COVID-19-hit kindergarten teachers at private schools will receive support from the Government. — VNA/VNS Photo

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Education and Training will work closely with the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs to devise a plan to support COVID-19-affected teachers of private kindergartens and primary schools.

The co-operation was committed at a meeting between the two ministries and relevant agencies with Deputy Prime Minister Vũ Đức Đam on Monday.

The plan will be submitted to the Government for approval next week.

Representatives of sectors at the meeting emphasised the necessity of supporting private pre-school employees and businesses in order to share difficulties with them and reduce the number of teachers leaving jobs after the school’s reopening.

Some proposed offering assistance to teachers of private primary schools as well.

Supportive policies in terms of infrastructure, tax exemption and loans for private pre-school facilities will be taken into the national socio-economic recovery and development programme.

According to the Ministry of Education and Training, among educational levels, kindergarten has the highest number of private schools.

As of May this year (the end of 2020-21 academic year), there were 19,312 private kindergartens nationwide with more than 1.2 million children and over 90,500 employees.

As one of the hardest-hit sectors in the pandemic, private kindergartens have lost incomes over a long period due to school closures and no tuition, meanwhile, they still have to pay for land rental and a part of salaries for school staff.

A lot of non-public preschool educational institutions cannot afford wages for their employees, forcing teachers to change jobs.

According to a quick survey by the Việt Nam Association of Non-Public Early Childhood Education, 95.2 per cent of private preschool educational institutions have had no revenue for many months, mostly six months or more, and 81.6 per cent of the establishments are unable to pay salaries to teachers. — VNS