Businesses see incentives for getting involved with vocational training

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan spoke with Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Vietnam Economic Times) about Government policies to increase business involvement in national education.

Educational principles suggest that theory must always be accompanied by practice. However, many businesses lack skilled labour and many graduates cannot find jobs. What are the reasons for this?

Recently, foreign investment has led to a higher demand for qualified labour, especially in electronics, IT and telecommunications. If we cannot provide enough skilled labour, having a young workforce does not put us at an advantage. Cheap labour costs accompanied by unskilled workers will not draw investors. Therefore, we have to match our training to meet demand.

How can we match business and training demands?

The ministries of Education and Training (MoET) and Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA) are now enabling the Government to help businesses meet training needs. This has never happened before. After only three workshops on the topic, 75 education and training contracts have been signed by businesses, mostly foreign-invested ones, and universities.

We can see that the demand and supply are levelling out. However, the State should still implement more incentive policies to ensure this process continues. Presently, we are developing the model of human resource training support centres. The first two centres have been set up in Bac Giang and Thai Binh northern provinces, and soon we plan to set up more centres in other provinces for businesses to draw from, especially small and medium-sized ones. Businesses drawing from the centres will have to guarantee jobs for graduates, and workers will thereby be motivated to enter training programmes. The Government also has a policy to subsidise the required fees for those who can’t afford them.

Some businesses are not interested in becoming involved in education for many reasons. What are the incentives to encourage business involvement in education?

The Government will provide incentives encouraging businesses to invest in training, including by offering favourable tax rates for businesses involved. At the beginning of this month, the Government agreed to pay for these policies and invest in further study. Business investments will be considered costs and therefore fall under tax incentive categories, and the Government will provide further encouragement for large firms to set up their own vocational training schools.

It requires a large investment to start a business with human resources training, and there have been no creditable statistics about labour demand. What do you think about this?

It requires a very large investment to set up a vocational training school, but the Government has two solutions. We will establish funds offering soft loans or jointly invest with businesses to address this issue.

In terms of forecasting labour demand, the Government assigned MoLISA to draft a plan to build a centre to forecast the nation’s labour demand. MoLISA and MoET have recently signed an agreement ensuring joint training activities.

Do we have the statistics on training programmes that have failed to meet society’s demand?

The ministry has not compiled such statistics, but training units should know this better. The ministry has just launched a campaign to encourage universities and colleges to review whether their training programmes match the standard.

The ministry has set national standards under two criteria. Under the first criteria, training units should propose their standards. If they base these on business requirements, then the standards will change over time.

The ministry has issued a framework programme setting the overall standard. However, this programme comprises only 60 per cent of the training. Centres must take responsibility for designing the remaining elements of the curriculum.

In the end, in terms of organisation, we should have a functional department for surveying and designing training programmes to meet social demand.