The 2018 General Education Program has been implemented into its fourth year, but many provinces and cities across the country are still facing a severe shortage of teachers in several subjects, especially music and art.
Associate Professor Dao Dang Phuong said that Music and Fine Arts are important subjects that help develop students' creativity, self-expression and artistic knowledge. Teacher shortages in these subjects can affect the quality of teaching and students' learning opportunities.
When the 2018 General Education Program was implemented, the problem of teacher shortage became even hotter. Statistically, by the end of 2022, the country lacked more than 100,000 teachers, mainly in preschools, elementary schools and some subjects under new programs such as Music, Fine Arts, Informatics, English, and Integrated subject.
Although the education sector was assigned to supplement 65,980 teachers on its payrolls by May 2023, the Ministry of Education and Training and localities have only recruited more than half of the quota, of which the shortage of art teachers is the most serious because no teacher applied for the job for some reasons. For instance, universities are facing difficulties in training art teachers, enrollment does not meet quotas, art graduates have many job opportunities, so many of them do other jobs with higher income.
In addition, from the 2022-2023 school year, art subjects begin to be taught for 10th graders, so the shortage of teachers is even more serious.
In his opinion, it is not necessary to ensure that each school needs one music teacher and one art teacher because in the 2018 General Education Program, Art is an elective subject, students can either choose the art subject or not. Hence, each school should consider recruiting art teachers depending on their conditions and the number of registered students. Schools can provide art training at schools or link with other schools to organize the teaching of these elective subjects.
In addition, the content of art teaching at the high school level is oriented to help students access career fields related to their talents and strengths. Schools can invite artisans, artists, and experts in this field to teach a number of topics.
Localities also need to have a mechanism for pedagogical schools to train art teachers or local arts and culture schools to link with high schools in the area to bring music and fine arts lecturers/teachers to schools.
This is also an opportunity to provide career orientation for high school students with artistic talent in the future, creating a source of qualifed training for art schools after students graduate from high school to pursue art subjects at higher educational establishments.
The Ministry of Education and Training should open training courses to supplement teaching knowledge for pedagogical schools that train university-level art teachers, including NUAE so that lectures can teach at high schools. Artisans, artists, music and fine arts instructors of art and culture schools, and unemployed art graduates will deliver lessons at high schools. This helps them have more pedagogical knowledge, and new methods and approaches to participate in teaching at the high schools which are in dire need.
Not only does Ho Chi Minh City but also many localities, including Hanoi have a great need to recruit teachers to teach art subjects. If the need for art teachers in public schools has not yet been resolved thoroughly, there will still be many difficulties.
In addition to applications of special policies to attract graduates from other provinces to teach, Ho Chi Minh City can continue to employ a number of art teachers at the lower secondary level to teach high school students. In the long term, because many art teachers at secondary schools have not met the teaching content at high schools, the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City needs to have a strategy to foster and improve their professional skills.
