Medical school teachers to strike over withheld salaries

Seventeen teachers at the Medical College of Quang Nam said they would stop teaching starting next week because their salaries have been withheld for six months.

Such a strike could potentially affect 500 students.

Huynh Tan Tuan, principal of the school, reported to the Quang Nam People’s Committee on Friday that 17 personnel from two departments said they would go on strike starting Dec. 18 until the school repairs issues with their salaries and benefits.

The school has not paid the teachers their salaries and benefits since July.

The college currently has nine departments. Tuan said that among its 125-strong staff, 62 are paid from the national budget, while the rest are paid from the unit’s business revenues.

The withholding of salaries has stemmed from improper spending at the school.

Every year, the school is provided an amount of money to operate based on its admission criteria. However, late last year, while the number of admissions was lower than expected, the school still used up all of its provided money.

To resolve the issue, the province has reduced the amount of yearly money provided to the school.

This year for example, the school expected to receive VND8.5 billion ($350,154) from the national budget, but the actual amount of money received was only VND4.7 billion.

Meanwhile, the number of admissions was reduced to levels below the pre-Covid period. Thus, the total amount of tuition money collected from 500 students was only VND3 billion.

With the low tuition total and slashed amount of money from the national budget, the school did not have enough to pay teachers’ salaries and benefits, Tuan said.

A Nursing Department lecturer said most of the personnel are young lecturers with new families who have to make ends meet every day. For the past six months, they have encouraged one another to continue teaching as they did not want to negatively impact the students, the lecturer explained.

“The decision to go on strike was carefully considered by everyone,” they said.

Tuan said the school had requested the People’s Committee to delay the yearly money adjustment until 2025. It has also discussed the matter with the teachers, and the teachers have so far agreed to continue teaching if they are paid part of their salaries within this month.

The school has withheld the salaries of 114 employees since July this year, totaling to over VND5.7 billion.

By Dac Thanh – VnExpress.net – December 15, 2023