The sadness of the 'secondment season'!

This situation is recurring this school year, when the shortage of teachers is increasing and the secondment and transfer of teachers is essentially "making up for the shortage".

Difficult to “pick up, put down”

A week ago, the meeting to select teachers who had to be transferred or seconded from the English department of Tra Lan Secondary School (Con Cuong) had to last until 12 noon. Meanwhile, the evaluation session of the school's Math department also had to last until the afternoon. However, up to this point, the final answer to the question of whether the teachers would stay or leave has not been made.

“The decision to choose whether a teacher stays or leaves is very difficult and we have to consider it many times. This task is also carried out democratically and openly by the school, but it is not easy because it is related to and directly affects the lives of workers” – shared teacher Nguyen Thi Bich Nguyet – Principal of Tra Lan Secondary School.

Tra Lan Secondary School is a model school of Con Cuong district. Since the previous school year, the school merged with the town school, so the school's class size increased to 24 classes, with more than 900 students and is one of the schools with the largest number of students in the district.

Currently, with 41 teachers (including the Team Leader), the school's teacher-to-class ratio is 1.67 teachers/class, which is considered higher than the district's average, but still lower than the province's average and lower than the Ministry of Education and Training's regulation of 1.9 teachers/class. In order to harmonize teachers in the entire district, recently, according to the plan to arrange teachers and staff in Con Cuong district for the 2023-2024 school year, the district determined that Tra Lan Secondary School has 3 surplus teachers (Math - Literature - English) and lacks teachers for Information Technology. In order to ensure the balance of teachers between schools, the school is forced to transfer 3 teachers and this is a difficult problem for the school.

Regarding this, the school principal added: We see that there are some shortcomings in sending teachers away. For example, we currently have 4 English teachers and are arranging enough lessons according to the regulation of 19 lessons/class. But if we have to send English teachers away, the school's teachers will have to work an additional 23, 24 lessons/week and will be overloaded. Not to mention that the school's teaching staff are mainly core teachers of the department, in addition to their duties at school, they also take on many other tasks, such as nurturing excellent students and training, so there will not be enough time.

In the remaining subjects, transferring teachers is not easy. For now, the school will let the groups evaluate the teachers' abilities and will transfer the teacher with the lowest score. However, in general, this is not fair to the receiving school and it is difficult to avoid questions within the teaching staff.

Faced with the transfer of teachers this school year, many teachers in the school who were subject to transfer also wrote letters expressing their wish to stay.

In the application of Ms. Pham Thi Thu Hien - English teacher, she said: "I have no desire to transfer" because "my child has a serious illness, my health is not good, my eyesight is poor and I cannot travel long distances. If I go as a conscript and return to school after my conscript period is over, I am willing to accept. If not, please return me to my old unit, Yen Khe Secondary School".

On the eve of the new school year, the Department of Education and Training of Con Cuong district received about 60 applications from teachers throughout the district asking fortransferwork and of which, only about 20 teachers were resolved.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh An - Head of the District Education and Training Department said: There are 2 groups of people who want to transfer, first, those who are working in difficult areas and want to move closer to home, second, those who want to transfer to special areas to increase allowances.

However, the district must consider and only transfer any subject in two cases: first, the place of application is lacking teachers and second, it must ensure a reasonable teacher structure in the whole district. The district also advocates implementing arrangements to ensure long-term stability, quality of staff and subject structure. Minimize the psychology of choosing a school and a place to work, ensuring objectivity, fairness, no disunity, no negativity. In the remaining cases, a secondment will be implemented, the teachers will be transferred for 1-3 years and then return to their old units.

Need fundamental solution

Not only in Con Cuong district, the issue of transferring and seconding teachers is also a common story in many localities in the whole province and is being implemented simultaneously before the new school year. In Anh Son district, the district's Department of Internal Affairs is currently receiving dozens of job transfer applications from teachers and staff in the whole sector. Most of the applications express the desire to be transferred to a school near home after many years of working far from home, having difficulty traveling and being old.

The application of teacher Pham Thi Hong Lam (born in 1979), currently working at Cao Son Secondary School, asked to be transferred to teach at the town school due to difficult family circumstances, raising two young children alone, and not having a stable home.

Meanwhile, teacher Nguyen Thi Bich Ngoc (born in 1976) after more than 20 years of working, including 16 years on the left bank of the river, now asked to be transferred closer to home because after many years of hard travel, her health has declined, her husband works far away, she has a small child, and does not have much time to take care of and tutor her...

Through studying the teachers' applications, Mr. Nguyen Duc Vinh - Head of the Department of Internal Affairs of Anh Son district also said: All teachers who requested to be transferred to work near their home had legitimate reasons. However, resolving teachers' requests is very difficult, because it depends on the teacher structure of each school. In fact, the number of teachers transferred according to their requests each year is not much, because many schools in the area are lacking teachers.

In addition to teachers, in May this year, the Department of Internal Affairs of Anh Son district also issued a rather special document in response to the resignation of a number of accountants in the district. Many of these people have worked for many years, but because of low salary coefficients and little responsibility allowance, they have requested to switch to working as service staff or requested to take unpaid leave.

With a large number of schools, a wide area, and a rapidly increasing number of students over the years, Do Luong district has for many years had to continue to solve the unreasonable ratio of teachers and staff in general, and the ratio of teachers of specific subjects in schools due to the increase or decrease in the size of schools and the change in the staff of units and the whole industry. The number of seconded teachers also reaches dozens of people/year.

Through discussion, Mr. Nguyen Tat Tay - Head of the District Education and Training Department also said that this year, we are lacking more than 200 teachers and the rate of teachers assigned to schools is still low. However, to ensure teaching and learning, the district is forced to transfer. During the implementation process, the district will continue to resolve the transfer of cases that have worked for many years in difficult areas and wish to move to favorable areas, suitable for family circumstances.

In addition, second teachers should be dispatched to schools in disadvantaged and mountainous areas to ensure that schools can carry out teaching activities; second teachers of surplus subjects at secondary school level should be dispatched to teach at primary schools and priority should be given to teachers for schools that are carrying out the task of building national standard schools and quality assessment.

Regarding the issue of secondment and transfer of teachers, in September 2022, the Department of Home Affairs issued Document No. 2239 on implementation instructions. In particular, it requires units in the implementation process to ensure stability, inheritance, and meet the requirements on the structure, quantity, and quality of the teaching and staff team; balance the shortage and surplus of teachers and staff among public education units at the district level; only transfer and second teachers and staff from surplus schools to shortage schools according to the job position structure or according to the requirements and tasks that need to be strengthened for implementation. Special cases are decided by the Chairman of the District People's Committee.

The implementation must be carried out publicly, transparently, democratically and fairly, criteria and standards must be established for selection and the transfer of teachers and staff must be carried out according to wishes first, then the assignment of teachers and staff must be considered to ensure suitability with actual local conditions.
Currently, localities basically follow this guideline, but in the long term, districts hope that the province and the industry will soon consult to arrange enough teachers to teach classes, because Nghe An is currently lacking nearly 6,000 teachers. This will also limit the situation of annual transfers and secondments and help teachers and staff feel secure in their work and complete their assigned tasks well.