Lesson 3: Rural areas lack skilled labor

(Baonghean) -Helping young people find jobs that match their abilities and have a stable income is an important solution to contribute to increasing income for rural people, towards building a new countryside. However, currently, career guidance and vocational training for students in rural areas is facing many difficulties...

Students of Nghi Loc Economic - Technical College practice tourism - hotel profession.

Talking with Mr. Tran Huu Lam - Vice Chairman of Nghi Loc District People's Committee, in charge of culture and society, it is known that Nghi Loc is a district with abundant human resources, but most of the laborers are untrained, do not have technical expertise (in 2013 it was 61.5%), agricultural labor accounts for a high proportion, the surplus agricultural labor force is increasing, a large number of unemployed due to the reclamation of agricultural land for industrial and infrastructure development. The number of trained laborers is mostly short-term and technical training, so it is very difficult to find jobs and change occupations. Currently, agricultural laborers in the district account for 74.5%; industrial, handicraft, and basic construction laborers account for 11.9%; and trade and service laborers account for 14.3%.

Along with the economic restructuring, the labor structure working in the district's economic sectors will also change. Labor in the service sector is expected to increase to 27% in 2015 and 33% in 2020. Labor in the industry - construction sector is 22% in 2015 and 27% in 2020. The rate of agricultural - forestry - fishery labor will decrease to 51% in 2015 and 40% in 2020. Every year, Nghi Loc has thousands of high school students who fail to pass the university and college entrance exams, adding to the local labor force. In 2013 alone, the district had 8,202 students graduating from junior high school and high school (of which junior high school graduates were 5,136, high school graduates were 3,046). The number of students needing vocational training and job placement is 3,280 students (40%). However, career guidance and vocational training for these subjects still face many difficulties. Mr. Pham Truong Giang - Vice Principal of Nguyen Duy Trinh High School said: "Every year, the number of high school graduates of the school is more than 500 students, of which 150 - 180 students pass the university entrance exam of their first choice. Of the remaining students, many still try to enter private universities or colleges in the fields of accounting, information technology... instead of choosing to study a profession. Some students think that "if you study at university, you will be unemployed, let alone study a profession", so they accept to work as manual laborers."

As a district adjacent to Vinh City, Hung Nguyen also faces many difficulties in career guidance and vocational training. Every year, the district has thousands of high school graduates, about 40% of whom are admitted to universities and colleges; the rest need vocational training to find jobs or improve the quality of rural labor. In addition, urbanization, infrastructure construction and industrial park formation are reducing the area of ​​agricultural land, leading to a surplus of laborers who need vocational training to change careers. In 2013, the number of untrained workers was 55%.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong - Head of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Hung Nguyen district said: "Currently, the district is lacking workers with technical expertise in the fields of animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, repair and operation of agricultural machinery, mechanics, civil carpentry... However, the number of students graduating from vocational schools in and outside the province in these fields working in the district is not much, the district's Vocational Training Center is small in scale, the facilities are limited, so the capacity of vocational training to create new jobs in the district cannot keep up and cannot meet the needs of industrial and service development. On the other hand, it is also necessary to frankly admit that currently, many rural workers, including high school students, are not active in learning a trade to find new jobs, are afraid of labor discipline, so they do not want to work for enterprises in industrial parks but only like to find freelance jobs in Vinh City and other provinces".

In Thanh Chuong district, although the two vocational training and career guidance units (Vocational Training Center and General Technical & Career Guidance Center) have received attention from the government, invested in facilities, equipment, supplemented staff, improved the quality of vocational teachers... on average each year the district organizes vocational training and retraining for over 1,600 workers, and general vocational training for 4,500 junior high and high school students. However, each year the district only creates jobs for 2,205 people.

Choosing an unsuitable career and being afraid to learn a trade is a common situation for many high school students in rural areas in our province today. Part of the reason is that career counseling for high school students in rural areas is still limited. Mr. Nguyen Van Dong - Vice Principal of Pham Hong Thai High School (Hung Nguyen) said: "Every year, many universities and colleges in and outside the province come to the school to ask to organize career counseling and enrollment programs. However, due to little counseling and a lot of promotion, students are confused. Many universities and colleges participating in enrollment counseling and career counseling sessions try to promote and propagate about training majors and about promises for future jobs, but do not rely on human resource forecasts. In most career counseling sessions, the proportion of counseling members in the fields of commerce, economics, foreign languages, information technology and medicine always accounts for the majority."

Currently, the vocational training system of our province, especially in rural areas, still has many shortcomings. Some schools and centers have not invested in synchronous facilities, do not have workshops, and lack practical machines such as vocational training centers in Nam Dan, Hung Nguyen, Dien Chau... Some schools with spacious facilities such as in Do Luong, Nghi Loc, lack vocational teachers or teachers are limited in pedagogical skills, vocational skills, practical experience and access to modern technologies, and are weak in foreign languages ​​and information technology. On the other hand, most training facilities still train according to the capacity of the facility, focusing on occupations such as electricity, electronics, motorbike repair, mechanics, tailoring... without paying attention to training according to the needs of the labor market. This leads to limited vocational guidance capacity, contributing to solving employment of these facilities; When businesses come to rural areas to recruit workers, they often only recruit unskilled workers and have to retrain them.

Mr. Le Van Thuy - Head of the Department of Labor - Employment (Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs) said: "To create jobs for rural workers, including high school students who failed to pass the entrance exams to universities and colleges, localities need to actively implement the Project on Vocational Training for Rural Workers according to Decision 1956 of the Prime Minister; strengthen propaganda to raise awareness of vocational training for rural youth. Currently, rural areas in our province are lacking workers with technical expertise in agricultural sectors such as cultivation, animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, aquaculture... and non-agricultural sectors such as industrial sewing, welding, civil electricity, weaving, civil carpentry... Therefore, along with the province's vocational schools, districts also need to invest in facilities and teaching staff in these sectors to attract and improve skills for workers in the whole district. In addition to opening vocational training classes, localities need to combine the establishment of factories, calling for capital investment and encouraging open production facilities in the region”.

Minh Quan