Nghe An: 1,500 surplus teachers still continue to sign new contracts
(Baonghean) - The surplus of teachers comes from unplanned recruitment and failure to develop a plan to review and forecast school and student development plans.
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| Class hours of students at Nghi Long Secondary School (Nghi Loc). |
According to data from Nghe An Provincial Inspectorate, from 2010 to 2014, the recruitment council for education and training career civil servants of districts, cities and towns recruited 3,370 people; of which 1,343 were from preschool, 1,384 were from primary school, and 643 were from secondary school.
From before 2010 to the end of 2014, the People's Committees of districts, cities, towns and schools (from kindergarten to junior high school) signed contracts with 3,195 people to work and teach at schools in violation of regulations.
Some districts such as Anh Son, Quynh Luu, Yen Thanh, Dien Chau have excess teachers but still sign contracts. Of which, preschool level signed contracts with 1,008 people (before 2010: 246 people; in 2014: 228 people); primary level 1,303 people (before 2010: 517 people; in 2014: 269 people); secondary level 884 people (before 2010: 504 people; in 2014: 65 people)
According to the report attached to Decision 466/QD-SGDĐT on assigning targets for the Education and Training Development Plan for the 2016-2017 school year, the number of employees assigned to the primary level in 2016 was 15,777 people, but the current staff has 15,912 people, an excess of 135 people. However, in the 2016-2017 school year, districts, cities and towns still signed contracts with 530 people.
The plan for secondary school in 2016 is 13,314 people, the current team has 13,847 people, 533 people surplus and in this school year districts, cities and towns still signed contracts with 440 people.
Thus, although the surplus situation has occurred since before 2010, units of the Education sector and local authorities continue to sign annual contracts.
“Multi-talented” teachers
The number of 1,500 surplus teachers is causing headaches for localities and the Education and Training sector. It is worth noting that although there are surplus teachers, some subjects lack teachers, or lack library staff and equipment. The largest number of surplus teachers is concentrated in Yen Thanh, Do Luong, Dien Chau and Thanh Chuong districts.
One of the most prioritized solutions today is to train multi-talented teachers and cross-subject teachers to ensure the number of periods for all subjects and enough teaching hours for teachers in primary and secondary schools.
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| Primary school students participating in the VNEN program. Illustrative photo. |
Subject teachers with “surplus” human resources are mostly assigned to teach subjects close to their expertise, such as Math teachers teaching some Physics classes, or History teachers teaching Civic Education classes. However, there are still cases of odd arrangements, such as Literature teachers being transferred to teach Biology, as at Dien Loi Secondary School at the beginning of this school year.
In Nam Dan district, there are still more than 50 secondary and primary school teachers in surplus, but teachers of special subjects such as Music, Fine Arts, English and teachers of Chemistry and Biology are short of more than 70 people. 60% of schools in the district have to accept the situation of natural science teachers teaching Fine Arts and social science teachers teaching Music, although according to Mr. Le Trung Son - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Nam Dan district, "the quality of teaching cannot be guaranteed as required".
Some local bright spots
To solve the surplus situation, in addition to arranging cross-subject teaching, many schools also have flexible plans, suitable to practical conditions. For example, Nghi Long Secondary School (Nghi Loc) has built its own regulations for many years that have received the approval of many teachers.
In there,firstis to increase teachers to difficult areas. Every year, the school publicly announces the number of years of work of teachers. Teachers who have been in favorable areas for many years will be sent to work in difficult areas, mountainous areas (according to the rotation plan of the Department of Education and Training). Before leaving, the Department of Education and Training and the school commit to allowing teachers to return to school after the term expires.
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| Students of Binh Minh Kindergarten (Vinh City) |
Monday,The school has determined to only “train” teachers who are competent, qualified and have the potential to develop. In the 2013-2014 school year, the school had 3 surplus Math teachers. When sending teachers for “training” to be able to teach a second subject, the school decided to choose the person who was assessed as the most competent in the Math group and had the most potential to develop. The school’s view is that if it is difficult, the leader must take the responsibility first.
Tuesday,Arrange and organize work appropriately to suit the practical situation. The surplus teachers are transferred to teach in the afternoon (according to the 2-session/day teaching model). In this second session, the school classifies: Good and excellent students are given advanced training, students with lower abilities are given extra tutoring. Thus, students are given free training and extra classes, and all teachers will be assigned suitable jobs.
Recently, Nghi Loc district has made a plan to address the surplus of teachers in schools and set a target to fundamentally resolve this issue by 2017. Currently, there are only about 60 surplus teachers in secondary schools.
Mr. Nguyen Van Thong - Head of the Department of Education and Training of Nghi Loc district said: Every year we rotate teachers to ensure harmony, rationality and avoid local shortages. In addition, we also transfer secondary school teachers of Foreign Languages and Literature to teach at primary school.
The district also organizes the assessment and classification of surplus teachers according to specific criteria (surplus by subject, health not ensuring work, not completing tasks due to weak expertise, those who do not meet the requirements of the task). On that basis, early retirement is resolved according to Decree 108/ND.CP of the Government or pending retirement according to Decision 86 of the Provincial People's Committee. In the two school years 2015 - 2016 and 2016 - 2017, nearly 30 teachers retired early under this category.
In Tan Ky district, before 2007, due to the reduction of school size by nearly half, there was a time when the whole district had hundreds of surplus teachers, and the policy for teachers was not guaranteed. In 2007, the People's Committee of Tan Ky district chaired a meeting with all contract teachers, shared the difficulties of the district and frankly announced: contract teachers would not have the opportunity to be recruited into the payroll. After that, some public opinion said that the district "was reasonable but not emotional".
However, with the number of more than 1,500 contract teachers in the localities today, after 10-15 years of work still having to work at the starting salary, the way Tan Ky district does it is actually "reasonable and emotional". Many teachers who no longer have opportunities in the district then find other ways to stabilize their jobs.
As for Tan Ky district, after terminating the contracts with 150 district contract teachers, the district has since resolutely not signed any contracts. The surplus teachers have been assigned other jobs, encouraged to retire early or transferred to service work.
Tuong Duong district also has a mechanism to mobilize 65 teachers to resign according to Decree 108 ND.CP of the Government on streamlining the payroll. Currently, Tuong Duong is a district that no longer has a surplus of teachers.
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