What direction for teacher training colleges?

New students enrolling for the 2024-2025 school year. Photo: Lang Son College of Education.

At the meeting of the Council for Appraisal of the Planning of the Network of Higher Education Institutions and Pedagogy for the 2021-2030 period, Mr. Nguyen Anh Dung - Deputy Director of the Department of Higher Education (Ministry of Education and Training) informed: By 2030, pedagogical colleges in particular and multidisciplinary colleges in general will no longer train teachers. It is expected that this group will be merged into pedagogical universities or schools with faculties of pedagogy and basic sciences. Another direction is to merge into universities and local educational institutions. Specifically, there are 11 universities playing the core and core role of the network of teacher training institutions in each region and area; focusing on high-quality, high-level educational and training science research with about 50% of the total scale of teacher training nationwide.

In addition, about 22 universities (mostly under the provincial People's Committee) provide training to meet the needs of teachers at all levels of the locality and neighboring provinces, accounting for about 44% of the national teacher training scale. About 17 other higher education institutions participate in training some specific teacher training majors, accounting for about 6% of the training scale.

Regarding the development status, in recent times, some colleges of education have been merged into vocational education institutions or have plans to merge and transform into universities. Other schools that are still operating are facing many problems.

Dr. Pham Ngoc Son - Chairman of the Pedagogical Colleges Club pointed out the issues facing pedagogical colleges from now until 2030. Specifically, the development orientation of schools from central to local levels in the context of planning the network of university and pedagogical education facilities; solutions to stabilize the operations of pedagogical colleges in the period 2024-2030, advantages; difficulties when merging pedagogical colleges and other universities and colleges...

As for the current pedagogical colleges, each school has its own concerns. MSc. Nguyen Thanh Chuan - Vice Principal of Bac Ninh Pedagogical College said that the school has proposed a development orientation for the period 2024-2030 according to 5 options. Including maintaining the current school model; merging with a number of provincial colleges and intermediate schools to form a multidisciplinary college; merging with a number of provincial colleges and intermediate schools to form a multidisciplinary university; merging into a pedagogical university in the region (Hanoi Pedagogical University, Hanoi Pedagogical University 2); merging into a multidisciplinary, multidisciplinary university in the province (University of Physical Education and Sports or Banking Academy - Bac Ninh Branch).

Meanwhile, the issue of where the teaching staff of the schools will go after the merger is also a concern of leaders at all levels as well as the lecturers themselves. Master Nguyen Truong Truong - Chairman of the Council of Quang Tri Pedagogical College expressed his concern that if the merger becomes a branch of the university, how much of the teaching staff of the Pedagogical College will be used and how will the operation of the facility be after the merger.

Regarding this issue, Deputy Minister of Education and Training Hoang Minh Son said that currently, colleges of education are at a disadvantage because they only have one major in training preschool teachers at the college level. The best solution for these schools is to become branches, units of universities of education or multidisciplinary universities that can train teachers. This is the best solution to create opportunities for schools to develop and do better in teacher training. At the same time, it helps schools continue to train at the college level, both at the university level and for teachers of other majors. "This is a condition for development, not a limitation" - Deputy Minister Hoang Minh Son expressed his opinion.

However, from the reality that has happened, Dr. Le Viet Khuyen (Association of Universities and Colleges of Vietnam) pointed out that merged local schools have received almost no budget support from key national universities while having to change their mission, training programs, human resource structure, etc. to suit their new mission. In some places, there is a situation where "local member" schools are also obliged to contribute to the "parent school". Therefore, it is necessary to soon have directives and instructions from management agencies on the merger of teacher training colleges into other educational institutions so that schools, staff, and lecturers can stabilize their psychology and feel secure in their work.

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There are currently 103 teacher training institutions nationwide, including 65 universities, 20 teacher training colleges and 18 multidisciplinary colleges. According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the system of teacher training colleges is not evenly distributed, most of them are concentrated in large socio-economic centers. The role of teacher training colleges is increasingly fading. Colleges now only train preschool teachers, while previously they included primary and secondary school teachers. The reason is that the 2019 Education Law requires teachers at these two levels to have a university degree or higher.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/huong-di-nao-cho-cac-truong-cao-dang-su-pham-10291639.html