Finding reasonable policies to attract more teachers has become more necessary than ever, since concern about the lack of enthusiastic and qualified teachers has become bigger than ever.

Teachers’ incomes lower than home help’s

According to Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, Head of the Pre-school Education Division under the HCM City Education and Training, a kindergarten school teacher who finishes junior college (3-year training course) can earn 1-1.5 million dong a month and get the Tet bonus of several hundred thousand VND. Meanwhile, a person who works cleaning houses just needs to take a 2-month course to earn 1.5 million dong a month. Besides, home help do not have to pay for meals and accommodations, get a 13^th month salary and get health care when necessary.

A lecturer of a Hanoi-based university said that his income includes the basic salary of 2 million dong a month, a ‘soft’ income, depending on the number of teaching hours, estimated at 1.2-1.6 million dong a month, money for lunches of 300,000 dong. Besides, he can get 3,000 dong for every exam paper he marks. As such, the lecturer can earn just 4 million dong ($235) a month.

Adjusting policies, how?

Le Phuoc Long, the official salaries of teachers are relatively high if compared with those of other state employees. However, the problem is that teachers cannot get extra income from other sources; their incomes are not high enough to maintain them and their families.

“If Vietnam really appreciates education and considers education a top national policy, it needs to raise the salaries of teachers,” Long said, adding that it is necessary to resume the policy on providing allowances depending on tenure to encourage teachers.

In fact, this kind of allowance was implemented in 1988-1995. However, it was then removed and only allowances for teachers in remote and disadvantaged areas have been maintained.

Many educators have suggested that both these allowances be applied because these would help both teachers who have long tenures and newly graduated teachers. They said that Vietnam should not use the overburdened state budget as an excuse to refuse to give allowances to teachers.

Educators have also pointed out that with the current allowance scheme, good teachers do not want to work as officers in education departments. The director of an education department related that a qualified teacher who has worked for 15 years has the income of 4 million dong a month. Meanwhile, if he works as an officer for the local education department he will get only 2.3 million.

In a recent workshop discussing policies for teachers for the compilation of the Teacher Law, participants said that in order to build up that law, it is first necessary to do a thorough research study at the ministerial level to understand more about the lives of teachers and the existing problems.

VietNamNet/TBKTVN