Unable to classify professional ethics standards

When the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) spoke up to answer questions during the implementation of Circular No. 08/2023/TT-BGDDT (Circular 08) on the appointment of professional titles and salary arrangements for teachers, and promised that "in the process of guiding and organizing implementation, if any unreasonable situations arise, we will continue to ask for opinions to make adjustments", the teaching community across the country expressed joy that the worries that have weighed on them for many years have been somewhat relieved.

In September 2015, the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Home Affairs issued a series of joint circulars on regulations on codes, professional title standards, and appointment and salary arrangement for teaching staff in public preschool and general education institutions, effective from November 2015. The series of issued circulars had too many shortcomings and were impractical, so they were replaced by a series of circulars issued by the Ministry of Education and Training on February 2, 2021, effective from March 20, 2021.

A lesson of teachers and students at Ky Son High School, Ky Son District, Nghe An Province. Photo: Khanh Ha

However, this set of circulars once again received strong public backlash for being unreasonable. Therefore, although the effective date of the set of circulars has not yet come, the Ministry of Education and Training has stopped implementing it. On April 14, 2023, the Ministry of Education and Training issued Circular 08 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the 2021 set of circulars, effective from May 30, 2023. Thus, Circular 08 has had to go through a period of more than two years of collecting public opinions nationwide.

One of the biggest shortcomings of Circular 08 is the regulation of different professional ethics standards for teachers for each title level. This is unreasonable, because professional ethics is a common quality of teachers, regardless of title level. Classifying professional ethics standards like this will cause dissatisfaction among teachers.

Different grades, levels of education, and fields of study will have different corresponding professional ethics standards, which is a misunderstanding of the concept of professional ethics for teachers. Amending the regulations to have common professional ethics standards is very appropriate.

The 2018 General Education Program stipulates educational goals for each level and grade to match the training level. Thus, requiring primary and secondary school teachers at level I to have postgraduate training is unnecessary compared to the provisions of the Education Law which only require university level.

In fact, training level is only a part of teaching effectiveness, while professional level to the level of teaching art is decisive, especially teaching young students in the basic education stage. Teachers with higher training level than prescribed by the Education Law should only be encouraged or rewarded, not become a criterion for teacher ranking.

"Sub-licenses" cause many consequences

Every time a teacher is promoted, he or she must attend training to obtain a certificate of promotion. In fact, this is a “sub-license” that has left many negative consequences in society and in the education sector. The quality of the certificate and the quality of education have not been seen yet, but the problem of buying and selling certificates has appeared everywhere, wasting teachers’ time and money, leaving a bad reputation in the cultural environment of schools.

When appointing from an old professional title to a new professional title, some localities require teachers to have sufficient evidence of having performed the duties of the rank, leading to teachers being unable to provide sufficient evidence and therefore not being appointed to the corresponding rank. To overcome this situation, some localities have stipulated that when appointing to the corresponding rank, teachers are not required to have evidence of having performed the duties of the rank.

The regulation on the time to hold the professional title of preschool teacher grade III is 9 years. However, the difference in salary coefficient between grade III (according to the salary table of civil servants grade A0 with a starting salary coefficient of 2.10) and grade II (according to the salary table of civil servants grade A1 with a starting salary coefficient of 2.34) is not much, if the requirement for holding the rank for 9 years will be disadvantageous, reducing the motivation of preschool teachers.

Therefore, in Circular 08, the Ministry of Education and Training adjusted the time to hold the professional title of preschool teacher grade III from 9 years to 3 years to unify with other sectors and fields and reduce difficulties for preschool teachers, which is the most difficult level of education but the State's treatment is still not commensurate.

The most controversial and noisy issue is the change in teacher rankings because it is synonymous with salary rankings, affecting salary policy, which is closely linked to teachers' food, clothing, money and life.

Decree No. 115/2020/ND-CP of the Government clearly stipulates: "Exams or consideration for promotion of professional titles from lower ranks to the next higher ranks in the same professional field". The Ministry of Home Affairs is seeking opinions from the People's Committees of provinces, cities and departments, ministries and branches to amend the decree in the direction of considering promotion and eliminating exams. However, due to the lack of an amendment document, Decree No. 115/2020/ND-CP is still in effect, leading to different implementations in each place.

Hopefully, the Ministry of Education and Training will soon consider and resolve the recommendations of teachers and educational institutions so that Circular 08 can be implemented fairly and effectively, contributing to improving the quality of education.

DANG TU AN, Director of Vietnam General Education Innovation Support Fund

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