Will eliminating foreign language certification for teachers is a breakthrough

Too stubborn

I’m not sure how, but first and foremost this is good news for the education industry. I am glad that more than 1 million public teachers are not in the position to obtain computer and foreign language certificates to qualify, both to save effort and to save a lot of money, because today, going to school is expensive . .

In December, the regulation requiring teachers to have foreign language certificates and computer skills in professional degree standards will be removed. Photo: Tien Phong

On the other hand, the history of buying and selling certificates will be lost. Without these two types of certificates, of course teachers cannot study, the certification exam will only have the way to buy from the market as Dong Do University did. This is kind of fun, because to basically help the teacher is still the teacher, it is impossible for a teacher to buy a degree.

So sad, so happy. But it’s really sad. Sad for a too rudimentary style of human management of our country’s public service system. He was born trying to maintain, not change.

What are the foreign languages ​​required by district officials?

With the civil service reform, there is a story about the standard titles of cadres, civil servants and civil servants (CBCCVC) issued from 1993, 1994.

Basically, setting standards for CBCCVC titles is correct. The standards will be an important basis for hiring, utilizing, training and retraining cadres and civil servants.

But the beauty is partly removed due to the mindset of managing the team in a unified and uniform way, which means that the upper, main, normal and lower ranks of both civil servants and civil servants are basically must have computer standards. hierarchically similar foreign language.

Initially, in 1993, there was no history of information technology, so there was no standard for information technology, just a foreign language. After this, the information technology standard was added.

During the years of implementation there has not been a serious revision to change, says the language standard. Imagine the regulations that require district officials to have a foreign language for what? Is a foreign language really required to be an official working as an expert in the district?

Even civil servants working in one department or another in the province do not necessarily have a foreign language. But public servants who work in policy formulation and institutions work in this department, the other department of the ministry or the central sector must have or even use at least one competent foreign language in their work to meet the requirements. .

That shows there is a match, scraping foreign language standards for all civil servants, regardless of the specific job they are doing. And if you look seriously, the number of civil servants who can actually use foreign languages ​​in their work is very small.

This situation is the same as in the contingent of teachers and officials from other fields such as doctors, journalists, editors … But the curious thing is that most officials are promoted to the rank of principal specialist. or high level still pass the language course well. The same goes for the computer standard.

With the removal of the foreign language and computer science certificates of teachers, we are forced to rethink the whole history of the current standards of civil servants and public employees, because otherwise there will be a problem that is difficult to explain: As an official as a teacher, why do doctors, reporters, editors … still require to have foreign language, computer science certificates?

The meaning of a revolutionary reform or not lies in this story itself.

The first problem: understanding and correctly applying 2 employment models in the public function

That’s the career model (if translated literally, it must be career) and job model (we add 2 job words, so it becomes the job model).

In the career model, the focus is on vocational training. He studied medicine, he trained to be a doctor in the future, broadly speaking, his profession is medicine, he is a doctor. He studied pedagogy and will be trained to practice as a teacher in the future. Like lawyers, architects …

Also an officer like a teacher, but a reporter … still required to have a foreign language, computer science certificate. Photo: Dan Viet

The important thing here is that once the course is finished, graduating is basically qualified and capable of practicing the profession for which it is trained. There is no way to have a master’s degree, which proves that I am qualified as a teacher, now I have to take the test as a teacher like in us.

The job model, the focus is on the position that the candidate will have to assume, which is the job in that position that is important, the career is not formed as in the career model.

Grandparents working in the back office are typical of the job model. Education is very different, but because of their ability and ability to fulfill the job requirements, they are naturally recruited. The job in a department of a certain ministry requires knowing a foreign language to fulfill the job requirements, while being a civil servant, but in a job in a department of the District People’s Committee, the job is not a requirement. Foreign language.

Thus, depending on the job position, the requirements, capabilities and qualifications of the person who works in that position will be determined.

From there, it is shown that the standards of the career model and the job position are very different, so the regulations are not exactly the same as in reality.

The second problem: How to classify ranges for the standard?

Like most countries, the classification is based on the level of education: university, intermediate, primary … Most countries obtain a bachelor’s degree to classify as advanced, an intermediate degree to classify the main rank. .

Particularly in Vietnam, we can have a Bachelor’s degree in all 3 categories, namely ordinary, major and advanced. This is an unreasonable high score and therefore, when the standard job title has not been determined, it will continue to lead to the current high-ranking exams and rampant main body, with no stops for civil servants.

Similarly, a Bachelor of Journalism can be present in all 3 categories, namely Reporters, 3rd, 2nd and 1st grade editors …

Accepting and correcting this problem, of course, will have a great disturbance in the civil service system, but it is impossible not to, because if there is no standard, we must redo the standard.

The third problem: determining the right standards for retraining training and qualifications

The criteria for the categories of civil servants and public employees include many elements, including the level of training and retraining qualifications that are of interest here.

This international standard includes:

– University graduate, intermediate …

– Have an advanced diploma, intermediate political theory …

– Having the corresponding professional training certificate, for example, for administrative officials, is a training certificate in state management skills …; For editors and reporters, it’s the standards-building certificate for editors and reporters titles …

– Have the corresponding certificate of training in foreign languages ​​…

– Have the corresponding information technology certificate …

Here only 2 IT and foreign language certificates are discussed. According to the initiative of the education sector, it is advisable to withdraw all these 2 certificates in all the standards of the rest of the public servants and public employees.

The first reason is very simple that there are more than a million teachers left, there is no reason why the remaining million people should have. The second reason is worth considering: moving from management by form (management by certification) to management by competence.

Imagine that in a few years, online teaching and learning will be more developed, more widespread, forcing teachers to be qualified and qualified to teach online. In other words, teachers must have certain skills and abilities in the field of computer science to teach online.

It is not necessary to have a computer certificate at any level, as long as the teacher cannot teach online it is enough to terminate the contract. And this, in turn, sets changes in pedagogical schools: how to teach in the future, graduates will be able to be online teachers in accordance with the requirements and standards of teachers at all levels. It is also the standard removal history for foreign languages.

The most important point to draw here is that in the history of the elimination of computer and foreign language certificates for teachers, it is necessary to radically review all the issues related to CBCCVC degree standards in the public system. of which our country has the corresponding changes. Change in direction from management in the form of certification to management according to competence.

Dinh duy hoa