Why do many preschool teachers in Vinh city quit their jobs even though they are already on the payroll?

Hot schools still can't retain teachers

In just 3 years, Hoa Sen Kindergarten has received 3 resignation letters, even though the teachers are quite young, just over 30 years old.

In her resignation letter, teacher Le Thu T - a master's degree holder in Early Childhood Education - did not give a specific reason. However, according to the school principal, the main reason was that after a period of working, Ms. T decided to open a private school. "Ms. T is a very capable and responsible teacher. When she asked to resign, the school was very sorry but respected her decision," said teacher Nguyen Thi Hong Van - Principal of Hoa Sen Kindergarten.

In the remaining two cases, one temporarily withdrew his application and asked to work for another year due to family circumstances. The other case quit his job and left the teaching profession to start a business. Having two teachers quit their jobs at the same time made it difficult for Hoa Sen Kindergarten to arrange jobs.

Hoa Sen Kindergarten is the only kindergarten in the province under the Department of Education and Training. This is also a traditional school, considered the top quality public school in the province. Recruiting teachers to the school was not easy in the past and the teachers recruited and put on the payroll were all competent and qualified teachers.

Regarding teachers resigning, teacher Nguyen Thi Hong Van has concerns. She is even worried that with the current mechanism, the number of teachers resigning will increase in the coming years: I think income and work pressure are the main reasons why teachers decide to quit their jobs. For example, recently, our school recruited a young teacher. But this teacher's starting salary is less than 4 million VND/month, not enough to live in the city.

Income is not commensurate

The new school year is just over a month away. This year, Hung Dung 2 Kindergarten is the first kindergarten in the city to pilot the advanced school model. The workload has increased, the need for teachers has increased, but at the same time, the school received information that 3 teachers have resigned.



Sharing about this, teacher Nguyen Thi Bich Nga - Principal of the school added: All three teachers are young, 2 were born in 1986 and 1 was born in 1990. When deciding to resign, the teachers all gave the reason for their family. However, in reality, among the teachers who resigned, they had other expertise so they asked to go out to work to have the opportunity to increase their income. On the school side, in response to the teachers' wishes, we agreed, but this more or less caused the school many difficulties. Before the new school year, our school is short of 5 teachers but we do not know when we will have enough staff.

As one of the three teachers at Hung Dung 2 Kindergarten who resigned, teacher Nguyen Thi Hanh said that she did not hesitate at all before this decision. In fact, her resignation was not a sudden decision but had been prepared.

Previously, this female teacher, born in 1986, graduated from the Preschool Education Department of Vinh Pedagogical University and was recruited into the staff immediately after graduation. However, despite having worked for more than 10 years, her salary until she quit her job was less than 6 million VND. Meanwhile, she had to raise 2 young children and worry about family expenses.

Teacher Nguyen Thi Hanh also confided that while working as a preschool teacher, she had to do many other jobs to make ends meet, such as insurance consulting, real estate consulting, and online business.

Before deciding to quit her job, she also took the opportunity to study for a second degree in law and now, after more than 2 months of official resignation, she is temporarily satisfied with her job at a law firm in the city. "I think that the salary paid to preschool teachers is not commensurate with their efforts and dedication," Ms. Hanh added.

After many years of working in management, teacher Nguyen Thi Bich Nga - Principal of Hung Dung 2 Kindergarten realized that preschool teachers today have a lot of pressure but their income is not guaranteed. Currently, the situation of schools seriously lacking teachers also causes the amount of work for teachers to double, the pressure is greater but the amount of extra payment is not worth much: According to regulations, schools are arranged 1.7 teachers/class. But in reality, we are having to prioritize teachers for 5-year-old classes, 2-year-old classes, 3-year-old classes to ensure 2 teachers/class. Thus, in reality, many classes only have 1.5 teachers/class and teachers are having to work overload from early morning to late afternoon. That is not only hard for teachers but also leads to many safety risks.

Faced with the increasing number of teachers resigning, the Principal of Hoa Sen Kindergarten also said that without policy changes, it would be difficult to attract young teachers: In the past, during each internship season, my school welcomed many young students and they all wanted to work at the school, even on contract. But in the past two years, this has not been the case, even when the school shared the difficulties of lacking teachers. I think that, with the increasing pressure on preschool teachers, many young teachers who have just graduated will not be interested. While they have many other job opportunities that are easier to make money and more flexible with their time.

According to statistics from the Vinh City Department of Education and Training, in 2022, the entire sector had 21 teachers who applied to quit their jobs or retire early. This number in the first half of 2023 was 5 teachers and in 2021, more than 30 teachers applied to quit their jobs at all three levels. In addition to preschool teachers, there are junior high school teachers who graduated with honors and were given priority for recruitment to key schools in the city, but are still willing to quit their jobs to transfer jobs or go abroad.

The high number of teachers leaving their jobs has also left many gaps in schools and partly explains why many excellent students do not choose teaching, even though this is a major with many support policies and the shortage of teachers at some levels has started to occur in the past 5 years...