Software companies have called on schools to strongly reform the training of foreign languages for the information technology (IT) sector. They believe that it is necessary to compel the schools, which provide the labor force for the software industry, to teach in English.

More than 60 percent cannot meet requirements in foreign language skills

Foreign language skill is one of the four criteria used to assess the quality of the IT labor force: background knowledge, technology skill, foreign language skill and soft skills.

Poor foreign language skill remains a problem among the Vietnamese IT labor force. A mini survey conducted by Buu dien Vietnam on nearly ten software firms in Vietnam showed that only 25-40 percent of workers can meet requirements in foreign language skills.

According to Le Xuan Hai, Director of Vietsoftware International, the foreign language level of new graduates has improved a little in the last two or three years. They can communicate and read documents in English, but they are still bad at speaking and writing. In general, Hai said, only 25 percent of workers can meet the requirements.

At Tinh Van Company, Phan Quang Minh, Deputy General Director of the company, said 30-40 percent of the company’s staff meets the requirements in foreign language skills. Other companies such as FPT Software, CMC or CT-IN also say bad foreign language skill is a headache for them. They say they have to spend money and time to retrain the staff. The problem makes it tough for them to expand business when they need more workers to fulfill the contracts signed with foreign partners.

Hai said Vietsoftware International has to organize two-year foreign language re-training courses for workers with bad foreign language skills, for which it has to pay VND10 million per worker per annum. As for Tinh Van, Minh said the costs for labor recruitment has increased twofold due to difficulties in seeking candidates who can meet the requirements, which forces the company to retrain newly recruited workers for six months. Meanwhile, FPT Software said it takes the company 3-12 months to teach foreign languages to its personnel.

Besides the retraining programmes, IT firms have been applying many measures to improve workers’ foreign language levels. They ask workers to use foreign languages for internal communication, reports, or give bonus money to those people who are good at foreign language skills and open English clubs.

However, the companies have admitted the quality of the IT labor force still mainly depends on schools.

Teaching in a foreign language?

In order to solve the problem, Nguyen Thanh Nam, former General Director of the Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology FPT said it is necessary to force schools to teach in English.

In fact, some schools have been teaching IT subjects in foreign languages. At FPT University, for example, students learn foreign languages (English or Japanese) in the first year at the school. After the first year, students who cannot meet the requirements in foreign language skills will not be allowed to study professional knowledge.

According to Nam, about 15 percent of FPT University’s students cannot pass the foreign language exams after the first year.

In general, schools now still mainly train IT students in Vietnamese, while English is just considered a subject.

“It is necessary to turn English into a tool which can be used in the daily life in order to be able to improve foreign language skills,” said Le Truong Tung, President of FPT University.

According to Tung, if associations or big IT firms send a message that they will not recruit graduates from schools that cannot settle the problem of bad foreign language skills, schools will have to renovate their training methods in order to ensure that their graduates can find jobs.

Source: Buu dien