Students do not want to become computer science teachers, while teachers of informatics feel discouraged with their jobs because of low pay and the lack of promotion opportunities.

The Ministry of Education and Training has also reported on the lack of computer science teachers across the country.

Supply cannot meet demand

According to Sang, informatics is a new subject; therefore, Vietnam has not trained enough teachers in the subject.

Meanwhile, Dean of the Mathematics-Informatics Faculty of the HCM City University of Education Nguyen Thai Son said that there are not many students applying to study informatics.

Every year, there are some 300 applications, while the quota for this study branch is 90. But in fact, the informatics pedagogical study branch only enrolls some 70 students only.

Son said that students who are good at informatics prefer becoming information technology experts to informatics teachers.

According to Son, only 50-60 percent of the 70 students graduate from university, and 10-20 percent of them go to work for companies rather than become teachers of computer science.

He said that students finishing informatics study courses can easily find jobs with high incomes so they don’t want to teach, which profession just can bring modest income. Those who work for information technology companies can earn over 5 million a month and have career promotion opportunities in the future. Meanwhile, informatics teachers can earn 2 million only a month, not even enough to cover basic needs.

There is another reason that makes graduates hesitate to work as informatics teachers – poor work environment.

Nguyen Minh N, an informatics teacher at a high school in Tan Phu district in HCM City, said that if he keeps teaching informatics at schools, he will become backward in technology, because the industry has been developing very well, which makes the knowledge you receive today out-of-date tomorrow.

Meanwhile, teachers of informatics at general schools repeat lessons with basic knowledge every day and every year.

N said that while the world is now using Word 2007, Vietnamese students are still learning with Word 2003 version.

“One time, when I gave test questions, my students said to me that they took this kind of test a lot of times before, because this was knowledge they got in secondary school,” N said, adding that he has to follow the curriculum set for high school students.

N said that his school only has two computer labs, while there are several thousand students. N plans to quit the job after he works as a teacher for three years as per the requirement for students of pedagogical universities.

Getting extra jobs

Sang said that students with information technology degrees nowadays have numerous opportunities for jobs. Therefore, it is necessary to make attractive offers to persuade them to work as teachers of informatics.

Sang said that schools’ principals should think of finding extra jobs for informatics teachers, including jobs of database administration, website design, and opportunities to participate in projects of schools in cooperation with companies.

“It is very costly to train informatics teachers. And if they do not devote themselves to education, but work for companies, this would be a big waste,” said Dr Son.

VietNamNet/NLD