More than 70,000 teachers will be unemployed: How to restructure teacher training schools?

The system of teacher training schools must be restructured and rearranged in the direction of reduction or merger to have more systematic training schools.

By 2020, it is expected that Vietnam will have a surplus of about 70,100 teacher training graduates (41,000 teachers for primary school, 12,200 for secondary school and 16,900 for high school). This means that they will have difficulty finding jobs in the profession they were trained for.

However, the problem of concern is that while tens of thousands of graduates cannot find jobs, the system of teacher training schools is scattered and provides poor quality training. So what should the education sector do to overcome this situation?

Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao, Institute of Pedagogical Research, Hanoi National University of Education, said that, from the lack of teachers nationwide, the education sector has had many solutions to attract students to study this field as well as expand the system of pedagogical schools from intermediate, college to university levels. There were years when the whole country had 142 pedagogical schools. Some provinces had up to 2 schools, including intermediate and college levels specializing in pedagogical training. Many students who finished grade 7 went to study more to become teachers (generation 7 + 3; 10 + 2)...

However, up to now, the shortage of teachers is no longer an urgent need, but the quality of training is considered the key issue. Therefore, the system of teacher training schools must be restructured and rearranged in the direction of schools that both teach and conduct strong pedagogical research. The education sector should reduce or consolidate teacher training schools so that only schools that are strong in finance, facilities and teaching staff remain. In all provinces and cities, there are only a few key schools left, not as widespread as at present.

Poor quality teacher training colleges should be merged to form better quality ones. For example, Hanoi Pedagogical University merged with Ha Nam Pedagogical College. The teacher training colleges will become a branch of the big university.

The system of pedagogical schools must be restructured and rearranged to ensure training quality (illustrative photo)

Tuition-free investment should not be equalized for all students.

In addition to the arrangement and restructuring of the system of teacher training schools, according to Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao, the education sector should reform the teacher training model in the direction of "clinical" teaching for interns, practical teaching in schools like the training method of medical universities. This is also the model that many countries in the world are implementing.

To improve the quality of teachers who can integrate with the world, Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao said that this is a macro policy because the education sector cannot solve it alone but needs the participation of the Government. Accordingly, we need to have a policy to attract good students to "join the army" in the teaching profession.

During the years 1996-2006, teacher training colleges recruited excellent students with scores of 27 points for all three subjects. This generation of students graduated with very good qualifications and skills. Up to now, many teacher training colleges cannot recruit such excellent students anymore. Some colleges cannot recruit enough students to meet their quota or very few students enroll. If this situation continues, perhaps at some point, students will no longer "join the army" in the teacher training industry.

According to Prof. Dr. Dinh Quang Bao, currently, pedagogical schools are implementing a policy of tuition exemption for students. However, equalizing tuition exemption for all students will not attract good people, nor will it create motivation to improve the training quality of pedagogical schools. Therefore, the total budget investment for each pedagogical school will not decrease. Therefore, schools should calculate to increase the investment rate per student rather than spreading that budget.

Assuming that the current budget for Hanoi National University of Education is 100 billion VND per year for 2,000 full-time university students, it is necessary to calculate the increase in investment per student. Thus, the total investment does not decrease, but the budget is only for 1,000 students. This is also a solution to help improve the quality of training, attract good students, and reduce the quota substantially.

Professor Dinh Quang Bao emphasized that it is time, if not too late, for society to prioritize students in the pedagogical sector and to quickly restructure the system of pedagogical schools to train high-quality human resources to be able to integrate with the region and the world./.

According to VOV