Director General Vu Minh Duc first mentioned the updates of the 5th draft Teachers Law (as of October 1) with 45 articles in 9 chapters, only regulating matters within the authority of the National Assembly.
The draft law clarifies the roles of teachers in public educational institutions as civil servants, subject to the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants (recruitment, employment, management, salary scale system, etc.) and the management of competent state management agencies, while also being subject to specific regulations for teachers. Meanwhile, teachers in non-public educational institutions are employees, subject to the provisions of the Labor Code and specific regulations for teachers.
To ensure comprehensiveness, equality, and consistency for teachers across the entire system, the draft has maximized the provisions of common regulations that do not differentiate between public and non-public teachers (focusing on provisions related to titles, professional standards, teacher ethics, rights and obligations, training policies, support policies, attraction methods, emulation, and rewards).
For issues with differing opinions (regulations on the application of the Law on Teachers, on the teachers' professional association, on the standards for heads of educational institutions, and on the regulations for teaching licenses), they have been removed from the draft law for further research and evaluation.
The Director General then discussed possible positive impacts of this law to stakeholders. The education sector will have more autonomy in recruiting, using, and developing the teaching force, as there will be sufficiently strong legal sanctions to address the bottlenecks in teacher recruitment and use over the past time, attracting talented individuals to the teaching profession and retaining good teachers. This is supposed to enhance the quality of the education system based on the standardization of the teaching force in terms of quality.
Teachers will also have their status and role elevated, recognized and honored by society. They will be protected in their professional activities. Policies and regulations will also contribute to improving their living standards, helping teachers work with peace of mind and creating motivation for teachers to dedicate themselves to the profession.
As to the recent proposal of the Committee on Culture and Education in the latest meeting of the NA’s Standing Committee about clearly defining the scope, beneficiaries, resources required to implement support and attraction policies for teachers, Director General Vu Minh Duc shared that regulations on policies for the relatives of civil servants and public employees are often proposed for certain industries with specific characteristics.
In many countries, in addition to regulations on policies for teachers, there are also preferential policies for the relatives of teachers. With the view of creating some breakthrough policies to facilitate the development of teachers and enhance their professional status in hope of attracting talented people to the profession, the drafting board has proposed a policy of supporting tuition fees for the children of teachers and other social security policies for teachers. This is to create conditions for teachers to have a better life, feel secure, and be committed to the education career.
During the drafting of the draft Law on Teachers, the Ministry of Education and Training has always been open to suggestions and feedback from National Assembly deputies, teachers, voters, and the people across the country in order to make timely adjustments if there is sufficient basis.
Therefore, regarding the provision on tuition fee exemption for the children of teachers, the Ministry of Education and Training is currently consolidating opinions, carefully reviewing and assessing the impact of the regulations to ensure feasibility as well as correlation with other professions, and the socio-economic conditions of the country for adjustment in the draft law before submitting it to the National Assembly at the next session.
The NA’s Standing Committee has just issued a conclusion on the draft Law on Teachers. Accordingly, the Standing Committee agreed on the necessity of developing the Law on Teachers. Because the content of the draft Law on Teachers has fundamentally changed compared to the draft law submitted for the first time, the Standing Committee requested the completion of the draft law dossier, the development of a new government report on the draft law to be submitted to the National Assembly before October 18 for consideration at the 8th session.
Regarding policies for teachers, the Standing Committee proposed to continue reviewing and perfecting policies for teachers in a cautious, consistent, feasible, and innovative manner; ensuring that the state's policy frameworks for teachers are fully concretized; and conducting a more thorough assessment of the impact of new policies, especially ensuring financial resources and human resources to implement them. The salary and allowance policies for teachers need to be appropriate to the context of salary reform.
