VietNamNet Bridge – Under the new regulations, the working hours of teachers only includes the time they spend in front of a classroom.

Teaching, however, is just the tip of the iceberg. The instructors must also participate in other school activities (performances, sports, presentations), plus grade papers, develop lesson plans, attend teaching hours of colleagues, tutor students and proctor examinations.

The workload is daunting. A primary school teacher has to mark 100-120 papers on average per day, which takes some 3-4 hours. Most teachers do this work during lunchtime or at home in the evenings.

Moreover, some schools require attendance at staff meetings on Sundays.

Under new MOET regulations, these non-teaching tasks are not recognized as part of their working hours.

T, a primary school teacher in HCM City, described how teachers are required to mark half of student every day, but need to grade 100 percent of them in order to thoroughly understand how their students are progressing.

According to T, a third grade teacher with 40 students must mark 120 textbooks every day, a task they take on during lunchtime from 11:30 to 13:15. Sometimes they also must act as day-care assistants, delivering student meals and arranging beds for afternoon naps.

Another teacher complains that she must grade papers at home, because she cannot finish them during school hours. Additionally she must write lesson plans and fill out other documents to attending the teaching hours of her colleagues.

These teachers observe that their summer holiday is actually only 1.5 months instead of three months if the additional work is taken into account.

In Hanoi, school principals confirm that instructors have only a one month holiday. Worse yet, the managers and teachers for 9^th through 12^th grade students only have 10-15 days off, because they must prepare students for final exams.

“We clearly realize that this is a kind of violation of the Labor Law,” one school principal acknowledged. “But we have no other choice. We must ask teachers to work during summer holidays because we must complete our work.”

Under the new regulations, principals and deputy principals also must hold teaching hours. Principals must hold two hours and deputy principals must teach four hours per week.

These new requirements have not been applauded by schools. The headmaster of Phan Dinh Phung High School in Hanoi noted that principals do not necessarily have to teach to monitor the instructors’ pedagogical progress. They have many ways to stay in close touch and offer timely instruction to teachers.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Huu Chieu, Principal of Tran Phu High School in Hanoi, also suggested that independent decision-making would be a better approach so that each school can decide if their principal should have teaching hours. The need for direct classroom involvement by the principal depends on each school’s conditions as well as the capability of each principal.

VietNamNet/TT