Hanoi kindergartens face teacher shortage

Teachers at Kim Lien Kindergarten welcome students back to school on April 13

Thanh Cong Kindergarten in Tay Ho District called teachers and parents to help clean classrooms to prepare for their reopening on April 13.

The school headmaster Do Thi Yen said that some 40 percent of their outdoor facilities including toys and sports equipment had badly deteriorated. Many teachers left and had other jobs following the long-term closure.

"At present, we don't have funds to buy new equipment and will try to operate despite the shortages," the headmaster said. "We will gradually spare funds to buy new equipment and find new teachers."

"Following a regulation from the Ministry of Health, if a child tests positive for Covid-19, the class has to close for a week for monitoring of the whole class," teacher Yen said. "This will cause difficulties for both schools and parents."

The teacher said they pay nearly VND200 million a month in rent and will have to spend a lot to upgrade their facilities and find new teachers. So they hope that the health ministry would issue new guidelines for Covid-19 prevention measures at kindergartens to ensure operations.

Khuc Thi Trang, Headmaster of Trang An Kindergarten in Thanh Oai District also shared that they were facing staff shortages as most of the teachers have switched to other jobs during the long-term closure.

"We used to have 30 teachers but only 10 of them agreed to return to work," Trang said. "We’re trying to find new staff members for the reopening."

According to the Hanoi Department of Education and Training, surveys showed that between 90-100 percent of parents agreed to let their children return to kindergartens.

Head of the department's Preschool Education Unit, Hoang Thi Thanh Huong, said they were trying to help local schools to resolve difficulties when resuming operations.

"We’ve tried to help some schools prepare proper equipment and organised teacher training on Covid-19 prevention," Huong said. "Eight private kindergartens had been dissolved during the pandemic so there's much work to do to ensure there are enough schools for local children."

Around 600,000 kindergarten students in Hanoi returned to schools on April 13 after a year of strictly online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hanoi is the last locality among 63 provinces and cities nationwide to allow kindergartens to resume in-person learning.

Schools in the city have reopened to all students from first to sixth grades earlier this month, with the rate of students returning reaching 94 per cent.