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Under a plan issued on Feb. 3 by the Ministry of Education and Training, teachers will be evaluated across four core skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing, as part of Vietnam’s push to make English a second language in schools.

The assessment, expected to take place in April, will last no more than half a day and apply to teachers who teach English as well as those teaching other subjects in English at selected schools and localities.

Education authorities said the results will be kept confidential and must not be used for performance evaluation or professional ranking.

According to the ministry, the survey is designed to pinpoint weaknesses in teachers’ English proficiency, providing a data-based foundation for large-scale training programs needed to support English-medium instruction nationwide.

Vietnam currently has more than 1.05 million preschool and general education teachers, including about 30,000 English teachers. English is taught as a compulsory subject starting from Grade 3, while at the preschool level and in Grades 1 and 2 it is offered on a voluntary basis.

Government regulations require teachers involved in foreign-language instruction to meet strict proficiency standards. At the primary and lower secondary levels, teachers must reach Level 4 out of 6 under Vietnam’s language proficiency framework, equivalent to B2 on the European scale. Upper secondary teachers are required to reach Level 5, equivalent to C1.

To meet its long-term goal, the education sector estimates it will need an additional 12,000 English teachers at the preschool level and 10,000 at primary schools, while training at least 200,000 teachers capable of teaching in English by 2030.