Educators have
rung the alarm bell over the quality of teachers, stressing that the
qualification degrading should be seen a big worry for Vietnam’s
education.

Literature teachers misspell,
physics teachers give wrong formulas

Specialist
knowledge is really a big problem of many young teachers. In many cases,
secondary school teachers also misspell, while literature teachers comment on
student essays with ambiguous sentences.

Headmasters
of primary schools in HCM
City all express their
worries about the quality of English teachers. The official of an education
sub-department in HCM
City said, that when
showing students the way to read English words, many teachers transcribe the
words in Vietnamese. He said all teachers are asked to attend training courses
after they take the job as English teachers, so as to prevent the teacher’s
non-standard pronunciation.

Nguyen
Trong Khiem, Deputy Head of the Tan Phu District’s Education Sub-department in HCM City,
admitted that though he knows many students still have problems in knowledge,
he still has to employ many teachers in order to have enough teachers for
schools.

Every year,
Khiem has to attend the teaching hours at many schools and what Khiem has found
out, is that most teachers have misunderstandings about the purposes of the
school subjects.

For
example, when teaching primary school students to read, teachers always skip
the practice of reading skills, while they focus on practicing the skills to
answer questions. In teaching mathematics, since teachers do not read questions
carefully, they confuse with different question types.

Meanwhile,
some physics teachers were found giving
wrong formulas to students.

Regarding
pedagogical skills, especially the methods to manage and organize classes,
school headmasters all complain that new teachers are very weak at the skills
to present lessons on the black board, and that new teachers cannot take a
control over the classes. It always happens that teachers have to give lessons
in noisy classes because students are busy with private talks. Therefore,
instead of giving lessons, many students relate stories during the teaching
hours.

Experts
have pointed out that the low quality of grammar school teachers can be
explained by the fact that excellent students do not want to become teachers.
School headmasters have admitted that it is very difficult now to find the
teachers with high qualifications.

“If the
problem cannot be settled, this will spoil Vietnamese next-generation
students,” an educator has commented.

Where to find high quality teachers?

In the last
three years, the HCM City Education and Training Department makes announcements
about the recruitments of new teachers for local schools every year. However,
it still cannot find enough teachers.

At the
working session with the National Assembly’s Council on Culture, Education, the
Youth and Children in mid March 2011, the HCM
City’s Education and Training
Department said that HCM
City was still lacking
4000 teachers, especially the teachers for kindergartens and primary schools.

Tan Phu
district employed 170 teachers this year, while it needs more than 200. Binh
Chanh district needs 100 teachers, but it has recruited ½ of this amount. Can Gio
district accepted all applicants, but it still needs 30 teachers more.

Ta Tan,
Head of the Education Sub-department of Tan Phu district, said the number of
students has been increasing steadily year after year, which would lead to a
teacher crisis one day.

Tran Trung
Hieu, Head of the district 12’s Education sub-department, admitted that the
sub-department has to set less strict requirements on candidates in order to
find enough teachers for schools.

Source: Tien phong