Links between vocational training schools and businesses are far too loose for effectively tackling the shortage of skilled labor in the country, experts said at a conference last week.

“Schools train students based on their resources, yet businesses then re-train them in accordance with their needs, which is time-consuming and costly,” Hien said at the conference aiming to collect feedback on the ministry’s draft strategy to develop vocational training by 2020.

The conference was organized last Saturday by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) in the southern province of Binh Duong.

The draft highlights businesses’ roles in vocational training provided at schools to make it more demand-driven.

“If businesses join the training process by supporting or offering interns training on the job with their advanced machines, graduates’ skills will be improved considerably,” Hien said.

However, it’s hard to have talks with vocational schools to employ their graduates, said Le Phuoc Vinh, director general of the Dong Nai based Nor-Cal Vietnam Company, a mechanical engineering firm.

In fact, last year Vinh contacted a vocational college, asking them to send his company 20 laborers trained in precision engineering – a sub-discipline of mechanical engineering that concerned with designing machines, but received no reply, and the same thing happened when he sent another order to the school in June.

Tran Cong Chieu, head of the human resources department under Vung Tau-based PTSC Mechanical and Construction, pointed out that there were some concerns about students’ internships at businesses as part of the cooperation.

During their internships students often face higher risks of labor accidents than the company’s workers, and regulations about labor safety for interns are “very vague”, Chieu said.

This can partly explain why some businesses are reluctant or refuse to recruit interns, the conference heard.

Other company representatives, meanwhile, said they were willing to join the vocational training process, but wondered if such support can be counted in production costs.

The conference also heard several complaints from businesses about the quality of training provided by schools.

Compared to laborers of other countries in the Southeast Asian region, Vietnamese lag behind in terms of computer, foreign language and soft skills, said Nguyen Van Hung, director of CNC Technology Solutions Joint-stock Company.

“The government needs to make plans and support the training of workers in foreign languages and soft skills,” he said.

Vietnam now has some 400,000 business enterprises, according to the MoLISA’s figures.

A recent report found 11 big groups and companies working here need between 60,000-70,000 laborers a year.

The ministry’s Institute of Labor Science and Society has reported that by 2020 Vietnam will have 57.5 million people of working age; 50 million of these will have jobs, while some 27.5 million will receive vocational training.

Other main aims in the draft strategy, expected to be approved by the Party and the government by the end of the year, include sending 800,000 laborers abroad every year and ensuring 100 percent of these receive vocational training by 2020.

Source: Thanh Nien, Tuoi Tre