The engagement of the private sector is crucial to building a standardized vocational training system in 2020, thus improving the quality of human resources to the regional and world standards, heard a conference in Hanoi on December 2.

The event, jointly held by the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA), the French Development Agency (AFC) and the UNESCO in Vietnam, aims to seek ways to call for stronger involvement of the private sector in the work.

Half of about 2,000 vocational training facilities in Vietnam being owned by the private sector. Photo for illustration

According to the MOLISA, there are about 2,000 vocational training facilities nationwide, half of them are owned by the private sector.

Over the past years, the Party and State have allocated a considerable resource for vocational training, while issuing a number of policies to support the work, including the Law on Vocational Training which was effective from July 1, 2015 and the Strategy for Vocational Training Development in the 2011-2020 period.

Major objectives of the strategy are to make planning for vocational training facilities basing on sector, region and locality, with priority given to non-State newly-established facilities.

The strategy also encourages the cooperation for the formation of foreign-funded facilities, while calling for the engagement of the private sector in the field and diversifying resources for the expansion of vocational training, including capital from the State, businesses, trainees as well as domestic and foreign investors.

Participants pointed to a number of shortcomings in Vietnam’s vocational training, including poor capacity of training facilities, especially in management, as well as lose coordination between training facilities and businesses.

They stressed the need for stronger engagement of private firms in the work to increase the competitiveness of vocational training facilities and system, thus standardizing the system by 2020.

They suggested that the Party and State should organize public-private dialogues to strengthen the role of trade associations and the business community in the management of vocational training.

It is necessary to build training programs towards renovation and modernization to suit the market requirements, while designing support policies to non-State facilities, they said.

Source: VNA