Job Discussion Forums

[spycatcher reincarnated]

I have decided to rejoin this forum to try and help clear up, or at the very least to give my two cents worth on, a few legal issues that seem to have the teaching community worried at present.

Certification required to work in Vietnam:

NGHỊ ĐỊNH
CỦA CH�NH PHỦ SỐ 169/1999/NĐ-CP NG�Y 03 TH�NG 12 NĂM 1999 SỬA ĐỔI, BỔ SUNG MỘT SỐ ĐIỀU CỦA NGHỊ ĐỊNH SỐ 58/CP
NG�Y 03 TH�NG 10 NĂM 1996 CỦA CH�NH PHỦ VỀ CẤP GIẤY PH�P LAO ĐỘNG CHO NGƯỜI NƯỚC NGO�I L�M VIỆC TẠI
C�C DOANH NGHIỆP, TỔ CHỨC Ở VIỆT NAM

I have taken the following extract from the above:

Bản sao chứng chỉ về tr�nh độ chuy�n m�n tay nghề của người nước ngo�i. Chứng chỉ về tr�nh độ chuy�n m�n tay nghề của người lao động nước ngo�i, bao gồm: bằng tốt nghiệp đại học hoặc tương đương trở l�n hoặc giấy chứng nhận về tay nghề của người nước ngo�i do cơ quan c� thẩm quyền cấp theo quy định của nước đ�.

I translate as:

Required documents that foreign employees needs to submit include:
- A certified copy of certificate of their professional skills, including university degree or equivalent or higher qualification; or certificate of their skills issued by authorities from their home countries.

From this, in my opinion it is quite clear that it should not be essential for a foreigner to work in Vietnam to have a BA or that an English teacher has to have a teaching qualification.

It is my understanding that The Department of Labor (The Dolisa), however, says that this is just a general law and for English teachers they require both a BA and a teaching qualification. I believe this is a recent decision/interpretation from them and they used to just accept a BA or teaching certificate (could be wrong here).

One has to remember that the above are requirements for the work permit and most schools until recently didn�t bother with the work permit so this whole certification issue was a non issue for most foreign teachers in Vietnam.

In my opinion, and according to the above, The Dolisa has no right to insist on both a BA and teaching certificate and schools should complain about this to The Dolisa. The problem at the moment is that most schools are complying with hardly any labor laws so if they argue with The Dolisa about the point above The Dolisa can easily pull them up on a hundred other issues that they aren�t in compliance with.

There was a survey conducted recently and the results showed that 81% (from memory) of companies surveyed has no or negligible knowledge of the Vietnamese labor laws. The Dolisa is trying to get its house in order.

The Dolisa is a large and powerful government department, but does usually seem to be reasonable as they do understand that a lot of their regulations aren�t up to scratch and non compliance is absolutely rife so if companies are generally moving in the right direction, up until now, Dolisa hasn't been too heavy handed.

I suggest teachers should go to their schools with the above extract in Vietnamese and show them that according to the law they don�t need to supply both a BA and a teaching certificate. Armed with this information the schools should be able to, IMHO, argue their case.

I will see how this site deals with Vietnamese text before I consider posting anymore.

[Kent F. Kruhoeffer]

Found some additional WP details.

The last link is the closest thing I could find with regard to an update:

http://www.vietnamese-law-consultancy.com/sources/s_labor/workpermit_10_96.htm

http://www.vietnamese-law-consultancy.com/sources/s_labor/workpermit_03_97.htm

http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:pQRN_CGJW-cJ:www.mekongsources.com/doc/PhillipsFox%2520Jan%25202004.pdf+vietnam+work+permit+update&hl=th

Happy reading!

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Thanks for these Kent, however, I feel they are very misleading in their information as they are very dated.


In late April the Department of Education called a meeting of all Foreign language centers, IT schools and��..not sure.

Also in attendance at the meeting were the Department of Immigration and the Department of Labor (The Dolisa).

During this meeting they said that in 2 months� time they would start to inspect schools to make sure all of them had work permits for their foreign teachers.

They weren�t clear about what would happen at these meetings, but they said that for all foreign teachers that had been working for the school for more than 3 months they were within their rights to issue fines of more than 5 million dong, and they were even within their rights to deport them from Vietnam.

They gave the impression that the first visit would be to see the school�s situation with conformity to work permits and from there deadlines would be given, however, they did still say they could issue fines during this meeting if they wanted to.

The above what all the schools have been panicking about recently. The government does often say they are going to have crackdowns and generally nothing much happens, however, on this occasion I believe something is more likely to happen.

My translation of the law for foreigners not complying with work permits is as follows:

Penalty Policy
- Foreign employee without work-permit will be fined from VND 5,000,000 to 10,000,000.
- Foreign employee will be expelled from Vietnam if they violate the following:
+ Foreign employee working in Vietnam for more than three months without a work-permit or with an expired work-permit
As per the revision of Labor Law Article 1 Clause 133.

I can�t see deportation being used in the immediate future, but I do see fines as being a very real possibility as a first step.

[Ajarn Miguk]

Does anyone know if all the updated regulations are available (from a credible source) anywhere in English for the benefit of current and prospective Vietnam ESL teachers?

