The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) issued Circular No. 59/2026/TT-BGDDT dated July 15, 2026, regulating full-time contract teachers after retirement and visiting lecturers (Circular No. 59).
Circular No. 59 takes effect from September 1, 2026, replacing the provisions of Circular No. 44/2011/TT-BGDĐT and Circular No. 11/2013/TT-BGDĐT, in order to concretize the provisions of the Law on Teachers, the Law on Education, the Law on Vocational Education and the Law on Higher Education; and at the same time create a unified legal corridor for educational institutions to effectively use a team of experienced teachers, contributing to improving the quality of education and training.
First regulations on full-time contract teachers after retirement
The new Circular supplements a mechanism allowing educational institutions to sign full-time labor contracts with teachers after retirement if they meet the conditions according to regulations.
The Circular clearly stipulates the principles of contract signing, the conditions of teachers, working hours, salaries, allowances, rights and responsibilities of teachers and the responsibilities of educational institutions when using this team. The Circular also emphasizes that the use of teachers after retirement must ensure that it does not affect the strategy of developing a successor team, does not replace the existing teaching staff and complies with the provisions of labor law.
The Circular clearly states that educational institutions are allowed to use full-time contract teachers after retirement to improve the quality of education, training and scientific research activities. The results of this team's work are the basis for determining training capacity, enrollment scale and quality accreditation according to the provisions of education law.
Along with that, educational institutions must publicize the list and titles according to job positions and be responsible for ensuring the rate of using this staff according to regulations on quality accreditation and training scale.
According to the Ministry of Education and Training, this regulation contributes to taking advantage of high-quality retired human resources, especially experts, scientists, and experienced lecturers; and at the same time creates a clear legal basis for educational institutions to use the team of retired teachers in teaching, scientific research and improving training quality.
Comprehensively improve regulations on visiting lecturers
The new Circular introduces a unified concept of visiting lecturers, visiting lecturers' facilities and visiting lecturer contracts; clearly defining that visiting lecture activities are not only for teaching subjects but also for participating in practical guidance, scientific research, textbook compilation, thesis guidance, dissertation, thesis and other professional activities as prescribed.
The Circular also specifies more about the standards, conditions, norms for visiting lecture hours, rights and responsibilities of visiting lecturers as well as educational institutions, creating a transparent legal basis for the use of this team.
The Circular also clearly defines the application of labor contracts and service contracts depending on the nature of visiting lecturers. The new regulation overcomes previous inadequacies when old documents had not clearly defined the legal nature of visiting lecturers, helping to apply the law more uniformly.
Educational institutions must develop a plan to use visiting lecturers, publicize the list of visiting lecturers on the electronic information page (except for some special cases), periodically assess teaching quality, collect feedback from learners and use the evaluation results as a basis for continuing or terminating contracts.
