Teacher Management In Public Early Childhood Education And General Education Institutions: The Curre...

TEACHER MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND GENERAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS THE CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS Trinh Thi Anh Hoa (Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences) Abstract Teachers play a vital role in improving the quality of education The current situation of human resource management in early childhood education and general education institutions is still inadequate in terms of recruitment, employment, training, professional development, screening and evaluat[.]

AND GENERAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS:

THE CURRENT SITUATION AND SOLUTIONS

Trinh Thi Anh Hoa

(Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences)

Abstract: Teachers play a vital role in improving the quality of education The current situation of human

resource management in early childhood education and general education institutions is still inadequate in terms

of recruitment, employment, training, professional development, screening and evaluating, benefits and support for teachers The reason is the lack of synchronization in the implementation of decentralization of management, the lack of a master plan on the contingent of early childhood education and general education teachers, leading to not only redundancy but also insufficiency, and structural asynchronicity; the lack of mechanisms and policies to create incentives to attract and retain teachers From analyzing the inadequacies, limitations and their causes, the article proposes solutions to innovate the management mechanism of preschool and general education school teachers

Keywords: Management, teacher management; public early childhood education and general education teachers.

1 THE SITUATION OF TEACHERS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND GENERAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

Through many years of development, Vietnam has trained 1,141,292 early childhood education (ECE) and general education (GE) teachers, of which 68,493 are nursery teachers, 268,290 kindergarten teachers, 377,876 primary teachers, 284,139 lower secondary teachers and 142,494 upper secondary teachers (the academic year 2019-2020) Teachers are actively working to carry out the mission of education, which

is to improve the general populace’s knowledge base, equip human resources with necessary skills and competencies, and foster talents to serve the country’s industrialization and modernization, making an important contribution to Vietnam’s renovation and international economic integration

Figure 1 Number of ECE and GE teachers over the years

Source: Ministry of Education and Training, Education Statistics

Comparing the number of teachers over the years shows that the number of ECE teachers tends

to increase because Vietnam has implemented many solutions to encourage children to go to school,

in order to achieve the goal of early childhood education universalization for 5-year-old preschoolers There is a decreasing trend of GE teachers because Vietnam has reached the standards of universalization

of primary education (in 2000) and lower secondary education (in 2010) The teaching staff has been trained to gradually improve the quality and qualifications, especially regarding pedagogical, information technology, and foreign language capacity to meet the requirements of performing their duties The management of the teaching staff has been gradually reformed but has not kept pace with the country’s renovation and international integration process [6]

2 THE CURRENT STATUS OF TEACHER MANAGEMENT IN ECE AND GE INSTITUTIONS

The current situation of management of ECE and GE teachers is considered in terms of recruitment, employment, training, professional, evaluation, screening, benefits and support for teachers

2.1 The recruitment and employment of teachers and other staff

a) The recruitment of teachers at all levels

According to the provisions of the Law on Public Employees and Decree No

115/2020/ND-CP (abbreviated to Decree 115), regulations on recruitment, employment and management of public employees clearly specify the competence to recruit public employees:

- For public non-business units that cover recurrent and investment expenditures and public non-business units that cover recurrent expenditures, the head of public non-business units shall recruit public employees

- For public business units that cover part of their recurrent expenditures and public non-business units whose recurrent expenditures are guaranteed by the State, the agency competent to manage public non-business units shall recruit employees employing public employees or decentralizing them

to the heads of public non-business units to perform

Decree 115 decentralizes the recruitment of teachers and empowers the heads of public non-business units to ensure recurrent expenditures (autonomous units), the current practice of recruiting preschool and upper secondary school teachers in localities are classified differently:

Recruitment organized by the Provincial Department of Education and Training, or the Department of Home Affairs and the People’s Committee of the district/town:

For upper secondary education, teachers are recruited by the Board of Education and Training

or the Provincial Department of Home Affairs For preschool, primary and secondary education, the recruitment council under the People’s Committee of the district/rural district/town shall organize recruitment of teachers

Empower the Principal/Head to actively recruit teachers:

- For units under the Provincial Department of Education and Training: The principal shall base

on the actual situation of the school’s size and the prescribed teacher/class standards to plan the annual staffing standard Prepare a report to submit to the Provincial Department of Education and Training, apply to recruit teachers in subjects that the school is in need of After the Provincial Department approved and agreed to assign the school to recruit During the recruitment process, the school principal

is autonomous and responsible for the recruitment of his unit Department of Home Affairs, Provincial Department of Education and Training, inspect, examine and supervise the recruitment of teachers

