Recent surveys found that most English major students do not want to become primary school teachers. This will make it difficult to implement the programme on teaching English to primary school students.

More than 10 research works and different opinions were presented at the workshop organized by the HCM City University of Education some days ago to address the problem of shortage of primary school English teachers.

No one wants to become primary school English teachers

Dr Nguyen Thi Ly Kha, Dean of the Primary Education Faculty under the HCM City University of Education, said that a mini survey conducted on 50 students of English major showed that no student chooses to become English teacher at primary schools. The students say they do not want to work too hard at primary schools, while they cannot see any job promotion opportunities there. They would prefer teaching English at high schools, or secondary schools in the worst case.

The survey conducted on the students, who study English as the second major and who finish junior colleges and transfer credit to university study, also shows a similar result. 87 out of 122 polled students (71.31 percent) want to follow a 5.5 year training course in order to obtain two university degrees at the same time which allow to both teach at primary schools and teach English.

Kha has come to the conclusion that this proves to be the feasible solution

According to Dr Nguyen Kim Hong, Deputy President of the HCM City University of Education, if every English teacher has four classes, or 16 teaching hours per week, the whole country will need 39.759 teachers, while the provinces in the east of the southern region need 4582 and HCM City alone needs 1763.

As such, from now to 2020, Vietnam will need 6626 teachers every year. The east of the southern region needs 764 teachers and HCM City needs 294. Meanwhile, the English faculty of the HCM City University of Education enrolls 150 students every year to produce teachers for high schools

Students told not to disparage primary schools

Educators have called on the Government to introduce policies to make English second language in Vietnam in the future. They have also urged the Ministry of Education and Training to set up a separate training programme for primary school English teachers

Le Ngoc Diep, Head of the Primary Education Division under the HCM City Education and Training Department said that surveys have found that primary school English teachers have been respected by pupils and their parents, therefore, students should not disparage primary education. Also according to Diep, the city’s education department has proposed to raise the salaries for English teachers at primary schools.

The pay for one teaching hour of English teachers would be equal to three teaching hours of normal teachers (100,000 dong per hour at minimum). However, Diep admitted that the pay is still lower than the pay offered by foreign language centres.

Source: Nguoi lao dong