The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has just announced a draft Circular regulating the standards for vocational teachers to collect comments according to regulations.
The development of the Circular aims to concretize the provisions of the 2025 Law on Vocational Education (amended) on vocational teacher standards, and at the same time implement the Party's policies on innovation and development of vocational education in the direction of strengthening links between schools and businesses, attracting high-skilled human resources, experts, and skilled workers to participate in teaching and guiding practice.
The draft Circular is built in the direction of shifting from a management approach mainly based on diplomas and certificates to an approach based on the actual capacity of vocational trainers, including professional practice capacity and pedagogical capacity, associated with specific teaching tasks and training levels.
According to the provisions of the draft Circular, regarding professional ethics standards, vocational trainers must have good moral qualities, sense of responsibility, comply with professional standards; respect, treat fairly, and objectively evaluate learners; comply with the provisions of law, internal regulations, and rules of vocational education institutions and coordinating units; ensure safety and occupational hygiene requirements, and at the same time comply with regulations on technological security, production processes and business secrets in the teaching and practical guidance process.
Regarding the standards for training level and professional practice capacity, vocational teachers teaching theory must meet the standard level according to regulations for teachers and lecturers. Vocational teachers teaching and guiding practice must have appropriate training level or certificates, certificates or have professional practice capacity corresponding to the teaching level.
For college level, vocational teachers must have the ability to proficiently perform complex technical tasks and procedures, have the ability to analyze and handle technical situations, guide and supervise the practical process, update and apply new technologies; for intermediate level, they must proficiently perform main tasks, handle common technical situations and guide learners to ensure technical requirements and labor safety; for vocational secondary education program, they must perform basic tasks and some technically required tasks, guide learners to follow the correct procedures; for elementary level, they must perform simple tasks according to the guided procedures and ensure labor safety.
Regarding pedagogical competency standards, vocational trainers must have diplomas and certificates according to regulations or have pedagogical competence corresponding to the level of teaching participation.
Accordingly, for college level, it is necessary to have the ability to design, organize, and manage the teaching process according to competency development orientation, develop teaching plans, evaluate according to output standards, apply technology and participate in developing programs and materials; for intermediate level, it is necessary to have the ability to organize integrated teaching, guide learners to solve professional situations and evaluate learning outcomes; for vocational secondary education program, it is necessary to have the ability to design, organize teaching activities, guide practice and evaluate learning outcomes; for elementary level, it is necessary to organize guidance on basic operations and skills and evaluate according to program requirements.
The draft Circular stipulates the assessment and recognition of professional practice capacity and pedagogical capacity through the assessment council established by professional education institutions. The draft also stipulates the responsibilities of professional education institutions in organizing capacity assessment and recognition; being responsible for the assessment results; developing and implementing plans for fostering and improving capacity; publicizing the list of qualified vocational teachers; managing and storing records and data; ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of vocational teachers.
