In reality, the workload of managing schools, students, staff, teachers, and facilities is enormous, while the capacity and resources of commune-level management remain limited. In many places, the shortage of professional personnel and difficulties in balancing resources have become evident.

Thanh An commune directly manages 11 schools with about 3,600 students in the 2025 - 2026 school year. After taking over, the commune People’s Committee quickly worked with school boards, staff, and teachers to grasp the situation. As a result, the schools faced certain difficulties in facilities, shortages of teachers, administrators, and teaching equipment. To address these issues, the commune instructed schools to review and compile lists of missing or deteriorated facilities to be considered for inclusion in the medium-term public investment plan. In terms of human resources, the commune studied ways to consolidate school-level management staff and considered arrangements or transfers between schools to ease the shortage of teachers.

According to Lò Văn Thành, Vice Chairman of the Thanh An commune People’s Committee, the biggest difficulty is the lack of qualified staff specializing in education. The commune’s Division of Culture and Society has 7 positions, none of which are specialized in education. At present, each officer must handle 7-9 different tasks. As a result, the officer in charge of education is not professionally trained. Faced with this situation, the commune is considering temporarily mobilizing one staff member/teacher from a school to take on the task.

In Sáng Nhè commune, the situation is similar to Thanh An. The commune People’s Committee Chairman Phạm Ngọc Điện frankly admitted: “The 10 schools under our management are scattered over a large area, but we can only assign one officer to handle education work, and this officer has no prior experience. Even those who were once teachers need a long time to adapt to management work. Entrusting such a large sector to an officer without deep expertise is truly challenging.”

Preparing for a new school year involves countless tasks. To ensure the school year runs smoothly and on schedule, schools in Sáng Nhè commune, drawing on past experience, have shown responsibility and actively advised the commune People’s Committee on relevant issues. Key priorities include promptly consolidating school boards, reappointing administrators, and strengthening the steering committee for universal education. Summer training and political education activities for teachers and administrators have also been organized in line with sectoral guidelines. The commune has identified ensuring the progress and curriculum of the school year as one of its top priorities.

The reality in these communes shows that local proactivity is an important factor in reducing difficulties during education management. However, in the long term, without timely support in expertise, resources, and coordination mechanisms, communes will find it very difficult to fully undertake the role of education management. To address these common challenges, the provincial Department of Education and Training has taken steps to support. In August, the department organized training for nearly 100 education officers from 45 communes and wards. Six groups of content were delivered, covering almost all areas of grassroots education management: personnel organization, planning - finance, preschool management, primary and secondary education, vocational education, examinations, and digital transformation. This was a necessary start for commune-level staff to access the management system, understand regulations, and practice data analysis and problem-solving skills. The training program also served as a forum for grassroots officers to exchange openly, share experiences, and propose solutions tailored to their local conditions. This helped form a network of connections, enabling commune-level staff to “catch up” more quickly with their new responsibilities and limit confusion or passivity in the new school year.

Education is not only the responsibility of the education sector but also the shared task of society as a whole. Delegating management authority to the commune level is an important experiment, but also a major challenge. If the current difficulties are resolved thoroughly and systematically, with a clear roadmap, this model will certainly prove effective and contribute to improving the quality of education right from the grassroots level.