Teacher salaries are ranked "highest" in the administrative and career system
The 2025 Teachers' Law takes effect from January 1, 2026. This is the time to establish legal principles on salaries and allowances for teachers.
One of the breakthroughs of the 2025 Teachers' Law is in Point a, Clause 1, Article 23, which stipulates: "Teachers' salaries are ranked highest in the administrative career salary scale system".
This regulation clearly demonstrates the policy of prioritizing and honoring the position of the teaching profession, overcoming the situation where teachers' salaries have not been commensurate with professional requirements and responsibilities for a long time. In principle, when building the new salary table, teachers will no longer be in the average group, but will be ranked in the highest group in the public service sector.
However, the Law on Teachers does not immediately stipulate specific salary levels, but assigns the Government to specify details.
This means that from January 1, 2026, the salary policy for teachers will not automatically change immediately, but will be implemented when the Government issues guiding decrees, associated with the roadmap for reforming general salary policies for cadres, civil servants and public employees.
For teachers working in non-public educational institutions, the 2025 Teachers' Law stipulates salaries implemented according to labor law.
This shows a clear distinction between the public and non-public sectors, while affirming the right to negotiate salaries of non-public teachers based on labor contracts, not applying the administrative career salary scale.
Teachers continue to receive many types of allowances
In addition to salary, vocational allowances and other allowances continue to form the income of teachers.
The 2025 Teachers Law clearly affirms that teachers are entitled to allowances according to: nature of work (professional allowances); Area and region of work according to the provisions of law.
Notably, the Law gives clear priority to a number of groups of teachers, including: Preschool teachers; teachers working in ethnic minority areas, mountainous areas, border areas, islands, areas with particularly difficult socio-economic conditions; teachers teaching at specialized schools; teachers implementing integration education; teachers in a number of specific sectors and professions. These subjects are entitled to salary and allowances higher than normal conditions.
Seniority allowance: Continue to receive until salary reform
One point that many teachers are particularly interested in is seniority allowances.
The 2025 Teachers' Law clearly stipulates: Teachers continue to receive seniority allowances until salary policy reform for cadres, civil servants, public employees and armed forces is implemented.
This regulation is intended to "maintain stable income", avoiding creating policy gaps in the transition period, especially for teachers who have worked for many years.
Thus, from January 1, 2026, the 2025 Teachers' Law creates an important legal framework for the arrangement of teachers' salaries, but the specific application still depends on the Government's guiding decrees.
In the coming time, teachers need to closely monitor the documents under the law to clearly understand the time and method of the new salary arrangement, as well as the accompanying allowance regimes.
