No students registered, many subjects have excess teachers

C PATCHING UP IN MANY SUBJECTS

After 4 years of implementing the 2018 General Education Program, the vice principals in charge of professional matters of many junior high and high schools in Ho Chi Minh City said that some subjects are currently being implemented in a patchwork manner, not creating continuity, so the highest results cannot be achieved. The implementation of teaching local educational content, organizing career guidance experience activities... still face difficulties. Activities during class hours are sometimes still formal, ineffective, and not true to their nature. Teachers are still limited and do not meet the requirements to take on the entire subject... leading to implementation that is not in line with the spirit of innovation, causing difficulties and inefficiencies in the implementation process.

A vice principal of a secondary school in District 1 (HCMC) admitted that there were not enough teachers to meet the program's requirements. For example, the new program has added career guidance and local education activities, although they are assigned to professional groups, because the teachers are not specialized, they cannot ensure the activities are carried out well.

Implementing the new education program, many schools have a serious shortage of music teachers but a surplus in other subjects.

PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH

According to this vice principal, there are still many problems in organizing career guidance experience activities. For example, allocating 105 periods/year, an average of 3 periods per week. Some schools reserve one period for activities in the school yard, one period for homeroom teachers and one period for teachers to teach by topic. Organizing experiences in such a collective manner will not achieve the desired requirements and will increase the pressure on the number of periods for teachers.

Similarly, Mr. Nguyen Quang Dat, Principal of Tay Thanh High School (Tan Phu District, Ho Chi Minh City), said that in the field of career guidance and experiential education, local education does not have specialized teachers, so anyone can participate in teaching after training.

A lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City University of Education once commented that teachers from fields other than psychology often have difficulty in absorbing and applying basic concepts of psychology. In addition, according to this lecturer, there are teachers who participate in counseling and career guidance training courses only because of assignment, not because of personal passion. As a result, the quality of counseling work has decreased, directly affecting the ability to support students, causing students to not receive the full and quality help needed for personal and professional development. This has a significant impact on the effectiveness of the program's objectives.

MULTI-SUBJECT TEACHERS WITHOUT TEACHING LESSONS

Another reality, according to school leaders, is that when implementing the new program, because students can choose their subjects, there has been a local surplus of teachers in each school.

At Nguyen Huu Tho High School (District 4, Ho Chi Minh City), according to Thanh Nien reporters, almost no students choose industrial technology and agricultural technology. Only a few students who intend to take exams in medical and pharmaceutical fields choose biology.

According to Mr. Nguyen Quang Dat, at Tay Thanh High School, there is a surplus of biology, technology, information technology, economic education and law teachers. Therefore, these teachers do not have enough mandatory hours (17 hours/week). Therefore, the school assigns them to teach educational activities or converts them to tasks such as supervisory duty, office duty to ensure that the facility receives salary, and is the basis for evaluating the criteria for additional income according to the resolution of Ho Chi Minh City.

Mr. Huynh Thanh Phu, Principal of Bui Thi Xuan High School (District 1), said that in terms of chemistry alone, previously, according to the school's staffing, there had to be enough teachers to teach 15 classes per grade according to the old curriculum, but now when choosing subjects according to the new curriculum, each grade only has 4 chemistry classes. According to regulations, the principal still has to teach some classes, but teachers are now short of teaching hours, so Mr. Phu said: "My major is chemistry, but I cannot teach because there are too many surplus teachers. I have to switch to studying local education to teach enough classes according to regulations."

According to the Principal of Bui Thi Xuan High School, teachers in the technology group also do not have any teaching hours. And the school must find every way to assign and convert the number of hours to suit and ensure the requirements to receive salary and income.

According to Mr. Phu, the imbalance and shortage of teachers varies from school to school. In some schools, students tend to choose natural subjects, so there will be a surplus of social or technology teachers; on the contrary, in some schools, students only choose social subjects, leading to a surplus of natural subject teachers.

"Usually in top schools, if students choose natural science subjects, social science teachers will lack the required teaching hours and vice versa. Therefore, if we only base on surplus teachers to streamline the staff, but if there is a "accidental" change in the student population in a year, schools will not be able to recruit additional teachers in time," Mr. Phu commented.

Therefore, in addition to internal solutions for each school, Mr. Phu suggested that after the schools complete their class staffing, they should review and report to the Department of Education and Training to transfer teachers between schools, possibly within the cluster, to limit the situation where school A has a shortage of teachers while school B has an excess of teachers.

When implementing the new program, because students can choose their subjects, there has been a local surplus of teachers in each school.

PHOTO: DAO NGOC THACH

SERIOUS SHORTAGE OF MUSIC AND ART TEACHERS

On the contrary, most high schools today are facing a serious shortage of music and art teachers due to lack of recruitment sources. Currently, many high schools are having to drop subjects and sub-subjects due to lack of teachers for these two arts subjects.

Therefore, Mr. Nguyen Quang Dat frankly admitted: "The program's goal is that students can choose their subjects, but it has not been implemented in the true sense. If students were allowed to choose in the true sense, where would we find teachers?"

In addition, according to Mr. Dat, currently, teachers have shifted from teaching focusing on knowledge to forming qualities and abilities. However, there are still some teachers who still follow the old way. Among them, there are teachers who do not read carefully and follow the requirements of the program but still follow the textbooks. Among them, many teachers choose the safe way of combining the content of the textbooks to teach.

Some schools do not have enough functional rooms as required.

In a report sent to the Ministry of Education and Training on the implementation of tasks for the new school year in early October, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City said that there are still some localities in the city (District 12, Binh Tan; Binh Chanh District, Hoc Mon...) that have not yet ensured conditions for teaching 2 sessions/day, and some schools do not have enough functional rooms according to the regulations of the 2018 General Education Program.

Some schools still have too many students, affecting the quality of learning. Some educational institutions still lack teachers in many subjects, so they have to hire contract teachers or guest teachers to ensure enough teachers to teach the classes. The shortage of teachers is mainly concentrated in English, physical education, music, and fine arts due to the lack of qualified teachers.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training still faces difficulties in developing the teaching staff and investing in developing the school and classroom system in some districts, especially those with large populations.

Organizing extracurricular activities faces difficulties in arranging implementation time to ensure consensus among participating students with the school's implementation conditions.

Teachers at educational institutions have not received specialized training and have little experience in organizing life skills education activities, so most educational institutions coordinate with businesses to implement them. Some educational institutions have not provided full information about extracurricular educational activities to parents, causing confusion and misconception that these are compulsory educational activities. This has affected the policy of socializing education in enhancing experiential, practical, and real-life activities for students.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/chuong-trinh-giao-duc-pho-thong-2018-khong-hoc-sinh-dang-ky-nhieu-mon-thua-giao-vien-185241023162746039.htm