Teacher Lê Thị Thuỷ plays football with children at Bình Minh Kindergarten in Hải Phòng city. — Photo danviet.vn

HÀ NỘI — Pre-school teachers across the country hope their profession is included in the lists of heavy and hazardous occupations.

At the Workers’ Forum in the middle of last year, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) proposed adding kindergarten teachers to the list of people in hazardous occupations.

If accepted by the Government, they will be entitled to allowances paid for difficult, toxic and dangerous jobs, and can retire earlier.

MOET has also recommended that the Ministry of Home Affairs should consider increasing preferential policies and allowances for pre-school and elementary school teachers.

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

A working day for teacher Lê Thị Thuỷ, 52, in Bình Minh Kindergarten in Hải Phòng City starts at 6:30am and finishes only when the last child is picked up, usually at around 5:30pm.

Before the children arrive, Thuỷ and her colleagues have to clean the classroom, make breakfasts and feed them and then cleaning up for starting lessons.

Each working day for a pre-school teacher like Thuỷ usually lasts 10-11 hours while the Labour Code mandates a maximum of eight.

For the past three years, Thuỷ has been assigned to classes for children under 18 months or 18 - 24 months, ages when most children cry a lot when they are not with their mothers.

“On the first day in the new environment, some babies almost have to be held all day,” Thuỷ told danviet.vn.

“Babies’ biological sleeping hours must be maintained like at home. It takes more than a month for a child to get used to the school routine.”

Feeding children aged 6-12 months is truly the hardest task for teachers.

Some children cry out aloud before they could be fed and some spit out all their food in the teachers’ faces.

The teachers not only have to feed but also soothe, clean and keep an eye on all the babies at the same time.

Lương Thúy Quỳnh, the principal of Bình Minh Kindergarten, said: “Teachers taking care of children aged 6 - 12 months must meticulously observe them because they express all their needs through crying.

“More importantly, teachers must have emotional communication skills with babies. They need to be gentle and affectionate and give children security so that they will feel like they are with their mothers."

The teaching profession, especially at pre-school level, is very difficult and arduous, and many skills are formed at this stage, so teachers are required to be very patient and attentive, she said.

Since they not only merely teach but also care for and nurture their wards, preschool teachers spend more time at school than their colleagues at other levels, she said.

The education reform programme requires teachers, including preschool teachers, to update modern teaching methods in preparing lessons, including games for kindergarten children. 

This is also a difficulty, Thuỷ admitted.

“However, my proficiency in and ability to use information technology in preparing for lessons is quite limited.

"Though we were trained and instructed in how to use software, honestly, we quickly forgot the things we learnt and have to have the support of young colleagues," she said.

Preschool teachers need the skills to sing, dance and play games with children, but these become limited as they start to get older.

Trịnh Hồng Quân, a kindergarten principal in Thanh Hóa Province, said: "We hope that Government agencies consider and research the specifics of the pre-school teaching occupation to reduce the retirement ages to 56 - 57 years for men and 51 - 53 years for women from the current 60 and 65 years.

“I think these ages are the most appropriate." — VNS