Managing Primary School Teachers’ Professional Competence Development in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam: Current Status and Implications for School Leadership

Vietnam’s 2018 General Education Curriculum places growing demands on primary school teachers’ professional competence and on school leaders’ capacity to manage continuing professional development. Despite growing attention to teacher professional learning in Vietnam, limited research has examined professional competence development as an integrated management cycle, particularly in primary schools in the Mekong Delta. This study examined the perceived extent of implementation of four management functions - planning, organizing, directing, and monitoring and evaluating - and compared perceptions between teachers and school administrators. A quantitative cross-sectional survey design was employed, using descriptive statistics and independent-samples t-tests. The sample consisted of 750 respondents from 20 primary schools across 13 Mekong Delta provinces and cities, including 550 teachers and 200 administrators. Data were collected using a 20-item, four-point Likert questionnaire covering planning, organizing, directing, and monitoring and evaluation. Internal consistency coefficients ranged from .81 to .85. Planning and monitoring/evaluation were perceived as having been more extensively implemented than organizing and directing. No significant differences between teachers and administrators emerged across the four overall dimensions. However, administrators rated information technology (IT) and foreign-language training significantly higher than teachers did (p < .001). Consequently, schools should strengthen needs-based planning, school-based professional learning, stakeholder coordination, supportive leadership, and the developmental use of evaluation evidence.