VietNamNet Bridge – Recently a VietNamNet reader submitted a letter that explained how teachers are afraid of Tet,  because they do not have a lot of money to enjoy Tet with their families. The letter has got deep sympathy from teachers nationwide, who believe that teaching is really a hard and low-pay work.

Nguyen Thuy Linh, a university lecturer in Hanoi wrote to VietNamNet that she studied hard and was rewarded for her efforts by landing a position as a lecturer. Unfortunately, her university salary does not allow her to care for herself.

Doing the math

After two years, Linh receives 1.6 million dong a month, or less than $100.

“The sum of money would be enough for meals. However, I still need money to spend on my friends’ wedding parties, new-house parties, visiting relatives and friends, returning home to visit parents,” Linh wrote.

“I am always going crazy about money,” she added. “I do not even have money to purchase books to read that are useful for my career.”

Vu Minh Tuan, another university lecturer, wrote that he spends only 20 percent of his efforts on teaching, while he must exert the other 80 percent of his time and energy took on extra jobs to earn a living.

“I graduated with an excellent degree,” he wrote. “I have an MA degree that took hundreds of millions of dong and a lot of time. However, I still cannot live on my lecturer’s salary.

Ngoc Minh, a teacher from Ha Tinh province, did not complain about low pay, but about working conditions. He has 30 years of experience as a teacher after coming in first at his university entrance exam. He worked seven years as a lecturer of a junior college and then as a teacher for a gifted school. Yet in the last 10 years, he has been assigned to teach at a continuation school, where he cannot use all of his knowledge.

Thanh Nam from hovihati..@gmail.com wrote that he felt emotional when he heard about the Tet bonus a friend of his gets. “I feel self-pity when a friend of mine told me that he would get 30 million dong for Tet. Meanwhile, teachers only receive several hundreds of thousands dong,” he wrote.

No future teachers?

Bui Duong from buiduong...@gmail.com, recalled that, over the last four years, some 200 of his students have passed the university entrance exam each year, but only 10 of them have registered to study pedagogy.

“My great family has nine persons who are teachers: my parents, aunts and uncles. However, none of the 11 children of the teachers has chosen to teach, although we are still proud of our parents, aunts and uncles,” wrote Truong from mtt..@yahoo.com.

The readers who sent letters to VietNamNet warned that in the near future Vietnam will not be able to recruit good teachers in the near future because good students do not want to become teachers.

The current mechanism of recruiting staff has also been cited as a main reason that takes opportunities away from good candidates.

“With the current scheme of recruiting civil servants, I do believe that Vietnam’s education will not be able to have qualified teachers after three years,” wrote Do Anh Tuan from anhtuan09031981...@yahoo.com.

The failure to become teachers may also rest with the lack of funds, a reason many readers mentioned. Trung Anh wrote from Quang Ninh province that when his wife competed for the post of English teacher, she was told that she must spend 100 million dong to take the exam.

Huong, a fourth year student of a pedagogical university, admitted that she feels anxious when thinking about her future. “I need 60 million dong at least to get a job. How can I arrange such a big sum of money?”

All civil servants low-paid

While teachers all complain about hard work and low pay, readers working in other fields argue that a teacher’s pay is still better than that of other civil servants.

Luu Gia Bao in Kien Giang province wrote that teachers can get allowances from the state budget, while other state employees cannot. Though teachers get low pay, they can teach at extra classes to get additional income, while other state employees have no choice  but to rely on salaries.

Nguyen Binh An from anbinh802...@yahoo.com argued that all people have to work hard in order to earn money to feed themselves and their families. “The unemployment rate in the education sector is always lower than other sectors,” An cited.

“The salary scheme is a national policy which cannot be changed,” wrote Tran Van An from Soc Trang. “The thing that every person should do is to try his best to do the job he has chosen.”

Le Vu

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