Millions of people in rural areas are about to benefit from job skills training, . . . through a comprehensive social security project targeted poor rural residents.

Teachers guide students in the repair of automotive engines at Vocational Training Centre 10 in Ha Noi.

She said that last year about 1 million rural residents were unemployed and a large number of people were left idle between crops. The average income per capita in rural areas was equivalent to 47.5 per cent of the income in urban areas.

In addition to their economic situation, rural people were the first to suffer from natural disasters, human and livestock epidemics and crop losses from a number of causes. These factors easily lead them into the grip of poverty, which is why they are considered one of the country’s most vulnerable groups.

Ngan said previous social security programmes were not effective because they were scattered and overlapped. As a result, it was necessary to develop a comprehensive social security system for rural residents for the period between 2011-15.

Dang Kim Chung, deputy head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Institute of Labour Science and Social Affairs, said that the project would include three basic groups of policies.

The first group would provide credit assistance, education and job skills training. Information about the labour market would also be provided to ensure steady jobs and income for rural labourers that would allow them to build up savings. The second group would help people buy social, health and unemployment insurance, and the final group would help poor people ensure their daily needs and gradually escape from poverty.

Implementation of the first group of policies would primarily come in the form of public job creation for the unemployed, Chung said. Jobs would be created to build public infrastructure development projects, such as village roads or irrigation systems in rural areas. Co-operation relations would be established with local enterprises that would be responsible for the job skills training activities and providing employment.

In addition to infrastructure projects, these labourers could find jobs in other public works, such as dredging rivers and lakes, and collecting rubbish. Their compensation would be based on State salary regulations.

Rural residents could also obtain demand-based skills training. Financial assistance could provide them a foundation to use the skills they learned in the training.

Enterprises in need of employees would be encouraged to take part in the skills training efforts because they would understand the specific skills workers needed for future employment. At the end of the training, these enterprises would have a pool of people to hire, Chung said.

The project aimed to put 43 per cent of rural labourers and 36 per cent of ethnic minority labourers through job skills training by 2015.

Each year, about 600,000 people in the agricultural sector would benefit from the assistance and would have the skills to switch to more technical positions. As a result, the number of people working in the agricultural sector was expected to decrease to 56.2 per cent of the nation’s total workforce by 2015.

The second group of policies would provide a 50 per cent reduction in social insurance costs to rural households that live under the poverty line or were ethnic minorities. The benefit would be paid by the State, Chung said.

This policy was designed so people would have sufficient pensions to meet their daily needs in their later years, Chung said.

Non-conditional aid

Under the project, more than 1.5 million rural residents and 2.1 million rural labourers would receive financial assistance for the purchase of social insurance and unemployment insurance, respectively.

The third group of policies would include conditional and non-conditional social aid, he said.

Non-conditional and regular social aid would be reserved for elderly people without pensions or social insurance, and for households that fell below the poverty line and had family members who were unable to work.

Conditional social aid would be aimed at assisting poor rural families with school aged children or pregnant women because children needed good health and education, Chung said.

Families that allowed their children to go to school would receive enough financial assistance to cover tuition fees and other relevant costs. Pregnant women would receive enough to cover regular health checks.

These assistance policies were developed because illiterate and malnourished children tended to grow up to a life of poverty, Chung said.

Chung said rural residents under the poverty line and ethnic minority people would be the primary targets of the project, said Chung. However, there would be varied levels and methods of assistance depending on specific circumstances.

For example, if a rural household fell under the poverty line but everyone was able to work, they of course could not benefit from the poverty reduction programmes. However, they could obtain non-conditional and regular social aid because there was no other way for them to escape from poverty, he said.

Measures would be put in place to monitor the project to ensure that the project beneficiaries were not relying on assistance without trying to find suitable work.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News