Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam - Oxfam Blogs

Participatory poverty monitoring in rural communities in Viet Nam
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traditional teaching methods dominate.
Teacher rotation in ethnic minority mountainous areas has a negative impact
on the quality of teaching and learning. Few teachers from low lying areas want to
live and work in ethnic minority mountainous areas for more than three to five years. In
especially disadvantaged communes teachers enjoy a hardship allowance (on top of a
preferential salary) for five years. Few teachers want to stay on without the allowance.
Salaries for short term teachers in mountainous areas are low. To overcome
the shortage of teachers, some schools in specially disadvantaged ethnic minority
mountainous areas have employed teachers on short term contracts. The low pay (on
average about 1.2 million VND/month, about 20 - 30% that of those in the long term
payroll) leads to uncertainly among temporary teachers.
The use of “nominated teachers” is a challenge in monitoring communes in
ethnic minority mountainous areas (Xy - Quang Tri, Cu Hue - Dak Lak, Phuoc Dai -
Ninh Thuan and Phuoc Thanh - Ninh Thuan). Nominated teachers are usually teachers
from local ethnic minority groups who have completed lower secondary schools with an
additional two years of pedagogic training. However, school managers often comment
that as their teaching skills and overall participation in school activities are limited. Thus
in some places, the nominated teachers are only allowed to teach minor subjects, such
as physical exercise, first grade ethnic minority languages or do office work.
Students’ learning quality
Educational outcomes have improved. The campaign “Toward friendly schools and
active learners” launched by the Ministry of Education and Training has been effective.
Many schools have introduced concrete measures to improve the quality of learning,
such as organizing extra classes in summer and at the beginning of the school year,
providing special classes for weaker students and introducing a more realistic workload
for ethnic minorities. The majority of students now attend lessons commensurate with
their ability.
There are challenges to education quality, which requires efforts from the schools,
families and society, as well as renewed learning and teaching methods. According to
the current assessment system, the proportion of students reaching the “creditable
and outstanding” level in the ethnic minority mountainous communes is low and is only
slowly improving. Some students at lower secondary schools but can’t read or write
fluently and have poor numeracy skills. Teachers have to teach primary level knowledge
to secondary students, and few students go on to upper secondary school. Some ethnic
minority students also struggle to communicate and learn in Vietnamese (Table 6.3).
Students’ different abilities in communes with mixed ethnic groups provides a difficult
challenge for teachers.