VietNamNet Bridge – A paradox exists in university training that students refuse to register to study several branches though they well know that they can easily get jobs in the fields after graduation.

Students raise questions about study branches on a career advisory day

Tran Dinh Ly, MA, Director of the Centre for Student Support and Corporate Relation under the HCM City Agriculture and Forestry University, said that graduates of forestry and agriculture product processing, seacooking processing and aquaculture, and agriculture promotion branches can easily find good jobs, but very few students want to follow these majors.

“We lack students every year, and we have to enroll 2nd-option students to fill in the gaps, estimated at 40-50%,” Ly said. (2nd-option students are those who fail to be enrolled in one university but get marks high enough to be enrolled in another as a second option).

Ly added that every year, the university gets ‘orders’ of recruitment from many enterprises, which offer relatively high salaries, but the university still cannot provide enough candidates for the enterprises.

In 2008, the HCM City University of Natural Resources announced the enrolment of students for three study branches, oceanography-hydrometeorology, material sciences and geology. However, very few students registered for the study branches, which was explained by the fact that the names of the branches are unfamiliar to students. Meanwhile, these branches are believed to have high demand for staffs in the future, especially as Vietnam plans to develop a lot of seaports of large scale.

Vietnam is a big apparel exporter in the world, but very few students want to follow related study branches. In 2007, the HCM City University of Technology (Hutech) announced the closing of the textile and garment technology study branch because only eight students had registered.

One of reasons universities have cited to explain the unattractiveness of the study branch is that students mistakenly think that they will work as workers in garment companies after they graduate.

Though the printing technique study branch is considered as having abundant job opportunities, it has not really attracted students. In 2008, students just needed to get 15 marks only on the university entrance exams to be enrolled in the branch (medium-grade universities required 21 marks).

Hutech said that the study branch has high training cost, while there are few learners; however, it still keeps enrolling students for the study branch as the demand for staffs in this field proves to be relatively high.

According to Dr Nguyen Duc Nghia, Deputy Director of the HCM City National University, the students who pass into universities under the 1^st option account for 60-80% of examinees, while others are enrolled under the 2^nd and 3^rd option.

VietNamNet/NLD