- For the units under the People’s Committee of the district/rural district/township: the recruitment

of preschool, primary and secondary school teachers is approved by the People’s Committee of the district/rural district/town on staffing standards and assigns autonomy to the principals and under the supervision and inspection of the Department of Home Affairs and the District Department of Education and Training

Thus, the recruitment of teachers in most localities is mainly done in the way of management agencies (Provincial Department of Education and Training or Department of Home Affairs for Upper secondary schools, People’s Committee of district/rural district/town level for Preschool, Primary and Secondary School; some places assign this task to the Department of Home Affairs for all levels) to recruit and allocate teachers to educational institutions, the head of the educational institution signs a working contract with the recruited teacher [5]

Surveys in localities show that the current national number of fully autonomous ECE and GE institutions in terms of personnel management is extremely low, these schools are concentrated in big cities, and most of them are upper secondary schools according to the management decentralization and are directly under the Provincial Department of Education and Training There are a number of localities (mainly Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City) that have granted full or partial autonomy in personnel management

to educational institutions But the assignment of autonomy comes with conditions (most are high-quality schools, located in large urban areas, with high educational and socio-economic conditions) [8]

In fact, in most localities, the specialized agency responsible for the quality of education is the Provincial Department of Education and Training, while the District Department of Education and Training is not the main unit in charge of teachers recruitment, leading to the reactiveness in regulating the number and structure of the teaching staff by subject and grade level, therefore creating a paradoxical situation of teachers’ excess and shortage in educational institutions The recruitment of highly qualified teachers also faces many difficulties, mainly because schools have not been given autonomy in terms of human resources and finance management, so they cannot decide on their own the recruitment and salary arrangement for teachers The results of consultations and discussions with teachers and administrators

of the 05 surveyed provinces showed that the majority of teachers and school-level administrators proposed to assign the recruitment of teachers to the school because only the school would know what kind of candidates they needed to recruit, and how to properly assess their capacity Some teachers and administrators at the District departmental level think that the recruitment of secondary and primary school teachers should be assigned to the District department, and recruiting upper secondary school teachers should be assigned to the Provincial Department of Education and Training, while the school develops plans and staffing needs, then sends it to the Provincial/District Department of Education and Training, because the Provincial and District Departments of Education and Training are educational management agencies that thoroughly grasp the needs of each school and have a reasonable assignment

of teachers to schools, avoiding the situation of teacher shortage [8]

b) The allocation of teachers

The allocation of teachers to schools plays a decisive role in the quality of education According to regulations1, 2and standards for teachers [1,2]:

1 Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Home Affairs (2015) Circular No: 06/2015/TTLT-BGDĐT-BNV dated March

16, 2015, stipulating the list of job position frameworks and standards of the number of employees jobs in public ECE institutions

2 Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Home Affairs (2017) Circular No.: 16/2017/TT-BGDĐT dated 12 July 2017, providing for the list of job position frameworks and standards for the number of employees in public educational institutions.

• For the kindergarten class with 02 sessions/day, a maximum of 2.2 teachers/class shall be arranged; and 1 class/day is 1,2 teachers/class

• For primary schools with 1 session a day, a maximum of 1.20 teachers can be arranged per class; for primary schools that teach 2 sessions a day, 1.50 teachers per class;

• For lower secondary schools, a maximum of 1.90 teachers may be arranged per class; District boarding school for ethnic minorities, Semi-boarding general schools for ethnic minorities at lower secondary level and schools for the disabled at the lower secondary level may arrange a maximum

of 2.20 teachers per class;

• For upper secondary schools, a maximum of 2.25 teachers/class can be arranged; the province’s boarding upper secondary schools for ethnic minorities can arrange a maximum of 2.40 teachers/class

Table 1 Ratios of teachers/class and standards of teacher / class

Academic year 2015-2016

Academic year 2016-2017

Academic year 2017-2018

Academic year 2018-2019

Academic year 2019-2020 standard

The analysis of teacher/class standards by grade level indicates the excess/lack of teachers The results of Table 1 show that the shortage of teachers occurs at all levels, for kindergarten teachers, the ratio of new teachers/classes is 1.77 compared to the prescribed standard of 2.2 for classes with 2-sessions/day; similarly primary school ratios is only 1.35 compared to the standard of 1.5; ratios of lower secondary and upper secondary classes are 1.85 and 2.13, respectively, both of which are lower than the standards

