>> HCM City primary schools face dire English teacher shortage
Since the launch of a national pilot programme last year to teach English as a compulsory subject to third- and fourth-graders, local authorities have been struggling to find qualified teachers.
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| An English session of a third-grade class at Phan Dinh Phung Elementary School in District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. |
The Ministry of Education and Training first introduced the programme for third-graders in 94 elementary schools in 18 provinces and cities, replacing the earlier system in which English was taught only from grade six onwards.
Education authorities in the northern province of Ninh Binh complained that there were few qualified teachers even as the programme is set to be widened this year.
Only one school had taken part in the programme as a result, they said.
Another northern province, Hoa Binh, suffered from a similar dearth, with only three teachers being qualified for the programme.
In a third, Hai Duong, just a few dozen out of 700 teachers passed a test administered by the ministry to select teachers for the programme.
Even in Hanoi which has an advantage in terms of learning facilities, many elementary-school principals complained that their schools lacked qualified teachers.
Last year only nine were found good enough to teach at the eight participating schools while the city has almost 700 schools in all.
It hopes to increase the number of participating schools this year to 150, a wish many have dismissed as out of the question given the small number of competent teachers.
The ministry wants participating schools to go on to teach English to fourth-graders this year, and has encouraged other schools to join.
| Teachers of English in the pilot programme were originally required to reach B2 level in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment (CEFR). But the Ministry of Education and Training has decided to lower the bar for English proficiency in the 2011-12 academic year which began early this month. So teachers only need to achieve B1 level to qualify. CEFR is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe, and has become widely accepted as the European standard for grading an individual\'s language proficiency in other countries. B1 (intermediate) and B2 (upper intermediate) belong to the second of its three broad divisions. |
