Ten-billion-dong vocational school operating at a standstill

(Baonghean) - Nghe An is one of the provinces with the largest system of vocational schools in the country. However, due to many difficulties, shortcomings and unreasonableness, vocational training in the province has not brought about the expected results, leading to waste of both facilities and human resources.

"Ten billion" vocational school operates at a standstill

Established in 2008, Nghe An Ethnic Boarding Vocational College only started enrolling students in the 2010-2011 school year. The school is located in Bong Khe commune (Con Cuong), and is expected to be a cradle of vocational training for children in the southwestern districts of the province.

However, “in the first years, we recruited 100 students, but by the time they graduated, they were all gone, leaving only 40 students,” said Mr. Nguyen Thanh Binh, the school’s principal. At that time, the school had nearly 40 teachers and staff, equivalent to almost 1 teacher for every 1 student.

In the 2015-2016 school year, 405 students were enrolled; but after 9 months of study, only 260 remained. Students dropped out every week. According to statistics, in the most years, this vocational school only produced more than 100 students.

Vocational training at Nghi Loc Economic and Technical College. Photo: Tien Hung

According to Mr. Binh, the school currently has 38 staff and teachers, and each year receives 4 billion VND from the budget to serve teaching. In addition to the intermediate level, the school also provides short-term elementary training. During the elementary teaching process, the school has to transport machinery and equipment to the commune to teach. These students mainly "learn for the sake of knowledge". The training is moderate, but the infrastructure is very well invested.

When the school was first established, nearly 60 billion VND was invested, not including land clearance costs. Of which, more than 33 billion VND was used to purchase equipment. By 2016, the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs continued to invest tens of billions of VND to build new infrastructure at this school such as a multi-purpose building, 2 workshops, a dormitory, a library, etc. These projects are still under construction.

In Tuong Duong district, the vocational guidance and training center has also invested in a spacious infrastructure with a total investment of nearly 20 billion VND. However, for many years now, this has become a place for training and testing for motorbike driving licenses because there are no students.

Regarding professional tasks, over the past 7 years, the center has trained several short-term elementary classes each year. However, because the students are mainly farmers, the teaching staff has to go down to the villages. This means that the infrastructure and equipment invested in tens of billions of dong seem to be unused.

Mr. Nguyen Duy Thong, Director of Tuong Duong HN&DN Center said: "We only fulfill our duties, we train the number of students equivalent to the amount of money given to us. For example, in 2016, the province provided 200 million VND, so we spent that much on training."

In fact, if the training scale is expanded, the center cannot meet the demand because the school has only 7 staff members, including only 3 teachers. Each time a training class is opened, the center has to invite teachers from other vocational schools.

Since its establishment, this center has only trained less than 1,000 students.

Winter but not…fun!

With 67 vocational training institutions (formerly called vocational schools), Nghe An has about 18,000 enrollment targets each year (in both college, intermediate and primary levels). According to statistics, Nghe An currently has an average of over 20,000 students each year in both junior high and high school who do not go on to high school or university, but are oriented to vocational training.

In theory, opportunities are tilted more towards vocational schools when the supply is always abundant. However, in the implementation process, apart from some branded schools, most of the remaining schools face many difficulties in recruiting students.

Vocational guidance and training center of Tuong Duong district. Photo: My Ha

Even in Vinh City, many units, despite having a long history in training, are in this situation. At Vinh Industrial Economic and Technical Vocational College, although there are only a few hundred quotas each year, in order to recruit enough students, the school's leadership, including the Director, Deputy Director and Head of Training Department, must go directly to the base to advise and guide students. The area must also be expanded to mountainous districts such as Tuong Duong and Con Cuong.

Regarding the Western Technical Economic College located in Thai Hoa Town, Mr. Pham Nam Hai, the school’s principal, also said: this school year the school has more than 1,000 quotas, of which 350 are intermediate. Currently, the number of students registered for the school is about 70 - 80% but the school’s Board of Directors is not sure about the results because “we don’t know if the students will study or not”.

According to Mr. Hai, because there are many opportunities for vocational training, students who register for vocational schools have very high “requirements” such as “having to go down to see if the school is beautiful or not, whether there is a dormitory for students or not”. With the school area of ​​only 3,500m2 and having to study “temporarily” at the town’s vocational guidance center, that is a difficult requirement. But because the lives of 60 staff and teachers depend on the “enrollment quota per capita”, the school still has to find ways to “please” the students.

Due to the difficulty in recruiting students, the livelihood of vocational training schools mainly depends on primary, short-term students who come directly to the localities to coordinate and open linkages. However, this form of training only solves the problem of quantity, while quality is difficult to ensure and wastes money.

Simply, with vocational training, practice accounts for 2/3 of the curriculum. However, if training is combined at the facility, will the machinery and teaching equipment be guaranteed? Nghi Loc 5 High School is one of the first schools to pilot vocational training combined with cultural teaching; after nearly 3 years of implementation, besides creating more favorable conditions for students, they are soon oriented to their careers, according to Mr. Dang Van Hai - Principal of the school, there are also shortcomings because when studying vocational training at school, the conditions for students to practice are not guaranteed such as: the power source to install the machine is not enough to operate, there is no large classroom to make a practice workshop, moving the machinery is cumbersome and expensive...

Mr. Vo Van An - Director of Nghi Loc District Continuing Education Center said: In 2016, the center cooperated with Nghi Loc District Economic and Technical Vocational College to open two welding classes and a cooking class for students. However, after one year of study, the number of students remaining was less than 50%, because they were not interested in the training program...

Assessing the effectiveness of vocational training, Mr. Hoang Sy Tuyen - Head of Vocational Training Department, Department of Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs also admitted. Although the number of vocational training facilities in the province is large, the scale is still small. Investment resources for vocational training are increasingly required, but many training facilities have not met the requirements, especially factories, equipment...

In addition, the recruitment mechanism and salary policy for teachers in public vocational training institutions are still inadequate, so they have not attracted good teachers with high skills to teach at vocational training institutions in the province. Many vocational training institutions do not have teachers and have to contract temporary teachers, making training ineffective and unattractive to students.

My Ha - Tien Hung