Lao Dong Newspaper had a talk with Mr. Vu Minh Duc - Director of the Department of Teachers and Educational Managers, Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) - about some new points in the draft Law on Teachers.
What are the latest points of the Draft Law on Teachers (updated to the present time), sir?
Draft 5 of the Law on Teachers (revised version until October 1, 2024) includes 9 Chapters and 45 Articles (The Draft Law on Teachers was submitted to the National Assembly in Submission No. 406/TTr-CP dated September 6, 2024, including 9 chapters and 71 articles.
The draft closely follows the direction of the National Assembly Standing Committee, which is a concise law, only regulating contents under the authority of the National Assembly.
The draft Law on Teachers has been adjusted but still closely follows and reflects the content of the 5 policies approved by the Government and the National Assembly at the stage of proposing the Law; at the same time, it clarifies the orientation: Teachers in public educational institutions are civil servants, accordingly, public teachers are still civil servants, implementing the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants (recruitment, use, management, salary scale system, etc.) and are subject to the management of competent state management agencies, and at the same time subject to the regulation of specific regulations for teachers. Teachers in non-public educational institutions are employees, implementing the provisions of the Labor Code and specific regulations for teachers.
To ensure comprehensiveness, equality, and uniformity in teachers throughout the system, the draft has maximized the general provisions without distinguishing between public and non-public teachers (focusing on the provisions on titles, professional standards, teacher ethics, rights and obligations, training policies, support policies, attraction, emulation, and rewards); at the same time, there are specific provisions with policy contents that require distinction between public and non-public teachers in each clause (on authority, recruitment methods, probation, salary payment, etc.).
According to the draft Law on Teachers, the Ministry proposes to exempt tuition fees for teachers' children, from kindergarten to university, with an estimated cost of about 9,200 billion VND per year. Why did the Ministry make this proposal?
Regulations on regimes and policies for relatives of cadres, civil servants and public employees are often proposed to be regulated for a number of sectors and fields with specific characteristics (for example: health insurance regimes, exemptions and reductions in hospital fees for relatives of officers, non-commissioned officers and soldiers serving in the People's Armed Forces have been regulated in the Law on the People's Public Security, the Law on Officers of the Vietnam People's Army). International experience also shows that many countries, in addition to regulations on policies for teachers, also regulate preferential policies for relatives of teachers.
With the view of building the Law on Teachers to create policies, including some breakthrough policies, creating conditions for teachers to develop as well as enhancing the professional status of teachers to attract talented people to the industry, the Drafting Committee has proposed a policy to support tuition fees for teachers' children and other policies to ensure social security for teachers to create conditions for teachers to have a better life, peace of mind, and commitment to the education career.
There are concerns that exempting tuition fees for teachers' children could cause social inequality. What is the Ministry of Education and Training's opinion on this?
During the process of drafting the Law on Teachers, the Ministry of Education and Training always receptively listened to the comments and criticisms of National Assembly deputies, teachers, voters and people nationwide to make timely adjustments if there was sufficient basis.
Therefore, with the content of the regulation on tuition exemption policy for teachers' children, currently, the Ministry of Education and Training is synthesizing opinions, carefully reviewing, assessing the impact of the regulations in the direction of ensuring feasibility, ensuring correlation with other professions and the country's socio-economic conditions to edit the draft Law before submitting it to the National Assembly at the next session in accordance with the direction of the Government and the National Assembly: Issues that are ripe, clear, and highly consensual will be included in the law; remove contents that have not been thoroughly assessed for impact or issues that have not achieved high consensus from the draft law.
Another new point is that teachers are expected to be classified by grade level. How does this affect the teaching staff?
Professional title ranks are a measure of a teacher's qualifications and professional capacity, along with corresponding regimes, policies, and tasks. Appointment to ranks and promotions are also motivations for teachers to develop. For public teachers who are civil servants, the ranking of professional titles is in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Civil Servants and implementing documents.
For non-public teachers, ranking is also a measure to assess the quality of the team, while ensuring the connection between the public and non-public teacher systems when there is a transition. However, due to the nature of the non-public education system, the process and procedures for ranking titles will be prescribed by the educational institution in its internal regulations based on the title ranking standards of the public education system.
When enacted, how will the Law on Teachers affect the spiritual and material lives of millions of teachers across the country?
According to the assessment of the Ministry of Education and Training, some expected positive impacts of the Law on Teachers on the spiritual and material lives of millions of teachers nationwide are as follows:
Firstly, teachers will have their status and role raised, be recognized, honored and protected by society in their professional activities; expand opportunities for professional development; create conditions and prescribe responsibilities for teachers in self-study and self-improvement to meet the requirements of educational development and continuous professional development; contribute to improving the lives, helping teachers feel secure in their work and creating motivation for teachers to devote themselves to their profession.
Second, creating equality in development opportunities between public and non-public teachers. For the first time, the legal position of non-public teachers is established as teachers, not just as workers under the mechanism of labor contracts.
Thank you!
