Ministry to merge vocational facilities

The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs have said they plan to reorganise and merge thousands of vocational facilities for better management and to be more efficient.

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Vocational facilities in Vietnam has improved greatly both in scale and quality. In 2016, the facilities received 290,231 students, 310,000 last year and an estimated 320,000 this year. 85-90% of them are secondary schoolers.

However, vocational facilities may only thrive when they have close links with local firms. Moreover, the belief that only college-graduated students can find good jobs and are given high regards in society is still strong. Vietnam has 1,954 vocational facilities but many are struggling to recruit new students.

For the past two years, the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs have reviewed and merged some district-level facilities. They reduced up to 363 facilities after merging three facilities into one or two.

By 2021, the ministry plans to reduce 10% of the public vocational facilities. The figure will be 20% in 2025 and 40% in 2030.