When the teacher’s away …
A number of schools in Ho Chi Min City (HCM, the largest city in Vietnam) are struggling to find English teachers.
Originally the HCM City municipal Department of Education and Training tried to recruit 100 English teachers from the Philippines to teach at Primary and Secondary level. However they have only managed to find 13 so far with another 26 slated to arrive soon.
But finding enough teachers isn’t the only problem. Each of the English teachers from the Philippines is due to be paid 2,000 USD per month with half being provided by the local government and half from the schools. However, the local government can’t afford their half leaving the schools to foot the entire bill.
This means students are each paying 120,000 VND (about $5.70 US) per month to pay for their teacher. Even so, this is not enough and salaries are being taken from other teachers and school budgets.
To make the best of a bad situation, some Filipino teachers are being shared between schools who cannot afford a full teacher; other schools have employed foreign English teachers working at private language schools as well.
As if this weren’t enough, there have also been complaints about those Filipino teachers already working at schools. Some have been accused of lacking suitable skills to teach at Secondary level and students are complaining they cannot understand the teachers’ English accents.
Editor’s Comment
I don’t know about you, but if I were an English teacher looking for work, I’d be emailing the Department of Education in HCM within the next ten minutes offering my services. The salary is very good and Vietnam is a pretty amazing place to live and work in for a few years. If you are qualified and looking for work… what are you waiting for?!
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