Human resources development is one of the three key elements incorporated into Vietnam’s
overall social and economic development draft strategy for 2011-2020 now under
review at the National Party Congress XI.

The Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nguyen
Thi Kim Ngan sheds some light on plans to strengthen the quality of human
resources in a talk with Vietnam Investment Review.

What has Vietnam
achieved in terms of developing vocational training in the past couple of
years?

The vocational training system continues to advance with
closer ties between vocational training facilities and the business community
through diverse cooperative models such as job promotion and provision of
teaching aids.

Particularly, over 90 per cent of graduates at training
facilities at enterprises could find jobs when they finish training because
these training bases have established a training syllabus to satisfy actual
market requirements.

However, the system still fails to keep up with burgeoning
demands for a quality technical workforce, particularly in some key areas, and
features an imbalanced employment structure in different regions across the
country, with big urban areas procuring prevailing advantages.

What will be the
vocational training sector’s core orientations in 2011 and ensuing years to
achieve its vision of ameliorating the quality of human resources?

Vietnam
aims to provide vocational training to 10 million people from 2011-2015, of
which over 1.8 million will be recruited and trained in 2011. To enhance human
resources quality, efforts will be made to check up and revise the vocational
training network to make it compliant with the social and economic development
strategy of the country as well as of a particular region or economic sector;
and put into place a capable vocational training system, which is in a position
to provide quality technical workforce in diverse production and service
fields.

Training labourers in
rural areas is not a simple task. What will the authorities do to create jobs
in rural areas?

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs will
continue attaching occupational training for labourers in rural areas to the
new urban area development programme under which the labourers in selected
model communes will be trained in diverse occupations.

In recent years, some cities and provinces have made smart
moves in terms of labour training which generated significant and practical
effects. For example, a commune can hold 10 training courses on cultivation,
animal husbandry or craft skills, where attendants are given useful knowledge
and can participate in field surveys. Many companies came to these courses to
sign contracts with trainers directly or pledge to consume all products made by
trainees.

Source: VIR