Opportunities for vocational schools

(Baonghean) - In recent times, despite many efforts, the implementation of the streamlining of students after graduating from junior high school and high school into vocational training has not had many positive changes. The reality of vocational training enrollment of schools in the province shows that only about 2-3% of junior high school graduates participate in vocational training and the majority of high school students consider vocational schools as a "reluctant" choice...

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As the youngest child in a wealthy civil servant family in Vinh City, in 2012, Ho Truong An (born in 1994) graduated from high school without taking the university entrance exam but chose to enroll in an executive chef course at a vocational school in Hanoi. After graduating, Truong An experienced many different working environments and thanks to affirming his abilities, An was invited to be the head chef of We Pub - the first European-style restaurant - Bar in Vinh City.

Students of Nghe An College of Tourism and Commerce practice hotel management

However, the number of high school graduates who actively choose vocational training like Ho Truong An is not much. Most vocational schools usually recruit students after the university and college admission season, which means they can only recruit those who… fail the university entrance exam.

There are some students who, after a period of studying at university, feel that their chosen career is not suitable for their abilities or that it is difficult to find a job, so they switch to vocational training. For example, Nguyen Thi Loan (born in 1995, residing in Nghi Duc commune, Vinh city) - a former student of Le Viet Thuat High School (Vinh city) took the entrance exam to the Faculty of History of Vinh University and became valedictorian. After one semester, Loan switched to studying Restaurant at Nghe An College of Tourism and Trade. Loan said: "After studying pedagogy for a while, I realized that the chance of finding a suitable job after graduation was very low, so I switched to vocational training. If I had been given career guidance in advance, I would have made a suitable choice, saving the effort and cost of taking the university entrance exam."

From the confidences of Ho Truong An and Nguyen Thi Loan, it can be seen that the current student orientation work still has many shortcomings. There are many reasons, but the important thing is that the awareness of families, society and students about the role of vocational training is not thorough. Besides, the shortcomings in current vocational training work also lead to many difficulties in student orientation to vocational training. “Schools’ enrollment plans are still passive and uncreative. Schools lack good teachers and are slow to introduce new professions into their curriculum…; and especially the Vocational Training Law issued in 2006 along with preferential policies on vocational training from the Central and the province are outdated. Therefore, in addition to building and innovating appropriate vocational education programs for general schools so that students have full awareness of choosing the right career, there also needs to be policies to ensure employment, promotion opportunities, and the ability to continue studying at higher levels for students” - Mr. Dang Cao Thang, Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs affirmed.

Opportunities for vocational schools

According to a survey by the Department of Education and Training at the end of March, more than 11,500 grade 12 students (about 35%) registered to take the National High School Exam just to graduate, and this number may increase. This means that there will be more students proactively choosing vocational schools as their next destination after 12 years of general education.

Students of Nghe An College of Tourism and Commerce practice food preparation.

As one of the schools selected by the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs for key investment, the Vietnam - Korea Technical - Industrial Vocational College currently trains 11 different occupations, including occupations that are being invested to meet ASEAN and international standards such as: Industrial Electronics, Mechanical Engineering, Welding Technology, Mechanical Equipment System Maintenance... The school has close ties with businesses, signing training contracts with many companies such as Fomusa Ha Tinh and some corporations such as Samsung, Hyundai...

Mr. Nguyen Duy Nam - Principal of Vietnam - Korea Technical - Industrial Vocational College said: "In recent years, a number of enterprises in and outside the province have established training and recruitment cooperation relationships, but the number of students graduating each year is not enough to meet the demand. With the new regulations of the Law on Vocational Education, students will be encouraged to enter vocational schools and the school is ready to apply the new points of the Law on Vocational Education when this law officially takes effect; at the same time, increase the promotion of the school on mass media. In the coming time, the school will coordinate with relevant agencies to speed up the progress of the school upgrading and construction project in the period of 2012 - 2020 with a total value of 7.6 million USD sponsored by the Korean Government to increase the scale and quality of training".

Before this year's enrollment season, Vinh University of Industry organized a seminar on human resource training, focusing on discussing training issues to ensure that training meets the recruitment needs of domestic enterprises as well as the actual needs of the locality. Starting from this school year, the school will focus largely on training according to orders from enterprises and has signed contracts with many units such as: Corporation 28 - Ministry of National Defense, Muong Thanh Song Lam Hotel, Hong Co Informatics Group, White Rabbit Entertainment Service Company, Fire Prevention Equipment Company, Institute of Technology and Energy Economics...

Linking training with social needs

To attract students after graduating from high school to vocational schools, vocational schools need to innovate their training structure, focusing on innovation in occupations, linking training with recruitment needs and social needs. In reality, the system of vocational colleges and vocational schools in Nghe An currently has more than 60 schools, but the training occupations still overlap quite a lot. On the contrary, some occupations with many long-term development prospects, associated with local conditions such as carpentry, handicrafts, and stone processing, do not have teachers and cannot recruit students. In addition, it is also necessary to segment training, colleges should only focus on vocational college training, intermediate schools should train intermediate levels to specialize in quality, not mass enrollment, not chasing quantity...

According to forecasts, the industrialization and modernization process is taking place strongly at a fairly fast pace, the demand for construction is increasing rapidly, so the development of industries such as Steel Welding, Industrial Electricity, Mechatronics ... will create conditions for students to easily find jobs after graduation. Besides, the province has a large forest area, forest cover of more than 46% provides abundant wood resources, however, the wood processing industry still has many limitations, especially high-end wood processing, so it is necessary to develop carpentry and wood carving professions. One of the new directions that the province is looking forward to vocational schools focusing on training is to develop agriculture in the direction of high industry to focus on bringing techniques, plant varieties, and technology to develop the Western region of the province. In addition, it is also necessary to develop professions with many job opportunities and good incomes today such as: Cooking, Tourism Management, Ship Driving, Ship Sailors, Agricultural Machinery Engineering, etc.

Ms. Ho Thi Chau Loan - Head of Vocational Training Department - Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs expressed her opinion: "Each vocational school needs to make efforts to change in training to attract students; must proactively approach students by increasing counseling, career guidance, enrollment, sending enrollment notices to localities, high schools and not just waiting for the enrollment season to start the above activities but must do it regularly and continuously. In addition, schools also need to coordinate with businesses to organize job fairs, both to create more job opportunities for students and to expand a "channel" to introduce the school through evaluation information from the employer."

Minh Quan - My Ha