A teacher and children at Hoa Sen (Lotus) Kindergarten in Vinh City, central Nghệ An Province. — VNA/VNS Photo Bích Huệ

HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Education and Training has recently proposed adding kindergarten teachers to the list of hazardous occupations, which may allow them to retire with benefits up to five years earlier than other occupations.

Most parents, teachers and experts agree that kindergarten teachers should be granted better benefits.

Minister of Education and Training Nguyễn Kim Sơn recently said there are 16,000 independent preschools across the country. Many teachers of those schools have not participated in social insurance and need to join the insurance to have their benefits ensured.

According to Labour Code 2019 and Social Insurance Law 2014, labourers taking difficult jobs and working in hazardous and dangerous environments will benefit from more rights than those working in normal conditions, especially in terms of annual leave and sickness benefits.

If the proposal is approved, preschool teachers will receive allowances for difficult, toxic and dangerous jobs and can retire at an earlier age.

Phạm Thị Bích Ngọc, a kindergarten teacher in Hà Nội, said teachers at the preschool level face specific hardships compared to other levels.

“We have to work early at 6:30 to clean classrooms and welcome children. In the afternoon we only leave when all children are picked up, sometimes later than the school’s closure time,” she said.

“While those taking other jobs spend eight hours per day at work, preschool teachers have to work 12 hours a day,” she told Voice of Việt Nam (VOV) newspaper.

“Teachers almost have no time to take a nap at noon as we have to care for children or use nap time to prepare curriculum. Preschool teachers have little time for family,” she said.

Bích said children in kindergarten, aged one to six, mostly have not developed self-care skills so they need assistance in all activities like eating, sleeping and playing.

Despite being a hard job, preschool teachers receive a low salary. At private schools, a higher salary for teachers comes with more requirements from parents, putting more pressure on teachers, she said.

Bích said many of her colleagues leave jobs before retirement age and ask for lump-sum social insurance.

Nguyễn Thị Hoa, a preschool teacher in northern Hải Dương Province, said teachers have to face whining children, vomiting and spitting.

Teachers have to focus totally on every child's activities. Just a minute of distraction can lead to unfortunate incidents like fighting and injuries, Hoa said.

She said most preschool teachers hope that this profession will be classified as a difficult and hazardous occupation, so teachers will have an earlier retirement age than usual.

“Preschool teachers must organise activities such as dancing and singing. When we are 60 years old, how can we dance and sing? We can not guarantee the quality of teaching. But if we ask for early retirement, it will affect social insurance benefits and pensions,” she said, adding that classifying preschool teaching as a difficult and toxic profession would reflect the real demands of many teachers.

Nguyễn Thị Tân, a teacher in Đông Anh District, Hà Nội, said occupation pressure affects teacher’s psychology.

When children hurt each other and teachers do not interfere quickly enough, some parents show sympathy, others do not and post on social network forums and give feedback to the principal, putting more pressure on teachers, Tân told Lao Động (Labour) newspaper.

“I really hope that preschool teachers are considered as hazardous jobs so that we can benefit from more favourable policies to compensate for our disadvantages,” she said.

Nguyễn Thị Tuyết, a mother of a 19-month-old child in Hà Nội, said she really sympathises with preschool teachers’ hard job.

“I know how hard it is to take care of a small child who is only one and a half years old like my daughter. Preschool teachers should get access to more preferential schemes for their hard job to give them motivation to do the job better,” she told Việt Nam News.

Lê Đình Quảng, deputy head of Policy and Legal Department, Vietnam General Confederation of Labour (VGCL), said if the retirement age of male and female workers increases to 62 and 60 years old, respectively, it is difficult for preschool teachers to work until that age due to the specific characteristics of their profession.

The proposal of recognising preschool teachers as a hazardous profession aims to allow them to retire five years earlier than other jobs.

Since amending the Labour Code 2019, VGCL has consulted with officials and employees working in the education sector and made a proposal to authorities but it has not received approval, he said.

VGCL will continue to submit the proposal to ensure the teachers’ benefits, he said. — VNS