LookAtVietnam – Vocational schools complain they cannot enroll enough students while urging the Government to adjust current policies to make vocational education more attractive.

Headmaster of An Giang Vocational College Huynh Thanh Quang said the college has not enrolled enough students since 2007.

“High school graduates all think that they need to continue study at universities and they only go to vocational schools when they really have no other choices, “Quang said.

The HCM City-based Central Transport College is facing the same situation. The college planned to enroll 500 students in 2009, but has enrolled 300 students only

The college’s headmaster Nguyen Van Quynh said it is even more difficult this year to enroll students than previous years.

“It is very difficult to enroll students for shipbuilding and mechanics branches. No one wants to study to become welders or workers operating construction machines,” he said.

Meanwhile, Headmaster of the Da Lat Vocational College Truong Thuc Hieu said that 10 percent of enrolled students give up school after a short time.

Quynh shared the same view with Quang that high school graduates do not want to go to vocational schools. Their top choice is to study further at universities. If they cannot pass the university entrance exams, they will still try a longer route.

This means heading first to junior colleges and then transferring credits to study at universities. Meanwhile, if they go to vocational school, they cannot transfer credits to universities and obtain degrees.

Quynh also said another reason making vocational school unattractive to is the required long study time – three years for high school graduates and four years for secondary school graduates.

That explains why many students prefer following short term (3-month) training courses at colleges. The short term students feel happier because they can start their careers sooner.

Vocational colleges believe that current policies need to be adjusted to make vocational education more attractive in the eyes of students.

“The problem is that the two relevant ministries, the Ministry of Education and Training, and Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, are still not agreed on whether to allow students of vocational colleges to transfer credits to continue studying at universities,” said Tran Van Giap, headmaster of the HCM City Maritime Vocational College.

“Most high school graduates want to study at schools which allow them to transfer credit to continue studying at universities. Because vocational schools do not allow credit transfer, they miss out,” a headmaster said

Vocational schools are also complaining that current tuitions are not high enough to cover expenses. Quynh said total expenses for electricity technician training is about 7.4 million dong per student per training course, while his school collects six million dong only from students

One headmaster from a vocational school said that in order to provide enough practice hours to students as required, tuition would have to be triple the currently stipulated level.

VietNamNet/TT