VietNamNet Bridge – Deputy Minister of Education and Training--Nguyen Vinh Hien on January 8, 2013, said the ministry is considering to add “business” into the general school curriculum after 2015.

Pilot program gives encouraging results

According to Dr. Le Van Anh from the Vietnam Institute of Sciences, in 2006-2007 academic year, the International Labor Organization (ILO) joined forces with the institute to run business education at high schools in Vietnam.

Under the program, business education was provided as an optional subject for high school students, which aimed to provide basic knowledge about business and enterprises to students.

“The program aimed to help students choose careers for them and can make their way in the world,” Anh said.

“We also hoped to narrow the knowledge gap between the knowledge students receive from school and the reality at enterprises,” she continued.

The business education was conducted in a pilot project at 11 education establishments, including the seven high schools in the four provinces of Thanh

The project supervisors found out that students showed their great interests in the new subject. A half of the students said after the training course that they want to start their business, while 2/3 of them affirmed they have got sufficient knowledge and necessary skills to run business of their own.

A deep interview was conducted with five students, who attended the pilot training course. The students gave different answers about the usefulness of the training courses to their future careers, but all of them said they could utilize the knowledge right to their family daily activities.

“The knowledge I receive helps me plan my studies and helps the mother manage the family’s spending,” said Duyen, a student of the Dong Xoai High School in Binh Phuoc province.

The polled students who attended the pilot training course also said that the program not only provided them with useful knowledge, but also helped practice the skills necessary for businessmen, such as negotiation, communication, teamwork and idea presentation skills.

Trung, a former student of the Bim Son Continuation Center in Thanh Hoa province, said that he and a group of classmates then decided to make billboards. His business now has seven workers who can earn VND20 million a month.

The program would be run in a large scale

The Ministry of Education and Training has affirmed the necessity of business lessons for high school students.

It is estimated that 30 percent of secondary school graduates every year do not study further at high schools, but would go working, and about 80 percent of high school graduates would not enter universities. A lot of them want to run business themselves, and they need the knowledge to succeed in their lives.

Doan Van Ninh, Deputy Director of the High School Education Department, has affirmed that the good result of the pilot project showed that business education should be applied in a large scale. The thing that needs to be done now is think about how to organize the business education at all of high school all over the country.

Ninh suggested that business education would be integrated into some subjects. Especially, the current vocational curriculum designed for 11th graders would have some more content about the business fields. It is expected that this would be taught in 105 periods (45 minutes per period), and 3 periods a week.

Tien Phong