HCM City invests to improve quality of vocational human resources

Lê Văn Thinh, director of the city's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the city's vocational education system provides the labour market with about 200,000 workers each year.

However, according to assessments conducted by businesses, the quality of this human resource does not meet the requirements of rapid development in science and technology.

There are 62 colleges, 60 secondary schools, 77 vocational education centres, and 181 vocational education facilities across the city.

These vocational training establishments can provide training at different levels for over 400,000 labourers.

The number of learners and the quality of training have improved over the years, contributing to a gradual increase in the proportion of trained labourers to 87.6 per cent as of June 2024.

However, short-term training courses still account for a high proportion of total annual enrolment.

This leads to the majority of workers finding it difficult to adapt to the rapid changes in science and technology compared to workers with secondary or higher education levels.

Digitalisation and digital transformation have not been fully implemented by vocational education institutions.

In addition, many vocational education facilities have outdated teaching equipment, and small land areas. Therefore, they do not meet the minimum area requirements according to present regulations.

In May, the city's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs coordinated with relevant departments and agencies to advise the city People's Committee to issue a decision on approving the Labour and Employment Strategy for the city in the 2023-25 period, with a vision to 2030.

The strategy outlines solutions to ensure the goal of socio-economic development, ensure social security, and meet the requirements of economic restructuring towards modernisation and international integration, especially to achieve the labour productivity growth target as directed by the Prime Minister and the Resolution of the city Party Congress of the 2020-25 term.

The department is also finalising a project on managing the network of vocational education facilities in the city by 2030 after listening to comments from departments, agencies, districts and vocational education facilities.

Accordingly, the city will merge and reorganise public vocational education facilities, continue to invest in modern facilities and equipment, and inspect the quality of vocational training programmes.

By 2025, the city will pour investment in technical teaching facilities for three public vocational education institutions with a total investment of more than VNĐ400 billion (US$15.7 million).

In the 2026-30 period, the city will allocate VNĐ2.9 trillion ($113.8 million) to upgrade equipment and enhance training capacity at 15 vocational education institutions.

The city’s education sector will continue to assess the needs of businesses and society to advise the city on fundamental social welfare policies, support vulnerable workers, and provide supplementary and advanced training for labour force development.

During the 2021-25 period, three institutions, including the HCM City Vocational College, Nguyễn Trường Tộ Technical College, and Củ Chi Vocational Intermediate School, have been tasked by the city People’s Committee to propose adjustments to investment plans for public vocational education projects.

These projects include development of a high-quality vocational school, equipment procurement, and vocational training equipment acquisition.

Between 2026 and 2030, the city People’s Committee will allocate mid-term public investment funds to improve infrastructure and teaching equipment at least 15 public vocational education institutions in the city.

These institutions include Hùng Vương Technical College, Thủ Đức College of Economics and Technology, Quang Trung Vocational Intermediate School, and the HCM City College of Economics and Technology.

Public vocational education institutions in the city will also maintain close collaboration with lead units in the comprehensive international workforce training project across eight fields, including IT and communications, mechanical engineering and automation, artificial intelligence, business administration, finance and banking, healthcare, tourism and urban management.

This collaboration aims to supply skilled laborers with vocational education and university studies, meeting the demand for a dynamic high-quality workforce. 

Establish and operate a social security

In Vietnam, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, poor families and vulnerable populations continue to suffer the disproportionate impact  while its consequences of external impacts have been predicted.
The launch of the Social Security Fund is a move to support people in difficulty during  as well as concretize the spirit of the Eighth Central Conference which determined that social security must ensure flexibility and adapt to bad situations on a large scale without leaving no one behind.

The concept of ‘poor households’ also needs to be approached at many levels such as poor families, near-poor families, families that have just escaped poverty but then falling back into poverty, and families at high risk of falling into poverty. Even in some areas where, during a certain period, there are no longer poor households, but vulnerable population groups still exist. If these groups are not protected and supported, they will easily fall into poverty.

Specifically, the group of informal workers is easily falling into poverty when the problem of formalizing informal labor has not been solved and the safety net cannot fully cover them.

Moreover, the most fundamental solution to escape poverty is to create jobs while the authorities must enhance training and retraining including vocational skills and the labor market must ensure enough orders and maintain market share. But this is the heaviest challenge in the current situation.

Therefore, more than ever the city needs to establish and operate a social security fund model that can accommodate most immigrants and informal workers in the country while still carrying out the goal of developing Ho Chi Minh City into a place comfortable and beneficial to live in that Secretary of the City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen once mentioned to.

Clearly, the city needs to have a reserve financial flow both in the budget and social funds to respond to the above impacts with a framework for the type of impacts that need support, level of support, and eligibility conditions. The city must use technology to monitor and warn of natural disasters, epidemics or major shocks and digitize social security databases such as social assistance, poverty, near poverty, and labor.

Based on the Government’s Decree 93/2021/ND-CP on mobilization, receipt, distribution and use of voluntary contributions to support overcoming difficulties caused by natural disasters, epidemics and incidents and support patients with serious illnesses, the Ho Chi Minh City Social Security Fund is suitable for carrying out these goals.

A noteworthy point in mobilizing resources in the early stages of the fund launch is whether to ask for permission to transfer the existing money of the Center which was receiving, distributing and supporting essential goods to serve disadvantaged people due to the Covid-19 epidemic to immediately deploy some urgent subsidies.

In addition, it is necessary to establish clear and specific roles and responsibilities between the social security and natural disaster risk management system and other relevant departments and agencies.

The city will encourage businesses and philanthropists to contribute to the fund by awakening the tradition of kindness and mutual support but also set up a reserve budget. However, the fund managers must ensure openness, transparency, and effectiveness during the operation of the fund.