Statistics cited at national workshops on human resources preparation and training show that shipbuilding, aquaculture and forestry, insurance and securities are the branches thirstiest for workers.

Currently, the universities which have finance and banking faculties produce over 46,000 students under the mode of regular training yearly, as well as 30,000 in-service students. There are also more than 48,000 students graduating from junior colleges every year (17,000 regular training and 31,000 in-service).

Nevertheless, experts have pointed out that the demand for labourers is much higher than the number of trained students. MOET said that in the field of stock market study, the labourers provided by universities and colleges meet just 20% of the demand.

Operational securities companies, for example, need 1,500 labourers at least, while only some 300 securities brokers get practice certificates every year.

A labour drought has also been forecast to occur in agriculture, aquaculture and forestry in the coming years. According to MOET, these industries need some 1,300-1,500 labourers who have at least bachelor’s degrees every year, 4-5,000 labourers who have graduated from junior colleges and vocational schools, and 6,500-7,000 technical workers.

Though these branches witness a high rate of students being able to find jobs in their fields after graduation, over 50%, not many students are interested in studying agriculture, forestry or aquaculture. There are some 1.6mil students studying at universities, while there are only 14,000 studying these branches, or 4.82%. The ratio is just 4% at vocational schools.

As not many students register to follow the study branches, the universities do not require high marks from students on entrance exams. In many cases, students just need to have the floor levels stipulated by MOET to be eligible to be enrolled in the study branches.

In the field of shipbuilding, which is striving to make Vietnam the fourth-largest shipbuilder in the world by 2020, it is estimated that Vietnam needs 10-15,000 labourers every year from now to 2015. These include 1,000 labourers with bachelor’s degrees and 8-15,000 graduating from vocational schools.

Meanwhile, Vietnam now has only six universities and junior colleges producing students in the fields directly serving the shipbuilding industry.

A focus on quality

Moreover, experts have affirmed that training quality is far from meeting all the demands of these vacant positions – only satisfying 40-60% of jobs’ requirements on average.

According to MOET and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, only 3.11% of over 1mil labourers in the tourism industry have university degrees. The ministries say that Vietnam now is lacking high-quality labourers, especially international tour guides.

In 2008, MOET, in cooperation with ministries and branches, and local authorities, organised seven national workshops on labour training to meet society’s demand.

To date, 12 memorandums of understanding have been signed by the MOET and ministries, while nearly 500 contracts on training and using labour have been signed by training establishments and enterprises, under which 10,000 bachelors and engineers are being trained to order.

VietNamNet/Tien phong