VietNamNet Bridge – The high percentage of unemployed university graduates is attributed to their low qualifications, which is a result of poor training at the post-secondary level.

Dr. Do Van Dung, president of the HCM City University of Technique Education, noted that bachelor’s degrees do not have much significance in the eyes of employers now.

Dung noted that universities, both long lasting and prestigious, and newly established ones, only focus on the majors which do not require high investments but can bring big money.

“They have been trying to develop training majors that do not need technical equipment for practice hours,” Dung explained.

“You just need to hire a lecturer and buy a microphone to run a class,” he added.

The director of a mechanical engineering company in Dong Anh district in Hanoi said it was very difficult to find a qualified engineer, though he is willing to offer high salaries to workers.

“I posted an ad for recruitment in a local newspaper and I immediately received hundreds of applications. However, most of them graduated from business schools. Only some of them finished polytechnique schools,” he said.

A lecturer at the Hanoi Industry University noted that there are numerous unemployed business school graduates.

“Universities have opened new economics-related training majors, because the majors are believed to be profitable and not too costly,” he said. “Meanwhile, the best students rush to study economics because they think only the bachelor’s degrees in economics can help them find good jobs.”

Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the HCM City-based Center for Human Resource Forecasting and Labor Market, noted that universities cannot provide employees that the market needs.

“The demand for workers in technical fields accounts for 35 percent of the total demand. Meanwhile, schools produce large numbers of candidates in economics-related fields,” he commented.

“This was the reason why the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) has rung the alarm bell over the redundancy of economics, finance and pedagogical university graduates,” Dung said.

Dr. Pham Thi Ly, a renowned educator, cited a report as saying that the number of Vietnamese students choosing to study at foreign universities with their own money is on the rise.

He said the number of students entering Vietnamese schools has been decreasing in the last three years.

“The high percentage of unemployed university graduates, ‘degree inflation’ and low Vietnamese productivity have prompted Vietnamese students to go abroad, where they hope they can receive a better education,” Ly said.

Mai Lich