While HCM City is seriously lacking teachers for nursery schools and kindergartens, 256 teachers have reportedly given up jobs, according to the HCM City Education and Training Department.
Demand up, number teachers down
The department said that there are now 639 kindergartens, including 385 state owned, 254 private run kindergartens, 815 household run classes, which are taking care for 250,000 children.
The number of children aged 0-2 going to household run classes in the city is increasing by 4,000 a year (the figure rose from 20,992 in 2001 to 44,511 in 2008). The number of children aged 3-5 going to kindergartens is also increasing sharply by 80,360, from 128,998 in 2001 to 209,358 in 2008.
Meanwhile, there are only three establishments in the city that train teachers for kindergartens, including the Central Pedagogical College No 3, the Pre-school Education Faculty under the Saigon University, and the Pre-School Pedagogical Faculty under the HCM City Pedagogical University. The three establishments can provide 1,000 teachers at maximum every year.
In fact, the three establishments only enroll limited numbers of students for training. In 2007-2008, the Central Pedagogical College No 3 enrolled 370 students, Pre-school Education Faculty under the Saigon University enrolled over 500, and Pre-School Pedagogical Faculty 100.
According to Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, Head of the Pre-school Education Division under the HCM City Education and Training Department, the number of students can meet only 60-70% of the demand of the state run kindergartens. Thanh said that every year, the city needs some 3,000 new teachers for kindergartens.
Under the current regulations, every class of 20-25 children needs two teachers. Meanwhile, the city has 11,537 kindergarten teachers and 2,000 nursemaids, which shows the overloading of classes and kindergartens.
Giving up jobs, why?
Regarding the work abandoning of kindergarten teachers, Thanh said that the biggest problem is the overly low salaries of kindergarten teachers. On average, every teacher receives VND1-1.5mil a month, which cannot ensure the basic needs of the teachers. Meanwhile the job proves to be very hard: every teacher needs to work 10-12 hours a day and take care for 20 children.
Thanh said that only the teachers who really love the career can stay, working in such bad conditions. She said 256 kindergartens have given up their jobs, and a lot of them have shifted to work for international kindergartens to get higher salaries.
Source: VNN