Mountainous areas "red eyes" looking for teachers
The new school year is approaching, but Tra Leng 1 Ethnic Minority Boarding Primary School, Tra Leng commune is still short of 11 teachers in charge and must continue to sign short-term contracts. Mr. Le Huy Phuong - Principal of the school admitted that the most difficult to recruit are teachers of specialized subjects, especially English.
To retain teachers, the school connects the contract period. The 2025-2026 school year contract ends on May 31st, the new contract is signed from June 1st, helping teachers have summer income and maintain social insurance benefits. This solution helps limit the situation of arranging teachers to teach outside their specialties, but according to teacher Phuong, it is still only temporary.
At Tra Cang Secondary School, Tra Tap commune, a similar situation also occurred. Mr. Nguyen Thanh - Principal of the school - said that allowing schools to proactively contract teachers outside, including retirees, partly reduces pressure but cannot solve the root problem.
If there is only a short-term contract, it is very difficult to attract teachers. The regime is still low, while mobilizing them to go to mountainous areas without long-term guarantee is very disadvantageous" - teacher Thanh said.
Difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers is a prolonged situation in mountainous Da Nang due to dispersed schools, difficult traffic, and limited socio-economic conditions. Many teachers after a period of work apply to transfer to the plains, causing the situation of human resource shortage to recur.
The pressure is even greater as the number of students increases sharply. Compared to the 2025-2026 school year, public schools directly under the Da Nang Department of Education and Training increased by 9,241 students, while schools under the People's Committees of communes and wards increased by 8,798 students. Meanwhile, the number of educational career staff assigned to the whole city is currently lacking 5,349 targets compared to actual needs.
Changing teachers from surplus to shortage
According to the Da Nang Department of Education, the current recruitment source does not meet the needs, especially for Music, Fine Arts, Informatics, Physical Education and English subjects.
Before Da Nang and Quang Nam merged, teacher recruitment was decentralized to localities, but many subjects still lacked candidates. In mountainous areas, the difficulty is even greater when there is a shortage of recruitment sources and it is difficult to keep teachers for a long time.
To solve the immediate problem, the city has assigned 3,319 labor contract targets to the Education sector in 2026. Of which, units directly under the Department of Education and Training are assigned 531 targets, the rest is allocated to communes and wards to proactively sign contracts.
The Department of Education and Training also proposed to add 3,261 staff positions in the 2026 - 2030 period, of which 2,599 staff positions are for the 2026 - 2027 school year alone.
In parallel with new recruitment, the city focuses on rearranging the network and staff. According to the organization plan for public educational institutions just announced, 976 institutions will be rearranged to 452 institutions, a decrease of more than 53% of focal points but maintaining the stability of the number of classes and students.
The streamlining of focal points creates conditions to review personnel and regulate teachers from surplus to shortage. The Department of Education and Training is advising on regulations on mobilization and transfer of teachers. When the regulations are issued, the Education sector will coordinate with the People's Committees of communes and wards to transfer teachers between units, arrange inter-school and inter-level teaching and continue to recruit in positions that are really lacking.
With redundant personnel after arrangement, the city advocates flexible arrangement instead of cutting machinery. In Lien Chieu ward, some office workers and school accountants who are identified as redundant can be transferred to the Public Administrative Service Center, the Public Career Service Supply Center or arranged for other jobs suitable to their expertise.
Mr. Mai Tan Linh - Deputy Director of Da Nang Department of Education and Training - said that after completing the arrangement of educational institutions and being assigned official staff, the sector will request localities and units to review needs to develop plans for recruiting teachers and staff according to each level of education.
According to Mr. Nguyen Dang Thuan - former Head of the Department of Education and Training of Nam Tra My district, to end the "red-eyed" scene of looking for teachers every beginning of the school year, the preferential policies must be strong enough to retain people, especially young teachers.
In addition, it is necessary to create local human resources by supporting mountainous students to study pedagogy and prioritizing recruiting local people after graduation.
This is also the direction that the Department of Education and Training is advising the city: Developing a separate policy to attract and treat teachers working in difficult areas, in addition to the current regulations of the Central Government.
