ILO Viet Nam Director: Vietnamese teachers need more supports to make education beneficial to all

Ladies and Gentlemen

On behalf of the ILO, it is my great honor to welcome all of you at the national dialogue on the “Role and status of teachers in building an inclusive, creative and sustainable learning society”.

We marked the World Teachers Day a month ago. On that day the ILO Director-General warned that “teaching as a profession is under siege” in many parts of the world, and called for urgent actions to make teaching an attractive career once again.

The economic crisis in the developed world has strongly affected working conditions and salaries of many teachers. The lack of teachers has been leading to an increase in the number of students in each classroom, as funding for support services and materials for schools has dropped.

All of this has resulted in a decline in the status of teachers. People do not see teaching as an attractive profession, and some teachers have actually left their jobs. In this process, the most affected are disadvantaged students, ethnic minorities and those with behavior and learning difficulties.

Urgent actions are needed to invest in education, improve the status of teachers and come up with policies and strategies that attract and motivate people to become teachers.

Compared with industrialized countries, the situation in Vietnam is somewhat different. Over the past decades, you have good progress towards Education for All Goals. Viet Nam has raised literacy rates of adults and youth, increased net enrolment in primary and secondary schools, and gender equality has been improved in education.

Many of these successes are the result of Government policies. The successes are also thanks to the excellent job of Viet Nam’s teachers, whom we are honouring today at the celebration of the Vietnamese Teachers’ Day.

Yet many challenges remain. In Viet Nam, teachers are well-respected; it is your long-time tradition and culture to respect your teachers. But many of them are underpaid, working conditions are poor, and teachers who work in the mountainous areas even have to go to each family and persuade them to let their children attend school.

So the question is not how to enhance teachers' status and respect but how to make teaching become a decent job that deserves the status it already has in the society.

I look forward to fruitful outcomes of the discussion today. Thank you.