Focus on human resource development in new rural construction
On the morning of November 23, the Department of Organization and Personnel and the Central Office for Coordination of New Rural Areas, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Nghe An, organized the Conference "Developing agricultural and rural human resources in building new rural areas in the North Central region".
Attending the conference were Mr. Nguyen Xuan An - Deputy Director of the Department of Organization and Personnel, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, representative of the Central Office for New Rural Development Coordination. On the side of Nghe An province, there were leaders of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development along with departments, branches, localities and enterprises in the province.
The North Central region is a rather unique region in the country, with 6/6 provinces having coastlines and borders, and the provinces have diverse terrain, including coastal plains in the East and mountainous areas in the West. By October 2024, the whole region will have 1,111/1,380 communes meeting NTM standards, accounting for 80.5% of the total number of communes; 304 advanced NTM communes, reaching 22%; 61 model NTM communes, reaching 4.4%.
The entire region has 39 district-level units that have been recognized by the Prime Minister as meeting the standards/completing the task of building a new rural area. The North Central region has 1,666 OCOP products with 3 stars or more (accounting for 11.7% of the total number of products nationwide).
Speaking at the conference, Mr. Nguyen Xuan An - Deputy Director of the Department of Organization and Personnel, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development emphasized: In the construction of new rural areas, one of the important and urgent challenges of the country in general and the North Central region in particular is the issue of human resources participating in agricultural and rural development.
However, in reality, human resources in this field, from direct workers to staff, managers, and grassroots leaders, are still limited in both quantity and quality, especially in professional and technical capacity, along with the ability to innovate and apply science and technology to production.
At the conference, localities such as Thanh Chuong district (Nghe An) and Thieu Hoa district (Thanh Hoa) had presentations on the current status of human resources for new rural construction in the area. Thanh Chuong district leaders said that the locality is currently lacking highly qualified human resources in the agricultural sector.
According to statistics up to October 31, 2024, the staff participating in the construction of the new rural areas in Thanh Chuong district is 3,554 people. Of which: University and post-university degrees account for 30.67%; college degrees account for 1.02%; intermediate and elementary degrees account for 12.9%; untrained accounts for 52.9%. The number of untrained staff here is mainly at the village, hamlet, and commune levels.
In addition to localities, universities have also shared about the difficulties and obstacles in the process of implementing enrollment and training of students in the field of Agriculture. Specifically, statistics in recent years show that only less than 2% of the total number of students enrolled each year are enrolled in university programs in the fields of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. Every year, universities specializing in training in these fields often only enroll less than 50% of the required enrollment quota and enroll from the floor score, so the quality of incoming students is very low.
Businesses also have opinions about the difficulties in recruiting human resources in the current agricultural sector. Among them, high-tech businesses have the most difficulty recruiting, because they have to set many requirements and targets for candidates.
To further improve the effectiveness of training and fostering to improve professional skills in new rural construction, the Department of Organization and Personnel, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development requires departments, branches and localities to focus on a number of solutions including: Continuing to improve mechanisms and policies for training cadres at all levels to meet the requirements of the New Rural Construction Program; Innovating training methods, reducing theoretical time, increasing time for field trips to typical localities in new rural construction...
For provincial and district-level cadres: Allow them to participate in specialized training courses on new rural knowledge, meeting the requirements of the Program set out in the period 2026 - 2030. For communal cadres and civil servants: Supplement and effectively use investment funds for training activities for communal cadres and civil servants, especially communal cadres and civil servants in remote, isolated, extremely difficult areas, and ethnic minorities.
For village and hamlet level cadres: It is necessary to rejuvenate the village and hamlet level cadres to meet the tasks of technology 4.0 in the coming time. Implement well the policies and regimes for the non-professional village and hamlet level cadres; open training courses to improve the necessary knowledge and skills associated with the tasks and practical work of the village chief....
