Teaching ProfessionThanh Van Pham

1. Historical backgroundIn the past, in Vietnamese society, a teacher's

position was higher than that of parents and only lower than that of the king

For nearly one thousand years, Vietnamese people learnt Chinese characters and used them for writing, but pronounced them in a distinct, Vietnamese way

At the end of 19th and first half of 20th centuries, French-Vietnamese education mainly focused on training people to serve the colonial apparatus

Under such an education system, 95% of Vietnamese people were illiterate

2. Teacher training system2.1. AimTrain high-quality human resourcesFoster talents for the national education

system and societyResearch basic science, applied science in

the fields of Natural Sciences, Social and Humanities Education and bring them to advanced level.

Provide educational services and science and technology to serve the industrialization and modernization of the country and international integration.

2. Teacher training system2.2. Types and Governance90 teacher training institutions for all levels

of education

Type Quantity Supplying Teachers for Level of Management

University Education 10

- Lower and upper secondary

schools

- Kindergartens

MOET and provincial

governments

Teacher Training College 45- Lower secondary schools

(and some primary schools)

Most of them under

provincial governments and

some under MOET (e.g.

Central Music and Painting

Teacher Training College)

Educational Traning

Management College2

- Provincial and district

department of education

- General schools

MOET

Primary Teacher Training

Institutions (normal schools)35 -Primary schools Provinces and cities

2. Teacher training systemTraining continuum:Initial training or pre-service training is a period of training in

teacher-training institutions whose duration depends on each level of teacher education.

Induction training is a statutory probationary period for novice teachers.

Staff development begins on the first day as a teacher and continues to the last day

Appraisal not only provides a statement of a teacher's effectiveness in delivering the agreed elements of a job description but also helps the appraisee and the appraiser to identify the staff development and training needs of the person being appraised

Teacher development: Together with teacher training, teacher development is also a process in which teachers can develop themselves professionally in a way different from teacher training.

3. Pre-service teacher training:Teacher training institutions continuously

organise programs to provide professional training for teachers pedagogical universities, colleges' school, National University of Hanoi.

3. Pre-service teacher training:3.1. Object training a. Lecturer in universities, colleges untrained

pedagogical. b. Those with university degrees or more, experienced

practitioners, who wish to become teachers of universities and colleges.

c. Those who are working in scientific research institutes, the state management agencies, businesses, production entities college degree or above, who wish to make a guest lecturer at universities and colleges.

d. Graduates with good and excellent universities; good quality, with aspirations to become university lecturers and college.

3. Pre-service teacher training:3.2. Programming Total volume of knowledge Minimum 15 credits.

Among them include: - Knowledge mandatory minimum of 10 credits - Knowledge elective Volume: 5 credits * Note: - The object is a lecturer at universities and colleges

to study full content mandatory minimum knowledge of the program.

- The object is not to teach in universities and colleges to study full share knowledge both compulsory and elective programs.

4. Teacher qualificationA teacher in primary and lower secondary education

is expected to have graduated from a college-level teacher training institution, and in the case of an upper secondary school teacher, to have graduated from a university.

It is in pre-primary education that the proportion of qualified teachers is at the lowest, about 51.1%, as compared with 77.16% in primary education 82.76% and 94.88% in lower and upper secondary education, respectively.

The proportion of qualified teachers tends to be lower in the South than in the rest of the country.

4. Teacher qualification Additional training for general teachers: Standard-targeted training is aimed at enabling those under-standard

(under-qualified) teachers to reach the standards as set by the MOET for each level. For example, the standard training level is normal school education for kindergarten and primary school teachers; college education for lower secondary school teachers and higher education for upper secondary teachers.

Periodic training is a kind of training periodically provided to update teachers on new information about educational policies, plans or new knowledge of the curriculum or teaching methodology.

New textboook targeted training is a form of additional training provided for teachers when there are changes in the curriculum, subject matter content, textbooks or teaching methodology. This additional training is mainly given before a new school year to enable teachers to acquire new skills and update their knowledge of a new curriculum, textbooks, teaching methods and pedagogical competencies.