[sigmoid]

Thanks for that info. Can you give us any insight into why the authorities feel that this is necessary or beneficial? What is their view of the English teaching situation and foreign teachers.

[spycatcher reincarnated]

My opinions are as follows:

One has to look at the big picture. Vietnam wants all foreigners that are working in Vietnam to be working legally and following Vietnamese laws. In certain industries like oil and gas the foreign employers have been following the laws for sometime now and The Dolisa now wants to start cracking down on other foreigners and as a lot of them are teachers, the education field seems like a good place to start. Also it has to be noted that the education sector is probably the least compliant of any with regards to work permits for foreigners.

If one looks at the labor laws they say things like this:

�1. The employer is entitled to recruit foreigners to do jobs requiring highly qualified technical experts (including engineers and people of equivalent or higher qualifications; and artisans of traditional crafts), who have experiences in their professions, production administration and management or managerial work, which Vietnamese workers are not qualified for yet. During the time of employing foreigners, the employer shall have to work out plans to train Vietnamese workers for replacement of the foreigners.

2. The period of employment of a foreign employee shall not exceed a maximum of three years.

Also a law was introduced last year saying that not more than 3% of a company�s workforce could be foreigners. This law has been whittled away at and now no longer applies to education.

These laws don�t appear to be very foreigner friendly, however, I believe that Vietnam definitely realizes the great advantages it is gaining from having foreigners working in Vietnam and doesn�t want to do anything too drastic that might give it a negative image.

NB:
2 above, has been changed. I believe that now a foreigner can have one work permit for between 1 and 3 years and this can automatically be extended for between 1 and 3 years then subsequent extensions need to be approved by the People�s Committee and now these extensions are becoming routine.

This clampdown should be regarded as a part of an overall attempt by the government to get all foreigners properly/better registered and should not be viewed as the government picking on education. Because of the transient nature and the relative low pay of the industry, compliance will always be an issue and The Dolisa do seem to realise this. They also seem prepared to bend the rules when and where they deem beneficial, but always start off with a hardline approach.

As stated before, however, I do believe this crackdown will have some teeth.

[spycatcher reincarnated]

I have recently heard of a case where a school had obtained a work permit for a teacher. This teacher was only part time so he went to another school to work for them as well. The new school tried to get a work permit for this teacher and The Dolisa said they wouldn�t issue the school a work permit for this teacher because another school already had one for him.

This seems to contradict the Vietnamese labor code, article 30, clause 3. See below:

�An employee may enter into one or more labour contracts with one of more employers provided that he ensures full performance of the contracts entered in to�.

The Dolisa has since clarified that the teacher can have work permits with multiple employers, but the employer who got the teacher's first work permit has to agree to let the other employers employ this person, otherwise The Dolisa won�t give the new employer a work permit for the teacher.

This seems to give some unnecessary power to the first school that gets the teacher a work permit.

This also brings questions to mind like:

What happens if you leave one school to work for another when the first school you worked for still has a valid work permit for you?

Can your first employer play silly buggers with you if he wishes to?

I don't think the above two questions will be issues, and just consider the present implementation as being ill thought out.

[Snaff]

....

[johnyarrington]

Dear spycatcher reincarnated,

(Hope I got your username right).....

May I ask how you translated this? Are you fluent in Vietnamese? Where/how did you learn the langauge?

Not a "flamethrower" comment, this! Just curious.

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Most of the previous translations I have posted have been my own personal translations, however, this last posting was not my personal translation, it was the official one.

There is an Australian law firm (Phillips Fox) that has the sole right to make official translations of the Vietnamese law.

Believe you can find this on their website, but you need password access at a cost of 800 usd per year. I don't have a password for this.

Some government departments have some of these official (Phillips Fox) translations on their websites.

I happen to have an official soft copy of this particular law so copied it from that.

I have been here for a long time.

[sigmoid]

[spycatcher reincarnated]

One should note that Vietnam is still officially a communist country. Communist countries have traditionally officially been very pro the workers.

The Vietnamese labor laws are regarded as being ridiculously one sided in favor of the employee.

The Vietnamese government is very slowly making them less disfavorable to businesses.

Vietnam does study laws of other countries, but one could argue that the labor law was made to protect Vietnamese workers from foreigners that were coming to Vietnam to abuse them and only use them as cheap labor.

They still want to have the right, through laws, to keep a very close eye on foreigners.

[glace]

spycatcher,

How were you able to use the 'ban chu cai tieng viet' in your post. I tried to use it and the tone marks came out as squiggles...

Here:
�o�i v��i ca�c doanh nghie�p sa�n xua�t, ha�ng to�n kho ����c xem nh� mo�t ta�m �e�m an toa�n

Tai sao?

[spycatcher reincarnated]

Hmm...

I just pasted it in and it worked.

[chipy66]

Hey i am just double checking what i have read here.

I am thinking of coming to vietnam to teach english in september. I have a BA but no english teaching certificate. So this will not be a problem because i have a BA? or is it now necessary to have a teaching certificate?
Also unrelated, should i try and get a job before i get there or just look when i get there?

thanks