Vietnam will lack 55,400 kindergarten teachers by 2030

In a meeting on the renovation and development of preschool education through 2030, with a vision until 2045, the Ministry of Education and Training said the education sector would have 54,900 openings for new preschool teachers by 2026.

The ministry said the toughest challenge in the recruitment of teachers is the fact that they are quitting in droves over great work pressure, long hours and low income.

Regarding infrastructure, in order to ensure that all children aged 3-5 attend kindergarten, Vietnam needs to invest in more than 6,000 new classrooms and replace around 33,000 old ones, besides purchasing new equipment and tools for education. All of this would cost over VND32 trillion ($1.28 billion), or around VND6.4 billion a year.

In a resolution on social policies from November last year, the 13th Party Central Committee requested that by 2030, all children aged 3-5 obtain preschool education.

Currently, around 93.1% of children aged 3-5 attend preschool education. For five-year-olds, the rate is at 99.8%.

Vietnam was home to over 15,000 nurseries and kindergartens for the 2022-2023 school year, with over 5 million kindergarteners in attendance. There were over 372,000 kindergarten teachers during the period.