Regarding the fact that since the beginning of the 2024-2025 school year until now, many schools in Lang Chanh district (Thanh Hoa province) have had to temporarily suspend some subjects, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Son, Head of the Department of Education and Training of Lang Chanh district, said that the reason is that there is no source of recruitment.

According to Mr. Son, the shortage of teachers here often occurs. For example, in the 2024-2025 school year, the whole district is still short of 92 positions compared to the number assigned by the province.

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Many schools in Lang Chanh district have had to suspend some subjects due to a lack of teachers. Photo: Le Duong

To overcome the shortage of teachers, at the beginning of the year, Thanh Hoa province assigned the district 58 targets for signing contracts according to Decree 111 of the Government. However, the district organized recruitment but only recruited 25 teachers.

"When there were quotas, the district widely announced them on mass media, but not many people came to submit their applications. The reason was lack of resources. Lang Chanh is a mountainous district, the percentage of students passing the university entrance exam is very low, and the teaching profession is even rarer.

On the other hand, new graduates from the lowlands do not want to go to the mountains to work. Besides, the mountainous areas are difficult, hard and the benefits are not high. Specifically, the salary of teachers in the mountainous areas is only 0.1% higher than the lowlands' base salary (equivalent to more than 234 thousand VND), so it does not attract candidates," Mr. Son shared.

According to VietNamNet's research, not only Lang Chanh district, but also other mountainous districts in Thanh Hoa such as Quan Son, Quan Hoa, Muong Lat... are facing the same problem of finding recruitment sources.

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Despite having contract targets, many mountainous districts in Thanh Hoa still have no source of recruitment. Photo: Le Duong

There are quotas but no teachers can be recruited.

To overcome the shortage of teachers and the fact that many schools are having to stop some subjects, the Chairman of Lang Chanh District People's Committee has assigned the Department of Education to continue to widely announce to recruit labor contracts according to the assigned quota.

“The recruitment target is still new graduates and retired teachers who are still healthy and dedicated to their profession. At the same time, we will arrange teachers to teach inter-school, inter-level, and extra classes to ensure there are enough teachers to teach according to the program,” said Mr. Son.

According to PV's investigation, for nearly a year now, Lang Chanh district has not been able to balance the source of money to pay for extra teaching hours for teachers, so it is very difficult to mobilize teachers to teach more periods and extra hours. This is also a reason why many schools are having to temporarily suspend some subjects.

In addition, in the second semester of the 2023-2024 school year (early fiscal year 2024), the Department of Finance will no longer allocate budget for the number of teachers lacking, leading to the district owing teachers more than 2.1 billion VND in overtime pay. At the beginning of the 2024 school year, this figure is expected to reach nearly 2 billion VND.

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For now, schools still have to increase teaching and mobilize between schools to keep up with the educational program. Photo: Le Duong

Mr. Tran Van Thuc, Director of the Department of Education and Training, said that in 2024, Thanh Hoa will be the locality with the largest number of teachers in the country, with 2,700 positions, added by the Ministry of Home Affairs. In addition, the Provincial People's Council has also decided to allow the recruitment of 3,800 contract teachers according to Decree 111 of the Government.

By early August, localities had recruited nearly 4,000 teachers, the rest were difficult to recruit, mainly in mountainous areas. Localities are still recruiting.

"Recruiting 6,500 teachers by 2024 will partly solve the teacher shortage. However, this is not easy to do because many localities, especially mountainous areas, are currently having difficulty finding resources," Mr. Thuc shared.

Regarding the solution, according to Mr. Thuc, while teachers have not been recruited yet, districts and education departments need to arrange teachers to teach inter-school, inter-level, and extra classes to ensure there are enough teachers to teach according to the new curriculum.

"To have a source of recruitment, the Department of Education and Training has placed orders with two universities that train teachers in the area. It is expected that from 2025, the source of recruitment will be more abundant," Mr. Thuc informed.