The Ministry of Education and Training has just issued two circulars providing guidance on job positions, job title structure, and quotas for the number of employees working in preschool and general education institutions. Specifically, Circular No. 19/2023/TT-BGDDT replaces Joint Circular No. 06/2015/TTLT-BGDDT-BNV and Circular No. 20/2023/TT-BGDDT replaces Circular No. 16/2017/TT-BGDDT.
School health workers provide health care for students
These circulars take effect from December 16. What concerns schools and localities the most is that the school health care position is classified as a support and service position and is implemented under a labor contract regime, not as an education officer or health officer.
K THE GAP IN SCHOOL HEALTH
At schools in Hanoi, many medical staff, especially those who have passed the civil service exam, expressed their worries and concerns. Those who are performing school medical duties said that school medical work has many tasks. Hanoi has a large number of students who eat at school, medical staff also have the task of ensuring food safety with many tasks such as receiving, checking the origin and quality of food, keeping food samples... In addition to monitoring students' health, supporting nutrition staff to develop nutritional regimens appropriate to their age and season, medical staff also participate in monitoring the school environment, disease prevention and control activities...
The principal of a secondary school in Tay Ho District (Hanoi) said that in recent years of the pandemic, the "gap" in school health care has clearly been seen when schools are required to have isolation rooms and provide initial care for students suspected of being infected with Covid-19, but the school does not have medical staff.
ESPECIALLY IMPORTANT FOR BOARDING SCHOOLS
Not only epidemics, when schools have hundreds or thousands of students, the requirements for prevention and primary health care are especially important, especially in semi-boarding and boarding schools. School health workers have to perform many tasks. Every day, they have to be on duty at the school in case students have accidents or injuries. For schools with semi-boarding organizations, health workers must arrive early to receive, check food, save samples... In addition, they also monitor the health, growth charts, and BMI of students to develop and change plans to ensure appropriate nutrition, monitor school environmental hygiene, prevent epidemics, school diseases, school violence, and detect early signs of autism...
In mountainous provinces, students from grade 1 have to stay in school dormitories to avoid going too far to school, so medical staff are especially important. Ms. Pham Thi Minh Hang, Principal of Khao Mang Primary School (Mu Cang Chai District, Yen Bai), shared: the school has nearly 1,000 students, of which more than 70% have to stay in school dormitories. From grade 1, the children are still very young, their resistance is not good, they have to be away from home, so the health care must of course be taken care of by the school, when they are sick, there must be someone to take care of them on site. Therefore, if there are no medical staff or they are only in "support, service" and contract positions, it will be very difficult to recruit. The work is too hard, the contract salary is low, so medical staff will not choose to work at school.
Initial health check-up for students at an elementary school
Mr. Bui Van Thu, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Meo Vac District (Ha Giang), said that the whole district has more than 29,000 students studying at 53 kindergartens, primary schools, and secondary schools, but there are only 30 school health workers. It is inevitable that one health worker has to work in 3 schools. Too much work and low salary are among the reasons leading to difficulty in recruiting school health workers.
"We hope to have additional staff and attractive policies to recruit school health workers for educational institutions in the area, and adjust the position of "school health" from the support and service list to a professional job position to ensure the regime and policies for this team when recruiting," Mr. Thu proposed.
In Hai Duong, the entire province has only over 200 schools with medical staff who are civil servants, while hundreds of units do not have full-time medical staff, and must arrange for part-time staff or have no part-time staff due to a lack of teachers. Many schools said that when applicants learned that they would only be signed contracts and that the salaries were low, they "almost left immediately".
At the recent conference summarizing 10 years of implementing Resolution 29 on education and training innovation, leaders of the People's Committees of some localities also requested the Ministry of Education and Training to coordinate with the Ministry of Home Affairs to amend regulations, putting medical staff in permanent positions in schools so that localities have a basis for recruitment, avoiding the current situation of many schools having "no" medical staff.
What does the Ministry of Education and Training propose?
Providing more information on the basis for issuing the above two circulars and the classification of medical staff into the support, service and contract groups, Mr. Vu Minh Duc, Director of the Department of Teachers and Educational Managers (Ministry of Education and Training), explained: On December 30, 2022, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued Circular No. 12/2022/TT-BNV, in which the school medical position is classified into the list of support and service positions. New school medical staff recruited after February 15, 2023 (the effective date of Circular No. 12/2022/TT-BNV) will be implemented under the labor contract regime.
However, the Ministry of Education and Training also acknowledged that this regulation has caused many concerns for medical staff. The Ministry of Education and Training has received many opinions from provinces, cities, and school staff regarding the list of job positions.
Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training has sent an official dispatch to the Ministry of Home Affairs to review, supplement and adjust the list of job positions. In particular, it is proposed to adjust the position of "school health care" from the group of support and service categories to the group of specialized job positions used in common in educational institutions.
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