The education sector analysis of 2011-2020 has shown that there are very few schools with enough teachers according to regulations: 8% of upper secondary schools and about 16% of primary schools have one-session school day Primary schools with two sessions tend to have a shortage of teachers because the number of primary school students attending two sessions per day is about 72% [7]

Figure 2 Percentage of schools with excess/shortage/sufficient teachers, by school year 2019 - 2020

Source: Draft Education Sector Analysis Report 2011-2020

According to data from the Ministry of Education and Training, as of August 2021, compared with the prescribed standard of teachers per class, the country faces a shortage of 94,714 teachers, but also has

an excess of 10,178 teachers at all levels [4]

Figure 3 The shortage of ECE and GE school teachers in 2021

Source: Report of the conference to summarize the school year 2020-2021, directions and tasks for the

school year 2021-2022 Ministry of Education and Training

In the alignment to the educational management decentralization, the Education sector is not assigned the task of presiding over and advising the Provincial/District People’s Committee to recruit teachers, so it cannot be proactive in regulating the number and structure of the teaching staff by subjects, levels of education, which leads to a situation of excess/shortage of teachers between all levels

of education in the same locality Results of interviews with managers and specialists of the Provincial and District Departments of Education and Training show that: currently, the recruitment of teachers faces many difficulties, especially for preschool teachers, teachers of music, art, physical education, technology, janitor staff, medical staff The main reason for these difficulties is that the current benefits and support for teachers are too low; there is a lack of newly recruited teachers because candidates’ professional qualifications have not met the recruitment requirements, especially the changes in qualification regulations in recruitment after the application of the Education Law 2019 (stipulating that ECE teachers are required to have a college degree or higher, while primary and secondary school teachers have a university degree or higher)

The analysis of the pertinency in the allocation of teachers to schools is calculated with the correlation coefficient This coefficient in primary school is from 92%-94%, lower secondary school 94%, upper secondary school 91% This shows that the degree of concordance in the distribution of teachers at all levels is quite good However, this level is different among regions in the country [7]

Figure 4 Pertinency in teacher allocation to standard schools, primary schools, the school year 2019 - 2020

Source: Draft Education Sector Analysis Report 2011-2020 Each dot represents 1 school

Table 2 Pertinency in teacher allocation to schools by standard, by grade level and by region, the school year 2019 - 2020

Primary 1-session/day

Primary 2-session/day SecondaryLower secondary Upper Disparities by region

Regional disparity

Source: Draft Education Sector Analysis Report 2011-2020

c) Teacher training

To improve their expertise, teachers participate in the training program, including regular training, training by professional title, and training to improve qualificationst

Regular training: According to the regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training1, all ECE and GE teachers are required to participate in a regular refresher program during each school year The training program consists of 3 modules, each module is about 1 week (about 40 lessons), a total of 120 lessons/school year with 45 minutes/period Module 1 meets the requirements of performing the tasks

of the school year issued by the Ministry of Education and Training Module 2 meets the requirements

of performing educational development tasks as prescribed by the Provincial Department of Education and Training, for each school year Module 3 aims to develop the professional competence of teachers with a body of knowledge chosen by the teacher, including modules in different fields

Training for Professional titles This refresher course assists teachers for career advancement purposes,

which is part of a teacher’s professional development Training for the professional title is not required Once the requirements for the title are met, teachers do not need to retake this training

Training to meet the requirements of the new general education program in 2018, all teachers and

school administrators attended training courses on the implementation of the 2018 general education program according to the regular and continuous training before and during the implementation of the program

Training to improve qualifications: The Education Law 2019 stipulates that the standard

qualifications of preschool teachers are college degrees of pedagogy, and primary and secondary schools have university degrees, so a large number of teachers have to be trained to raise standards to achieve this regulation The total number of teachers expected to raise their qualifications is 257,506, including 89,607 preschool teachers, 116,846 primary school teachers, and 51,053 lower secondary school teachers The roadmap for raising standards includes two main phases: phase 1 from July 2020

to December 2025: training 60% of teachers; phase 2 from January 2026 to December 2030: training

