In a context where the number of specialized officials is still lacking and seconded resources are limited, some grassroots governments have adopted flexible methods such as proactively arranging concurrent positions, particularly in the education sector, to ensure that state management tasks are not disrupted.

Nà Bủng commune currently has 36 officials, civil servants, and public employees. Among them, 35 individuals hold university degrees, and one public employee holds a college degree while currently pursuing higher education. Following the merger, the shortage of specialized officials became clearly apparent, primarily concentrated in fields such as education, finance-accounting, information technology, and transport-construction. These are sectors that require officials with deep expertise and a thorough understanding of both the legal document system and grassroots realities. Meanwhile, local human resources remain thin, and the mobilization of officials from higher levels has not been able to fully meet demands in a short period.

To solve the immediate problem of lacking specialized officials, the Nà Bủng commune People’s Committee proactively assigned tasks to three public employees from the education and training sector, including one information technology employee, one teacher, and one accountant. Additionally, they seconded one administrative employee from the General Service Center to the Economic Room to advise on the agriculture and rural sectors. This is considered a necessary temporary solution to ensure that state management tasks in education and agriculture are not interrupted.

Trần Văn Hùng, a teacher at the Vàng Đán Semi-boarding Ethnic Primary and Secondary School, was assigned a concurrent task at the Culture - Social Room of Nà Bủng commune starting in September 2025. According to the assignment, Trần Văn Hùng performs teaching duties at the school while also handling the task of advising the commune on education matters every Monday and Tuesday. The workload focuses on tasks such as universalizing education, illiteracy eradication, statistics, reporting, and implementing tasks directed by the education sector to schools in the area. Trần Văn Hùng shared that the workload is heavy, and requiring both professional teaching at school and completing advisory tasks for the commune creates significant pressure. Arranging time to handle parallel tasks requires great effort from concurrent officials, especially in conditions where the terrain is large and transportation remains difficult.

Similarly, in Nà Tấu commune, to solve the problem of lacking specialized education officials, the commune People’s Committee proactively assigned four teachers working at local preschools, primary schools, and Secondary Schools to perform concurrent duties at the Culture - Social Room. Vũ Ngọc Thắng, a teacher at the Nà Tấu Secondary School, began his concurrent duties at the Culture - Social Room on September 1, 2025. The work schedule is arranged flexibly, where Vũ Ngọc Thắng works at the commune on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, while continuing his teaching duties at the school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At the commune, Vũ Ngọc Thắng advises the Room and the commune People’s Committee on constructing reports and guiding the implementation of tasks related to the education sector in the area.

Reality shows that the concurrent official model has helped grassroots governments partially resolve the shortage of specialized personnel during the initial phase of operating the new apparatus. However, this is only a temporary solution because the work pressure is great, working conditions are dispersed, and the time for each position is shared. In addition to facing human resource difficulties, the commune government apparatus still has limitations in management and organization. For instance, tasks regarding agricultural restructuring and the conversion of crop and livestock structures remain slow, while advisory work for budget estimation and the implementation of programs and projects is limited in terms of progress and efficiency.

To overcome the shortage of specialized officials at the grassroots level, the province People’s Committee has implemented a review and arrangement to consolidate the organizational apparatus based on job positions that fit the professional qualifications of officials and public employees. Notably, the province has seconded and assigned 97 civil servants and public employees from various departments and branches to the grassroots to support professional work and guide task implementation. Among these, 21 individuals specialize in information technology and digital transformation.

Despite these efforts, the number of seconded officials is still small compared to the number of missing job positions at the grassroots, especially in border communes and remote areas. Therefore, proactive and flexible approaches like those in Nà Bủng and Nà Tấu play an important role in “filling the gap” of human resources to ensure that the grassroots government apparatus operates smoothly.