If teachers are removed from public service, it will be a huge loss.

On September 17, the Vietnam Association of Administrative Sciences held a workshop to provide comments on the draft Law on Teachers.

Dr. Tran Anh Tuan, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Administrative Sciences, former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, said that to implement one of the three strategic breakthroughs of the 13th Congress term, which is to develop human resources (especially high-quality human resources), the team of teachers plays a very important role, is the decisive factor in education, training, teaching people, developing careers, and creating high-quality human resources.

There must still be a team of officials who are teachers.

According to Mr. Tuan, our country’s Constitution in all periods has stipulated that “education is the top national policy”. This shows that developing education is always the function and responsibility of the State. Although there is a policy of socialization (public and private schools), the State cannot completely transfer its functions and responsibilities to non-public organizations.

Dr. Tran Anh Tuan, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Administrative Science, former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs. Photo: M.Duc

“The State must still be responsible for implementing the “top national policy”, must still have a team of civil servants who are teachers and must be managed according to unified regulations of the civil service regime”, Dr. Tran Anh Tuan emphasized.

Therefore, the State has the responsibility to be the pillar of education and training and needs to create conditions for the non-public sector to participate and develop to promote resources on the basis of complying with market rules...

Mr. Tuan said that the draft Law on Teachers submitted to the Government to prepare for submission to the National Assembly for consideration includes 9 chapters, 74 articles with many contents.

The workshop will listen to comments from different perspectives to contribute to perfecting the draft, improving the quality of law-making; avoiding the issuance of many documents but low quality, duplication, and infeasibility.

This ensures the consistency of policies on attracting, honoring, employing and rewarding teachers regardless of public or private sector. This is also consistent with the Party's policies, the 2013 Constitution, especially the process of building a Vietnamese socialist model with three pillars: Developing a socialist-oriented market economy, perfecting the socialist rule-of-law state and promoting socialist democracy.

Former Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee Nguyen Van Thuan. Photo: M.Duc

Former Chairman of the National Assembly's Law Committee Nguyen Van Thuan said that currently the teaching staff is governed by a series of documents.

Specifically, related to preschool, general and university education, there are the Law on Education and the Law on Higher Education. The group of contents related to recruitment includes the Law on Civil Servants, some cases of leadership positions are regulated by the Law on Civil Servants, other relationships are regulated by the Labor Code, the Civil Code, etc.

“In short, the entire current legal system has fully governed the rights and obligations of the parties in the educational relationship. So what does this law stipulate?”, Mr. Thuan asked.

Responding to the question of whether this Law should be promulgated, Mr. Thuan said, "I think it is best not to promulgate the Law on Teachers."

Should be codified into an Education Code

Associate Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thong, former Assistant to the Chairman of the National Assembly, expressed his opinion that in order to further honor teachers and revive Vietnamese education in the current conditions, perfecting the laws on education, training and teachers is urgent.

However, Mr. Thong said that the content as stipulated in the draft Law will break the structure of the current legal system.

Associate Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thong, former Assistant to the Chairman of the National Assembly. Photo: M.Duc

Because the issues of teachers have been regulated a lot in the Law on Education, Law on Higher Education, Law on Vocational Education, Law on Civil Servants... If we make a separate law on teachers with these contents, we must draw many regulations from current laws, attracting most of the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants to this law.

“If we attract like this, where will the Law on Education, the Law on Higher Education, and especially where will the Law on Public Employees be? Because 1.6 million teachers and 900,000 retired teachers are in the Law on Public Employees, 70% of the state employee payroll is public teachers. Now that they are all withdrawn here, should the Law on Public Employees still exist, who should it regulate? With this law, we will break the structure of another law,” Associate Professor, Dr. Le Minh Thong worries.

If teachers are removed from the Civil Service Law, will public teachers still be civil servants? According to Mr. Thong, the status of state civil servants is very different. Now, pushing teachers out of the concept of civil servants is a huge disadvantage for teachers. Many people will be surprised when they are removed from the civil service system.

From there, he suggested that the drafting committee should reconsider the subjects and scope of the bill if it continues to be issued; or complete regulations related to current laws to continue to enhance the status and responsibility of teachers.

Or, a separate law must be issued to handle it in a synchronous and unified manner within the legal system, to ensure that this law does not break the logical structure of the current legal system, and does not lose the balance in many provisions of the laws, especially the three laws related to education: the Law on Education, the Law on Higher Education and the Law on Vocational Education.

Concluding the workshop, President of the Vietnam Association of Administrative Sciences Tran Anh Tuan raised the issue of whether it is appropriate to build an Education Law on the basis of systematizing (collecting and codifying) the provisions of current laws (Law on Education, Law on Higher Education, Law on Vocational Education), including the Chapter on Teachers for current types of education.

Vice Chairwoman of the National Assembly's Committee on Culture and Education Nguyen Thi Mai Hoa said that this is a very difficult bill, with both consensus and opposition.

On September 25, the National Assembly Standing Committee will meet to give opinions on the draft law. After that, the draft Law on Teachers will be revised and completed to submit to the National Assembly for comments at the upcoming 8th session.

The drafting of this law is based on Conclusion No. 91 of the Politburo, which clearly states the focus on reviewing, amending, supplementing, and perfecting mechanisms, policies, and laws on education and training, including the task of soon developing the Law on Teachers.

According to the Government's submission, the Law on Teachers stipulates teachers; professional activities, rights and obligations of teachers; titles, standards of teachers, teaching practice licenses; recruitment and use of teachers; salary and remuneration policies for teachers; training, fostering and international cooperation on teachers; management of teachers; honoring, rewarding and handling violations of teachers.

The Law on Teachers applies to teachers in educational institutions as prescribed in the Law on Education, state management agencies of education, education and training management agencies, educational institutions and related organizations and individuals.

The government requires employment criteria and preferential policies for teachers.

In the proposal to develop the Law on Teachers, the Government requires designing policies in the direction of having standards and criteria suitable for the role and job position of teachers, and having appropriate preferential, rewarding and honoring policies.

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Politburo: Continue to innovate salary and benefits policies for teachers

The Politburo requires continuing to innovate salary, recruitment, employment, treatment, and attraction policies, ensuring necessary conditions for teachers to perform their tasks well.

Source: https://vietnamnet.vn/neu-dua-nha-giao-ra-khoi-vien-chuc-nha-nuoc-se-la-mot-thiet-thoi-rat-lon-2323176.html