Educators all share the same view that vocational school students feel lonely in their way of establishing their positions in life, setting themselves up in business, and devoting themselves to society.

Students of the HCM City Vocational School are learning how to use EDM

Vocational schools lack learners

The teacher of a vocational school in HCM City, whose son is a 12^th class student of a high school, related that one day he attended the parents’ meeting at the school. The headmaster of the high school said at the meeting that all the students have to pass the university entrance exams or they will not have the chance to meet the headmaster any more.

All parents now want their children to study at universities and all teachers want their students pass the university entrance exams. A national survey conducted several years ago showed that 90% of students said they really want to study at universities, while only 10% pass the exams to be enrolled to universities.

Very few students really want to go to vocational schools, accounting for only 10% of students, while 30% of vocational school’s students leave the schools right after the first semester.

That explains why vocational schools are seriously lacking learners. Several schools have to quietly close some training branches because of no students.

Meanwhile, businesses themselves always complain that they lack skillful workers, and complain that school graduates cannot meet their requirements. The complaints make vocational school students feel that they do not have a future with studying at vocational schools.

Businesses should place orders with vocational schools

Following in vocational schools proves to be a good way for the youth to establish their positions in life. This proves to be suitable to those students who do not have conditions to continue studying at universities. With vocational schools, students can graduate school sooner and get jobs sooner than those who study at universities.

Businesses have been criticized for the fact that they only complain about the quality of the graduates, while they do not do anything to improve the situation.

“It would be better if businesses become our fellow-travelers by placing orders with us,” said the lecturer of a vocational school.

He also related a story that a former student of his school has been insisting to go to university to continue studying after he finished the vocational school and worked for a company. The student said that he needs to get a bachelor’s degree, because in his company, many others, who work worse than him, still can get higher salaries than him just because they have higher degrees.

VietNamNet/TT

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