Schools don't have the right to recruit teachers

On an online education forum, parents have criticized the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) and schools, saying that they must be punished for teachers’ abuse of students. 

Some parents, however, argued that the accusation is unfair. As MOET and schools do not have the recruitment right, they must not be blamed for the teacher shortage and lack of qualified teachers, the two most serious problems in the education sector.

On November 19, Nguyen Thi Phuong Thuy, the head teacher of a sixth class of the Duy Ninh Secondary School in Quang Binh province, commanded all 23 students in the class to give 10 slaps on the face of a classmate who made a mistake.

On December 3, at the Quang Trung Primary School in Dong Da district in Hanoi, a teacher told her students to slap their classmate for the same reason. And on December 7, a student at the Binh Huu Primary School in Long An province was found beaten black and blue by his teacher.

Just within one month, three serious school abuse cases occurred, and MOET had to send dispatches to local education departments to strictly handle the cases.

Recently, local newspapers reported that a child suffering from hyperactivity disorder was tied by a teacher to a window. The case showed the lack of teachers’ skills in teaching disabled children.

Analysts blame the low quality of teachers and the current teacher recruitment scheme. 

There are over 1 million teachers at different education levels recruited by the Ministry of Interior Affairs. Both MOET and schools, which understand what they need to ensure he best teaching, do not have this right.

Vu Trong Ry, deputy chair of the Vietnam Education Psychology Association, who recently returned from a fact-finding trip on the implementation of autonomy at schools, said that the 15 schools with which he had working sessions do not have autonomy in staff development.

According to Ry, Article 58 of the 2005 Education Law stipulates that schools have the right to recruit, manage teachers and officers, and get involved in the state agencies’ personnel appointment plans. However, in reality, they are not given the right.

Minister of Education Phung Xuan Nha, when questioned before the National Assembly about the teacher shortage in some localities and teacher oversupply in others, explained that MOET only plays an “advisory role”, while the Ministry of Interior Affairs makes final decisions.

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