1 Thông tư 17/2019/TT-BGDĐT về chương trình bồi dưỡng thường xuyên giáo viên cơ sở giáo dục phổ thông.

the remaining 40% As a result of the implementation of the standard-raising roadmap, in the 2020-2021 school year, localities have sent 37,389 teachers to participate in training to raise standards, including 9,859 preschool teachers (accounting for 10.96% of teachers who have not met the standard); 17,822 primary school teachers (accounting for 6.36% of unqualified teachers); 9,708 lower secondary school teachers (accounting for 3.86% of unqualified teachers) As of 08/2021, the percentage of teachers who meet the standards of preschool training is 77.8%, primary school is 69.4%, lower secondary school is 83.3%, upper secondary school is 99.9%

d) The evaluation and screening of teachers

According to the provisions of the Law on Public Employees, teachers are also public officials, and there are two main aspects of the evaluation of teachers: (1) Annual evaluation of public employees according to the Law on Public Employees; (2) Teachers’ evaluation according to teachers’ professional standards In addition, some teachers who are members of the Party and Union also conduct evaluations according to the regulations of these organizations

The current evaluation and screening of public employees comply with the provisions of the Law on Public Employees, Decree 90/2020/ND-CP dated August 13, 2020, Decree 108/2014/ND-CP; Decree 113/2018/ND-CP Decree 143/2020/ND-CP Accordingly, (1) civil servants, cadres, and public employees with 02 consecutive years at the time of consideration for downsizing, cadres and civil servants having 01 year are rated at the level of completing their tasks and 01 year of not completing their tasks but unable to arrange for another suitable work; (2) the public employee with 02 consecutive years at the time of downsizing consideration, the public employee with 01 year rated at the level of completing their tasks and 01 year does not complete the task but cannot be reassigned for other suitable work or not completing tasks in the preceding year at the time of downsizing consideration The Decree also assigns responsibilities to heads of agencies, organizations and units based on specific conditions

of agencies, organizations and units to develop detailed criteria for evaluating and classifying cadres and civil servants Thus, the legal framework to create a mechanism for the evaluation and screening of the staff is sufficient in theory, but in reality, the screening and downsizing of staff for those who are not capable in educational institutions has not been really effective in recent years

The current status of the implementation of teacher evaluation according to the Law on Public Employees, professional standards of teachers, the evaluation of teachers: the performance evaluation is still superficial, sometimes promotes harmful equity, and has not created motivation for teachers to learn and improve their qualifications Evaluation of teachers according to current professional standards does not accurately reflect the teaching staff’s quality because the percentages of excellent and good professional standards accounts are possibly inflated for the majority In fact, professional standards are the minimum requirements for a person to be allowed to practice Therefore, professional standards should be used to evaluate teachers but also serve as a basis for recruiting, employing, and fostering teachers Therefore, it is necessary to change the teacher evaluation cycle according to Professional Standards: Initial evaluation to recruit, retain, and transfer; Regular evaluation every 3 - 5 years to serve the purpose of continuing employment, or re-train and foster teachers to continue to meet professional standards for teachers who have fallen behind and to rate and raise teachers’ ranks according to regulations on teachers’ professional titles

To evaluate the effectiveness of teachers, it is necessary to develop a detailed set of standards and criteria based on the current provisions of the Law on Public Employees on the evaluation of public

employees on the basis of functions, tasks, organizational structure, and description of each job position

in public non-business units associated with specific characteristics of teachers This set of standards should consolidate existing regulations on staff evaluation and can be used for many purposes at different times Evaluation results are used to rate teachers annually as the main basis for planning and scheming human resource development; to arrange and employ teachers according to their forte capacity; to serve the work of training, professional development and settlement of job severance; to appoint, promote according

to the planning and implement the benefits and support of salary, treatment and reward for teachers

e) Salary incentives for teachers

The Education Law 2019 stipulates that the budget for education should be at least 20% However, the state budget for education in the period 2011-2017 has not reached 20% of the total state budget expenditure

Figure 5 State budget expenditure on education and training

With the proportion of budget spending on education as illustrated above, Vietnam belongs to the group of countries with a higher spending rate on education than the average of other countries in the region Vietnam meets “international” standards: 4-6% of GDP or 15-20% of government spending on education (Incheon Declaration) However, due to the small size of Vietnam’s budget, the total education budget is also limited in comparison

In addition to increasing the state budget for education, there have been many support policies other than salary for teachers to increase their incomes; for instance, teachers are entitled to preferential allowances, seniority allowances, and support policies for teachers in mountainous, remote areas, areas with extremely difficult socio-economic conditions; teachers teaching children with special needs, teaching mixed classes, special teachers [1] However, in fact, teachers deem that support policies, salary and benefits are still inadequate; teachers’ salaries are low, especially ECE teachers, and teachers’ living standards have not been improved Therefore, it is necessary to reform a renovation on the benefits and support policies for teachers, so that teachers can afford to live comfortably and have motivations to improve their qualifications and teaching quality [9]

