There must be a teacher for every student.

General Secretary To Lam's speech when giving comments on the Law on Teachers mentioned the most pressing issue of the education sector and of every school today. That is the shortage of teachers.

Directing that there cannot be a "lack of teachers", General Secretary To Lam clearly stated the requirement: "If there are students, there must be teachers" and said that currently, with the national database of residents, it is possible to know immediately how many children in a commune, ward, district or city are going to school this year. And when there are "students", we must be proactive in "having teachers".

Every school year, the shortage of teachers is a burning issue, and each year is more serious than the previous year. Especially since the implementation of the 2018 General Education Program, the shortage of teachers has become more serious and difficult to solve when there are some new subjects, some subjects that were previously elective are now compulsory.

The lack of teachers is not a passive problem. As the General Secretary pointed out, national data on residents can completely tell how many students a ward or commune will have at each level in the next school year or 5 years; the 2018 general education program also had many years of preparation before it was officially implemented, with enough time for teacher training colleges to train teachers, but the education sector is still passive and confused because there are no teachers; there are quotas for staffing and contract policies but they cannot recruit or there is no source of recruitment.

Just a few weeks ago, the news that a series of schools in the mountainous areas of Thanh Hoa province had to temporarily stop teaching some core subjects due to lack of teachers shocked those interested in education. Obviously, the program is the law, the compulsory subjects in the program must ensure that all schools, whether in favorable or especially difficult areas, must organize teaching. Therefore, the fact that schools cannot organize teaching due to lack of teachers is difficult to accept.

These schools and localities later explained that despite having tried many ways, from transferring teachers to teach at many schools in the same area; transferring teachers from one district to another, to "promoting" preschool teachers to teach at primary schools, there were still not enough teachers to teach...

Previously, mountainous districts such as Meo Vac (Ha Giang), Mu Cang Chai (Yen Bai)... were famous nationwide when the head of the Department of Education and Training asked schools in Hanoi to help teach English online for students from grade 3 because there were no teachers and it was impossible to recruit teachers for this subject.

Submitting to the National Assembly the draft Law on Teachers, the Ministry of Education and Training made a breakthrough proposal, which is to transfer the authority to preside over the recruitment and transfer of teachers to the education sector instead of the internal affairs sector as before. This proposal basically received consensus because it would solve the current situation of local surplus and shortage of teachers. However, when being assigned the authority to recruit teachers, the education and training sector will also have to take "full responsibility" from the ordering stage to training teachers to ensure sufficient quantity and quality. At that time, the education and training sector cannot blame the lack of teachers on the lack of recruitment sources. These are also issues that have not been reflected in the draft Law on Teachers.

Solving the problem of teacher shortage is especially expected after the General Secretary's direction: "Now that there is a shortage of teachers, how will children go to school? What leads to the shortage must be resolved", at the same time he noted that many policies must be included in the law.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/co-tro-la-phai-co-thay-185241110221434204.htm