Quickly resolve difficulties for the education sector in paying contract teachers' salaries

Difficulty in paying salaries to contract teachers

From January 2024 to present, the payment of wages and salaries to contract workers under Decree No. 111/2022/ND-CP at educational institutions has encountered difficulties and obstacles. Currently, most of the State Treasuries of the districts have temporarily stopped payment, only allowing advances or only allowing payment to some subjects... because the labor contracts have not been assigned targets by the Provincial People's Committee.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Linh is a contract teacher of Natural Science at Quan Bau Secondary School (Vinh City). She is also the only teacher who has asked for an advance salary because she has just given birth to a small child and is facing many difficulties. Ms. Linh said: "As contract teachers, our income is lower than that of teachers on the payroll and is also unstable because we are paid by the hour. Therefore, we hope that the province will have a mechanism to facilitate the payment of salaries to help teachers stabilize their lives."

Due to a lack of teachers, this school year, Quan Bau Secondary School has contracted 9 teachers. For a long time, salary payments have been partly deducted from the school's revenue, and partly supported by the city. Over the past 3 months, salary payments for contract teachers have been temporarily interrupted and the school has a mechanism to advance salaries for teachers. However, only 1 teacher has requested to receive an advance, the rest are waiting for instructions.

Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai - Principal of Quan Bau Secondary School said: "The shortage of teachers is not only happening at my school but also at many other schools in the city. Therefore, teacher contracts are necessary to ensure teaching and learning in schools. If the payment of salaries to contract teachers is interrupted, it will affect the teachers' psychology and will also affect teaching and learning in schools."

Nghe An has nearly 1,500 schools. To carry out the task, for many years now, educational establishments have signed seasonal labor contracts with thousands of support and service staff (cooks for boarding and boarding schools; security guards, janitors, etc.) and hundreds of teachers at all levels due to lack of staff.

In addition, the whole province has more than 340 teachers and employees who have been under indefinite contracts with the District People's Committee for many years but have not been recruited due to many reasons.

Payment of wages and salaries for the above contract subjects is taken from the unit's operating budget (budget and career revenue), support and payment sources from the district-level education budget.

Decree No. 111/2022/ND-CP dated December 30, 2022 of the Government regulating contracts for certain types of work in administrative agencies and public service units, effective from February 22, 2023.

Decree 111 clearly states 3 types of contract performance work: Support and service work in administrative agencies and public service units to manage and apply regimes and policies according to the provisions of labor law, civil law and other relevant legal provisions; support and service work in administrative agencies to manage and apply regimes and policies like civil servants; professional and technical work in the list of job positions, specialized and professional titles used in public service units.

The new Decree clearly stipulates the costs of implementing contracts to resolve difficulties and problems arising from practical implementation and ensure funding for implementing new regulations.

For administrative agencies, the cost of implementing support and service contracts comes from the State budget and other revenue sources (if any), outside the agency's salary fund.

For public service units, the budget for implementing labor contracts for support, service, professional and technical work shall be implemented in accordance with the provisions of law on financial autonomy of public service units, and in accordance with the provisions of law on budget decentralization. For units implementing special financial mechanisms, it shall be implemented in accordance with the special financial mechanism approved by competent authorities.

Create favorable mechanisms for schools

Regarding this issue, in early March 2024, the Department of Education and Training sent a document requesting the Provincial People's Committee to issue a document providing unified guidance to implement the regime for contract workers in accordance with regulations and in accordance with reality.

Specifically, for contracts to perform support and service work, because Decree 111 does not stipulate the number of contracts for support and service work in administrative agencies and public service units and this subject is not on the payroll, the number of employees and not on the salary fund of the agency, the payment costs are used from the unit's self-balancing source.

For contracts to perform professional and technical work, the determination of financially autonomous units according to the provisions of Decree No. 60/2021/ND-CP dated June 21, 2021 of the Government stipulating the financial autonomy mechanism of public service units in districts, cities and towns is being implemented differently. In particular, primary schools and units that do not collect tuition fees or have low tuition revenue are determined to be public service units with the State ensuring regular expenditure.

For preschool, middle school, high school and continuing education, due to tuition revenue, some districts identify them as public service units with the State ensuring a part of regular expenses, while other districts identify them as public service units with the State ensuring regular expenses.

Meanwhile, in reality, because the tuition fee source after deducting 40% of salary reform according to regulations, the remaining 60% is balanced into regular expenses (to strengthen facilities, support educational activities at the unit), so some units no longer have career revenue to pay salaries to teachers on labor contracts according to Decree No. 111/2022/ND-CP. Therefore, in the past time, some districts have provided financial support for units to pay salaries to contract teachers due to the lack of standards compared to the specialized Ministry.

Out of numberscontractIn case of a shortage of teachers compared to the quota, educational institutions also have labor contracts: within the quota due to lack of recruitment; contracts to replace teachers on maternity leave or sick leave; contracts to teach subjects that are still lacking (for which there is no quota to recruit due to streamlining), and contracts to teach additional subjects to pilot the advanced school model.

To ensure teaching and learning in schools, the Department of Education and Training proposed that the Provincial People's Committee allow units to sign labor contracts of less than 12 months to perform professional tasks if educational institutions and district-level People's Committees can balance their own funding sources from the budget and revenue of the unit.

Specifically, for public service units, if the province allocates budget, they can sign contracts with a term of no more than 12 months. The number of people signing the contract must not exceed 70% of the difference between the number of employees assigned compared to the number of employees prescribed by the ministry, branch, or sector, and this number is decided by the Provincial People's Council.

The Department also proposed that the province accept payment of benefits for teachers and employees who were signed by the District People's Committee with indefinite contracts many years ago within the assigned staffing quota.

From the 2024-2025 school year, the Provincial People's Committee is requested to assign professional and technical labor contract targets according to the unit's proposal if it has self-financing funding sources.

Review the contract team in the units:

After the Provincial People's Committee received the official dispatch of the Department of Education and Training on the payment of wages and salaries to employees according to Decree No. 111 and the request of the Department of Home Affairs on consulting on handling the request of the State Treasury and related documents, the Official Dispatch of the Nghe An State Treasury on the payment of the number of contracts according to Decree No. 111/2022/ND - CP dated December 30, 2022 of the Government on contracts for a number of types of work in administrative agencies and public service units, on March 8, 2024, the Provincial People's Committee issued Document No. 1744/UBND - TH on contract labor according to Decree No. 111/2022/ND - CP.

Accordingly, to ensure compliance with the prescribed documents, the Provincial People's Committee has the following opinion: For contracts for support and service implementation, follow Official Dispatch No. 1509/BNV - CCVC dated April 6, 2024 of the Ministry of Home Affairs in response to the State Treasury of Vietnam. Specifically, for this subject, there is no regulation on the assignment of the number of support and service contracts in administrative agencies and public service units. Contract workers are not included in the payroll, the number of employees and are not included in the salary fund of the agency or unit. The decision on the number of contracts (including short-term contracts) is under the authority of the head of the public service unit.

Regarding contracts for performing professional and technical work in public service units, the Provincial People's Committee assigns departments, branches, sectors, People's Committees of districts, cities, towns, and public service units to review the implementation of labor contracts of units under their management authority. At the same time, report difficulties and problems related to contracts for performing professional and technical work in public service units, and send documents to the Department of Home Affairs for synthesis.

The Provincial People's Committee also assigned the Department of Home Affairs to preside over and coordinate with the Department of Finance, the Provincial State Treasury, the Department of Education and Training and relevant agencies and units to research and advise competent authorities on solutions to handle difficulties and problems. The review will be completed before March 15, 2024.