Vocational schools struggle with the 'problem' of contract teachers

This process will have a significant impact on many vocational schools, where the number of teachers and contract employees accounts for a large proportion.

The feelings…

At the age of over 40, Ms. Ha Thi Lam is still a contract teacher at the Garment Department - Nghe An Ethnic Boarding Secondary School. Due to the nature of her job and the school's shortage of teachers, she is concurrently teaching many subjects.

After nearly 15 years of contract, this female teacher's dream of becoming a permanent employee has not yet been realized. Although the school still ensures regulations on salary and bonus, according to Ms. Lam, if she is granted permanent employment, she will be assured of her work and will no longer worry about salary cuts or delayed payments.

Recently, the information that the province is reviewing the team of contract employees in administrative agencies and public service units according to Decree No. 111 has made her even more worried. In fact, there was a time when they had to advance their salaries because the school encountered problems from the treasury.

For many years, Nghe An Ethnic Boarding Secondary School has been in a state of teacher shortage. Talking about this, teacher Le Van Tuan - Principal of the school gave a rather inappropriate comparison figure about the staff structure: "Our school was established in 2009, at that time there were 23 staff members and the annual enrollment scale was only 100 students. Currently, the scale is up to nearly 500 students each year, the number of staff members has not increased but has decreased by 2 people. In recent years, we have not been able to recruit new teachers".

Mr. Tuan said that due to the severe shortage of teachers, teacher contracts are inevitable to ensure enough teaching staff. Among them, there are both permanent contracts (from 1 year or more) and guest teaching contracts (depending on the subject). The school currently has more than 20 teachers under contract, of which 13 are permanent teachers (including vocational teachers and cultural teachers), in addition, there are guest teaching contracts according to specific subjects (by class).

However, contracting is not easy because there are not many teachers who are capable and enthusiastic about vocational schools. “Con Cuong is a locality far from the center, so there are not many local vocational teachers. Meanwhile, teachers from the lowlands will not be enthusiastic if they are paid low salaries. Therefore, for a special school like ours, if there is no payroll, if teachers are not recruited on contract, and if schools are not given a separate mechanism for payment, there will be many difficulties in arranging teachers,” said the Principal.

Nghi Loc Vocational College of Economics and Technology is currently training nearly 300 students. Due to many historical reasons, this is one of the rare schools without permanent contract teachers. Meanwhile, the school has not been able to recruit more staff for many years despite many requests. To have enough teachers to teach, the school is forced to contract guest teachers from many different schools, and salaries are calculated based on the number of hours. However, currently, paying salaries to teachers still faces many difficulties.

Since before Tet, our school has spent about 200 million VND to pay salaries to contract teachers that have not been paid yet, with the reason being that we are reviewing the team of contract teachers according to Decree 111.

But in reality, our school does not have this type of employee, because if we say contract teachers, it means that teachers must sign a contract and pay social insurance. The rest of our teachers are not related to any policy, nor are they related to the contracted employees under Decree 111, so we need an "open" mechanism for us to pay their salaries. Otherwise, we will not have teachers in the classroom.

Mr. Luong Anh Tuan - Principal of Nghi Loc Technical Economic Vocational College

Find a solution to the problem

Decree No. 111 clearly stipulates the cost of implementing the signing.contractto resolve difficulties and obstacles from practical implementation and ensure funding for the implementation of new regulations. Regarding this content, recently, under the direction of the Provincial People's Committee, vocational schools in Nghe An province have also reviewed and reported on the implementation of contracts to schools. In addition, schools have also pointed out difficulties and shortcomings.

Sharing more about this, Mr. Le Van Tuan - Principal of Nghe An Ethnic Boarding Secondary School added: We have sent a report to the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs and the Department of Home Affairs about the actual use of labor at the school. Through the understanding at the State Treasury, we are also required that, allcontract teachermust be approved by the competent authority (provincial level).

However, the current reality is that the need for contracts is real and we hope that the province will soon have specific instructions so that we can clearly determine how many teachers the school can contract to ensure teaching and learning at school, without disturbing the minds of the staff and teachers.

At the College of Economics - Industry - Handicrafts, in the past, to ensure the completion of assigned tasks, the school has signed contracts with 14 workers. Currently, according to Decree No. 111, the school has 9 teachers/14 contract workers who are not paid salaries. The number of people working compared to the scale of training the school is implementing is lacking. Faced with this reality, the school has also submitted a document to the Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs for consideration, and submitted to the Provincial People's Committee for permission to sign labor contracts to perform assigned tasks, ensuring that teaching and learning are not interrupted.

In recent years, vocational training institutions have annually organized vocational training for over 60,000 students at college, intermediate and elementary vocational levels.

According to Decree 143/2016/ND-CP dated October 14, 2016, stipulating conditions for investment and operation in the field of vocational education, vocational education institutions must "ensure the maximum ratio of converted students to converted teachers is 25 students/teacher; for occupations requiring aptitude, ensure the maximum ratio of converted students to converted teachers is 15 students/teacher".

Thus, if we refer to the student data of 2022, which is 65,498, the whole province must have more than 2,600 vocational teachers. However, up to now, the total number of vocational teachers in the province is only 2,065 people (803 on the payroll, accounting for 38.8% of the total number of teachers; 1,262 on contract, accounting for 61.2%); 477 people are managers, of which 382 managers also participate in teaching, accounting for 80% of the total number of managers.

According to surveys by the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, from 2020 to present, the shortage of teachers in vocational training institutions has been increasing. If in mid-2020, according to a survey on the need to supplement the teaching staff of public vocational training institutions under the management of the province, the number of teachers lacking compared to the need was 207 people, then by June 30, 2023, the number of teachers lacking had increased to 340 people.

Many vocational training institutions are facing many difficulties in training due to the lack of vocational teachers. Not only that, the situation of “bleeding” teachers is happening in many vocational schools.

According to a report by the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, in the period 2015-2020, the whole province had 170 vocational teachers leaving to work outside, mainly contract teachers.

Since then, although there has been no new survey data, through actual research at schools, the number of teachers leaving their teaching jobs to work outside the home still happens every year.

Mr. Hoang Sy Tuyen - Head of Vocational Education Department (Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs) said: "Although there is a shortage of vocational teachers, vocational education institutions are absolutely not allowed to recruit contract teachers, are not allowed to sign long-term contracts, only 3-year contracts due to tightening management of payroll and number of employees at agencies and units.

In addition, vocational training institutions must continue to streamline their staff according to Decree 113/2018/ND-CP, leading to difficulties in ensuring enough teachers according to actual training needs.