Strengthening linkage and improving the quality of human resources

“Strengthening the linkage between training institutions and enterprises to improve the effectiveness of TVET” is the topic of the workshop recently organized by the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the College of Machinery and Irrigation. Solutions were set towards improving the quality of human resources, including strengthening the linkage between the College and enterprises.

Only meeting 30% of the demand

Mr. Mao Quoc Trung, the Head of the Department of Vocational Training (Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs) said that there are 67 TVET institutions in Dong Nai, including 12 colleges, 10 intermediate schools, 25 TVET centers and 20 enterprises registering TVET activities. Every year, enterprises in the province need to recruit about 11,000 trained workers. However,only about 3,600 people (over 30%) from the TVET institutions meet the demand of enterprises.

Also according to Mr. Trung, the enrollment of TVET institutions is facing many difficulties but the dropout rate is quite high with about 40% of vocational college and 60% of intermediate education. Moreover, in fact, after-trained labourers are recruited by enterprises but still do not meet the job requirements but must be retrained. In addition, the participation of enterprises in the training process is only a “private relationship” of each TVET institution with enterprises. The process of linking between many TVET institutions with enterprises has not been really effective and has just stopped at the level of accepting internships in enterprises. The in-depth activities such as suggestions for developing training programs, forecasting the use of labor resources or participating in training and evaluating post-training results have not been popular.

Mr. Bach Hung Truong, representative of German International Cooperation Organization (GIZ) – an organization that is supporting successful TVET at Lilama 2 and THPT Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm said that the colleges have had many years of cooperating with enterprises, prestigious international organizations, especially GIZ to improve the quality of training. During the training process, enterprises will engage with the colleges right from the beginning of the process. GIZ has supported the compilation of many training materials and textbooks according to German standards and is currently continuing to compile documents on environmental protection, green TVET, etc.

Strengthening the linkage

According to Mr. Huynh Van Tinh, the Director of Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, if enterprises only “require” workers with high quality human resources, good industrial manners, mastering the process of occupational safety and health from TVET institutions without participating and associating with those institutions, training labor force would be very difficult. Because the demand for high quality human resources at the enterprises is now very large, in addition to the dynamism of TVET institutions, the enterprises themselves have to expand exchanges, links, and actively participate in the training process.

Real-life experience from the cooperation and linkage between the TVET institutions and enterprises over time is the strengthening of the linkage between the two sides. Enterprises can participate at the beginning of the training process or they can invest in equipment and machines and be members in evaluating training programs and results. Mr. Huynh Le Tan Dung, The Rector of Dong Nai Technical College shared, being aware of the importance of the linkage between the TVET institutions and enterprises, for many years, Dong Nai Technical College has actively organized job fairs, introducing training results after students graduate. Through those fairs, conditions for enterprises to reach out to students are created. The College has also organized the signing of the training program cooperation with a number of enterprises from Germany, France, Japan …

From a number of programs in collaboration with Swedish vocational training organizations (NHO), VCCI, Dong Nai College of High Technology has had links with many Kansai enterprises (Japan) in supporting and facilitating vocational training activities to improve the quality of training in many aspects. At the College of Machinery and Irrigation, with the support of GIZ, German experts are supporting the College to develop buildings, purchase training equipment. Simultaneously, experts support the development of 2 new programs on energy saving and the environment; building a green module and finishing it by the end of this year. This module will integrate all new training methods according to German green TVET standards.

Huynh Van Tinh, Director of Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs said that in the coming time, in order to focus on promoting the effectiveness of vocational training, the province will focus on investing in equipment, providing training and further training programs for teachers; listening and adjusting the priority policies, cooperating with enterprises to train human resources so that TVET activities can meet demand of the labour market and the reality of production.

By Nguyet Anh – Dong Nai Labor Newspaper