2 sessions/day teaching at educational institutions from the 2018-2019 school year.

Extracurricular activities of students at Dien Tan Primary School (Dien Chau). Photo: MH

Recently, organizing 2 sessions/day of teaching in the province has encountered many difficulties, because primary school levelnearly 2,000 teachersTherefore, to solve this problem, schools organize teaching 2 sessions/day according to agreement and based on the teacher quota assigned to the schools.

According to the Department of Education and Training, the current primary school teacher ratio in the whole province is 1.32 teachers/class (while the minimum regulation is 1.4 teachers/class). However, there are localities where this ratio is very low, such as Hoang Mai town with 1.17 teachers/class, Do Luong and Quynh Luu districts with 1.23 teachers/class, Nghi Loc district with 1.28 teachers/class.

Particularly for primary education facilities in particularly difficult communes and villages, particularly difficult communes in coastal and island areas, the District People's Committee shall base on the actual situation to direct and balance resources for educational facilities, ensuring the organization of teaching 2 sessions/day, without mobilizing contributions from parents.