At the opening ceremony, ASEAN labour and education ministers launched the Roadmap of ASEAN Declaration on Human Resources Development for the Changing World of Work, along with the ASEAN Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Council.

Human resources development is one of Vietnam’s priorities and the high-level conference viewed it as a highlight in its ASEAN Chairmanship Year 2020. It was also the first conference seeing the participation of ASEAN labour and education ministers.

Addressing the event, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam said the world has witnessed major changes such as digital transformation, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, non-traditional security issues and the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic.

Human resource development in the revolution has been discussed at various global and regional forums, he noted.

The Deputy Prime Minister underlined that new mechanisms are needed to help all labourers grab opportunities and come to know their responsibilities to acquire new knowledge and skills, stressing that human resources development is among the three key priorities of the ASEAN Community stated in the ASEAN Charter.

Efforts in the field must be further promoted to ensure the successful implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on Human Resources Development for the Changing World of Work, the Deputy Prime Minister reiterated.

In his remarks, ASEAN Secretary-General Dato Lim Jock Hoi affirmed that to raise the regional educational quality, attention must be paid to both general education and vocational training, along with fostering digital skills to maximize workers’ capacity in the current technological era.

At the Conference, Minister of Labour - Invalids and Social Affairs Dao Ngoc Dung emphasized that all ASEAN member countries in general and Vietnam in particular have considered the high quality human resource as the key of improving labour productivity and competition of the region, especially, in the context of the changing world of work. Thus, human resource development is selected to be one of the priorities of ASEAN Chairmanship 2020.

Speaking at the first session of the Conference with the theme “Partnership for human resource development", Minister Dao Ngoc Dung said that partnership in human resource would be the lever helping to enhance the quality and competition of ASEAN human resource. Vietnam and ASEAN's countries have focused on building, promoting and implementing effectively a lot of kinds of partnership on human resource development, namely public private partnership, interdisciplinary fields cooperation in each country, cooperation at regional level, cooperation between ASEAN and bilateral and multilateral partners.

The Minister also wished that ASEAN's partners in general and Vietnam in particular in the coming time will promote effective partnership in order to build the ASEAN high competition human resources meeting regional and international levels, contributing to building prosperous and sustainable  general community united and actively adapted to the changes of the world of work.

Within the framework of the Conference, the session on Partnership with International Organizations, ASEAN's Dialogue Partners was held on September 15, 2020 to share the priorities of cooperation with ASEAN's countries on human resource development and interested fields in the forthcoming time. In addition, this is also an opportunity for ASEAN member countries to seek opportunities to cooperate with partners in the implementation of the Roadmap of the ASEAN Declaration on Human Resource Development for the Changing World of Work.

The Ministerial Meeting on Human Resource Development for the Changing World of Work was successfully organized. The Conference has contributed to promoting ASEAN cooperation on Human Resource Development, and submitted the results to the 37th ASEAN Summit (will take place in November 2020).