Plan to arrange school staff when merging schools
According to the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), from July 2026, the Ministry has guided localities to continue arranging the network of educational institutions with the goal of reducing at least 30% of public educational institutions in rural, mountainous, and difficult areas and striving to reduce by over 50% in urban and central areas compared to July 1, 2025.
August 30 is the deadline for implementing the arrangement, currently localities have completed the arrangement plan, stabilized organization to prepare for the opening of the new school year.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, the arrangement creates conditions to rearrange the staff, and is expected to reduce 32,625 principals and vice principals, of which many management officials will be rearranged to teach. At the same time, reduce 11,041 school staff.
The remaining education support staff after arrangement are arranged in job positions. Education support personnel are still lacking in the number of employees who do not immediately meet the training and fostering standards of the new job position (except for the accounting and school health job positions), or are arranged in the teacher job position if they meet the training standards of teachers and meet the requirements for professional and nghiệp vụ competence to immediately meet the teacher job position.
Before the arrangement, the whole country had about 246,800 school staff (95,600 permanent staff, 151,200 contracts) working in kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, and high schools, belonging to the group of specialized and professional public employees shared according to the job position list.
This is a team that suffers many disadvantages because of low salaries and allowances, and a large workload. Until 2026, school staff will only receive a 20% allowance.
In documents and guidelines related to the arrangement of the school network, the Ministry of Education and Training has requested the People's Committees of provinces and cities to be responsible for developing organizational plans, arranging and using staff suitable for job positions, the number of people assigned to work as well as the actual conditions in the locality.
In Hanoi, for school staff and contract workers, positions of library staff, laboratory and medical equipment continue to be arranged at the main school and school sites as before the arrangement to ensure the maintenance of the quality of teaching and education activities.
For accounting and clerical positions, each new school after arrangement will be allocated a maximum of 2 accounting staff and 1 clerical staff. The surplus staff will be retained for handover and finalization until the end of December 30, 2026.
Many other localities also arrange school staff according to this plan. After schools are arranged, the model of each school having accountants, clerks, and cashiers as before will no longer be maintained, but will only be arranged at the main school site.
School staff can be converted into teachers
For redundant school staff in the process of arrangement, localities are allowed to convert professional titles to arrange for teacher positions if they meet the conditions according to the provisions of law.
According to the provisions of Article 32 of the Law on Civil Servants, when a public non-business unit has a need, a civil servant can be transferred to a new job position if he meets the professional and nghiệp vụ standards of that job position and performs the change of professional title.
Article 29 of Decree No. 115/2020/ND-CP stipulates the cases of changing professional titles for public employees, including: "Considering transfer from this professional title to another professional title corresponding to the same level of work complexity as required by the job position".
To change positions, school staff must see if the school has a need for a teacher job position or not, and if there is a shortage of teachers in which subject. Next, school staff must meet the standards of professional qualifications such as degrees, certificates... that the teacher job position is lacking.