The management of the teaching staff still has the above limitations due to the following main reasons: 1) Many localities and managing agencies have not seriously implemented the provisions

of the Law on Public Employees and the guiding documents of the Government and ministries and branches on recruitment, employment, and management of public employees 2) The implementation

of decentralization of human resource management in the Education sector is currently being performed unevenly among localities Accordingly, the decentralization of recruitment, appointment, and dismissal

is regulated differently in different localities 3) The lack of a master plan on training teachers from preschool and upper secondary school leads to a paradoxical situation in which the teaching staff is redundant, lacking, and structurally inconsistent; 4) Lack of mechanisms and policies to create incentives

to attract and retain teachers

3 SOLUTIONS TO IMPROVE THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MANAGEMENT OF ECE AND GE SCHOOL TEACHERS

1) Renovating the state management of teaching staff There should be a mechanism to empower the education sector to take the initiative in recruiting teachers The recruitment and employment of teachers should be conducted in a flexible manner so that ECE and GE institutions can arrange enough teachers according to regulations to ensure a sufficient number of teachers and synchronous syllabuses

of subjects, avoiding teacher shortage The localities should actively review the existing teaching staff to determine the number of additional teachers needed for each level of education; to develop a roadmap, solutions to overcome the situation of excess and shortage of teachers associated with improving the efficiency of downsizing;

2) Effectively implementing the Plan to implement the roadmap to raise the standard level of training

of preschool, primary and secondary school teachers according to the provisions of Decree No 71/2020/ ND-CP dated June 30, 2020 of the Government; implementing regular training, fostering to improve management and teaching capacity for teachers at all levels and implementing the 2018 General Education Program; Encouraging the promotion of teachers’ self-enrichment capacity is the best condition to improve the quality, capacity, professional qualifications commensurate with the job position, and to meet the requirements of educational innovation

3) Implementing and performing the evaluation and rating of teachers, with emphasis on motivating the teaching staff, so that they will strive for excellence, in order to develop their own professional capacity; Researching and consolidating current regulations on teacher evaluation into a detailed set of criteria for evaluating teachers on the basis of functions, tasks, organizational structure, job descriptions

of teachers Each job position is associated with the teacher’s specific characteristics and can be used for different evaluation purposes, at different times in the same evaluation year

4) Improving policies for teachers and administrators to attract highly qualified teachers and make teachers feel secure in their dedication and efforts to the sector

5) Carrying out training in association with needs of professional development to ensure the adequate structure, quantity, and quality of ECE and GE school teachers to meet the requirements of educational innovation; Renovating teacher training models and approaches, from enrollment to content, methods, and forms of teacher training towards the professional competency-based approach, linking pre-service training at university and college with in-service activities at school; conducting teacher training according to the supply-demand mechanism, linking teacher training with local needs to ensure sufficient quantity and structure synchronization

1 Nguyen Thi Binh (2010), State-level Research Theme, Solutions to reform the training and

fostering of upper secondary school teachers

2 Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Home Affairs (2015) Circular No 06/2015/

TTLT-BGDĐT-BNV dated March 16, 2015, stipulating the list of job position frameworks and standards of the number of people working in public preschool education institutions

3 Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Home Affairs (2017) Circular No.:

16/2017/TT-BGDĐT dated 12 July 2017, providing for the list of job position frameworks and the standards

of the number of people working in the field public educational institutions

4 Ministry of Education and Training (2021), Report of the conference to summarize the 2020-2021

school year, deploy the tasks of the 2021 - 2022 school year

5 Government (2020), Decree No 115/2020/ND-CP dated September 25, 2020 regulating

recruitment, employment and management of public employees

6 Trinh Thi Anh Hoa (2019), Renovating the management mechanism of public schools, Vietnam

Journal of Educational Sciences, No 22, October 2019 ISSN 2615-8957 Vietnam

7 Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences (2020), Final Report on Evaluation of the

implementation of the 2011 - 2020 comprehensive educational and training renovation goals, and goals, tasks for the period 2021 - 2030, 5-year plan 2021 - 2025

8 Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences (2021), Education Sector Analysis 2011-2020

9 Vietnam National Institute of Educational Sciences (2021), Report on the implementation of the

Education Development Strategy 2011 - 2022