Vietnam may not achieve its goal of churning out one million IT workers by 2020 given its current education system and low pay in the IT sector, experts said.

According to Nguyen Duc Hien, Director of HCMC-based Quang Trung Software Park, the present education sector will just provide around 600,000 IT workers in the next 9 years.

Hien said local IT graduates also lacked the skills needed for work and the park often had to provide additional training courses for its employees.

According Nguyen Trong Duong from the Ministry of Information and Telecommunications, Vietnam currently has 250,000 IT engineers and churns out an additional 25% to 35% of this number every year.

But Duong said because of low pay, IT had become less attractive in the past few years.

College graduates can only earn a monthly salary of VND4-5 million ($192-240) if they work in the IT sector while their counterparts working in banking for instance can earn VND8-10 million ($384-480) a month.

Many IT engineers have moved to other countries to work for better incomes, said Lam Nguyen, Country Director of IDC Vietnam, a provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the IT sector.

“Brain drain is a major challenge to Vietnam, and it will adversely affect the IT industry,” Lam said.