The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has just announced the draft Circular promulgating the Professional Training Program for teachers who wish to become teachers of general education institutions to widely solicit opinions from agencies, organizations, and individuals on the Government Electronic Information Portal and the Ministry of Education and Training Electronic Information Portal.
It is expected that this Circular will replace the regulations on pedagogical professional development for people with bachelor's degrees in appropriate majors who wish to become primary school, secondary school (THCS), and high school (THPT) teachers in Circular No. 11/2021/TT-BGDDT dated April 5, 2021 and Circular No. 12/2021/TT-BGDDT dated April 5, 2021.
Expanding training targets, attracting human resources, overcoming teacher shortages
Currently, according to the provisions of Circular No. 11 and Circular No. 12, the training subjects are only bachelors, i.e., university graduates. This leads to students not majoring in pedagogy having to spend at least 01 year after graduating from bachelor's to have a pedagogical professional certificate to participate in teacher recruitment.
The draft new Circular expands the training subjects to people with a bachelor's degree or students who have completed at least 70% of the credits of the training major or training program in a major suitable for the subject wishing to become a primary school teacher in the subjects: Arts (Music, Fine Arts), Informatics and Technology, Physical Education, Foreign Languages; suitable for the subject or level wishing to become a secondary school teacher and a high school teacher.
The expansion of subjects according to the new draft Circular overcomes difficulties in attracting human resources to work as teachers, especially teachers of special subjects such as Music, Fine Arts, Informatics... who are currently lacking recruitment sources; shortens training time, prepares teachers early, and increases the flexibility of the training system.
Develop comprehensive capacity, promote technology and digital transformation
If previously, the regulations only stopped at basic pedagogical knowledge and skills, the draft Circular strongly shifted from content approach to competency approach, with a clear competency structure for competencies including: teaching competence, educational competence, social relationship and community development competence, self-development competence. In which, many modules must be directly trained. Teachers are comprehensively trained, capable of advising students, coordinating with the community, researching and innovating.
One of the notable new points of the draft is that for the first time modern contents such as the application of digital technology in teaching, online teaching, using digital platforms, and applying artificial intelligence (AI) are included in the training program. This is in line with the trend of digital transformation in education, helping teachers adapt to the new teaching environment.
Strengthening practice, internship and professional skills
The draft new Circular stipulates that the program includes 32 credits, arranged into 02 parts: general knowledge (12 credits) and specialized knowledge and pedagogical internships (20 credits). The number of credits has been reduced according to the provisions of Circular No. 11 (35 credits) and Circular No. 12 (34 credits).
At the same time, the new regulations are expected to increase the proportion of practice in the training program; emphasizing professional skills such as teaching lesson design, classroom management, pedagogical situation handling, and organizing practical education activities.
The draft new Circular also allows learners to choose modules according to their needs and career orientation, customizing content suitable for the level of education and subjects. This helps personalize the training process and suit a diverse range of learners.
In order to ensure output quality and meet practical professional standards, the draft new Circular clearly stipulates the minimum implementation time of the training program of 10 months. For cases exempted from some modules according to regulations, the training time may be shortened corresponding to the learning time of the exempted modules.
To ensure that the pedagogical professional development process is not interrupted and ensures the rights of learners, the draft Circular clearly states the transition clause. Accordingly, pedagogical professional development courses for people who wish to become teachers opening before the effective date of this Circular will continue to be implemented according to the provisions of Circular No. 11 and Circular No. 12.