Above-standard training is provided for those teachers who have the need to be upgraded above the standards set by the MOET and it is mainly aimed at meeting the need of pioneering training for 10-15 years to come.

5. Recruitment1 out of 5 in the state labor force of about 4,000,000

people is in the teaching profession.There were 298,407 teachers at the primary level

(70.72% female)154,416 junior secondary level teachers (83.88%

female)39,398 senior secondary teachers (93.31% female);25,562 vocational education teachers (51.8% female);34,117 college, university, and professional school

faculty in higher education, (19.4% female)

6. ResponsibilityTeachers need to impart knowledge of their

subject matter to studentsTeachers need to be able to meet the needs of

students of varying abilities within the same classroom

Teachers need to have common senseTeachers have the responsibility to be a good

role model in and out of the classroomTeachers must be organizedTeachers are expected to keep student

information private

7. Career pathTeachers' salaries are not highBecause of the low salaries, however, the

profession fails to attract the best minds particularly at the primary and lower secondary school levels.

Moreover, the salaries, in general, have failed to keep up with the inflation rate.

Teachers often need to hold more than one job.

8. Development of teachers and Educational ManagersVietnam has made many efforts to develop its teacher

training system, and it has operated intensive teacher training courses (9+3, 12+1, etc. where 9 or 12 is the number of years of schooling and 3 or 1 relates to the intensive teacher training courses)

Among the total number of teaching staff, there were more than 7,000 vocational trainers30, 155,699 pre-school teachers, 360,624 primary teachers, 295,056 lower secondary teachers, 106,586 upper secondary teachers, 13,937 professional secondary trainers, 13,677 college lecturers, and 33,969 university lecturers

8. Development of teachers and Educational ManagersVietnamese educational policy makers and

managers feel that the human factor -teaching staff and educational managers- plays a decisive role.

Vietnam pays special attention to enhanced professional ethics and knowledge of teachers and educational managers.

Teaching staff and educational managers are also increasingly faced with a requirement for computer skills and improved foreign language skills, primarily in English.

8. Development of teachers and Educational ManagersWith respect to incentives and policies for teachers,

the Education Law states that in addition to salary, teachers shall receive allowances and other preferential rewards while working in: areas with extreme socio-economic difficulties, specialized schools, schools for gifted students, boarding schools for ethnic minorities, and schools for people with disabilities.

In the short-term, in order to improve education quality, the Ministry of Education and Training requires teacher training institutions and the educational manager training college to strongly renew teaching and learning methodologies.

9. Issues and problemsA great surplus of well-trained teachers in urban and

delta areas (developed areas) and teacher shortages in remote, highland and inaccessible areas (under-developed areas).

The problem of poor qualification of teachers (under-standard teachers) comes in the following forms:

o Poor self-knowledge, subject knowledge and knowledge of students in a multicultural, multi-religious and context

o Low managerial skillo Poor pedagogical competenceo Lack of reflection and ability to be selfcritical, the

hallmark of teacher professionalism.

9. Issues and problems Teacher education suffers from the following problems:o Teacher training institutions are poorly equipped with outdated facilities and

training methods and lack systematically and scientifically written training materials.

o Great mismatch between the demand for expansion in size and improvements in quality.

o Contradiction between training needs and the existing capacity of the training system.

o Lack of policy for supporting deserving students and a suitable mechanism for the recruitment of high-quality students into the teaching profession.

o Slack management of graduates (who were provided with scholarships during the learning process). Some graduates quit the teaching profession.

o Location of teacher education programs.o Poor and non-diverse content of teacher education programs.o Main focus of training programs on theory but not on practical skills.o Failure to diversify training forms (induction training, school-based in-service

training and teacher development).

9. Issues and problemsMajor solutions in teacher trainingo Develop a network of about 90 teacher training institutions

with sufficient number of good teacher educators and modern facilities and equipment.

o Build two key teacher training universities to train high quality teachers and undertake research in educational and training science.

o Allot more funds for the strengthening and upgrading of existing teacher training institutions in ethnic and highland areas and make sure that each province or city will have one multi-system teacher-training college with professionally-upgraded lecturers.

o Continue to study and formulate remuneration systems and policies toward teachers.