VietNamNet Bridge – Just 1,000 people with disabilities received vocational training and found employment over three years (2012-14), much lower than the 20,000 people who desired to do so.

A class for people with disabilities at the Binh Duong Vocational Training Centre. Only 1,000 living with disabilities received vocational training and employment between 2012-2014.

These figures were revealed at a workshop held in Ha Noi on Tuesday to review a survey on auditing accessibility to mainstream vocational training for persons with disabilities.

The 2012-14 survey was carried out in provinces of Phu Tho and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, and the cities of Hai Phong and Da Nang. In each locality, researchers worked with officials of the local Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, vocation training centres and enterprises involved in training and creating jobs for the disabled, and interviewed teachers as well as people with disabilities.

The survey found that most people with disabilities had problems getting to vocational training centres from their homes. Many needed help from their relatives, and received inadequate financial support.

While around 70 per cent of people with disabilities need loans, very few are able to access preferential credit, the survey found. Limited funding and complicated procedures were identified as major difficulties.

The survey also found that the education level among people with disabilities is low, with very few college graduates.

According to the survey and reports compiled by vocational centres nationwide, as many as 100,000 persons with disabilities were assisted with vocational training and jobs in the 2011-14 period, much lower than national target of 250,000 beneficiaries by 2015.

Do Van Binh, deputy director of Hai Phong City's Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said the city had over 36,000 persons with disabilities.

He said the three-month vocational training courses available now were not suitable for people with disabilities and the financial support of VND15,000 per day was too low compared with market prices.

He proposed that the Government offers longer courses as well as greater financial support for people with disabilities.

Tran Manh Huy, founder and chief executive of the VBPO Joint Stock Company in Da Nang City, said that the Government should support enterprises involved in providing training for people with disabilities by reducing leasing costs for State infrastructure used for the purpose.

Huy, himself a person with disabilities, runs a firm which specialises in business process outsourcing and creating jobs for many disabled people.

The lack of links between enterprises that can provide training and jobs for people with disabilities, on the one hand, and vocational training centres, on the other, was a problem highlighted at the workshop.

Huy noted that a failure to establish such linkages will lead to a waste of State investment in vocational training centres.

Such links should be created by law or enterprises have to be encouraged to participate in providing vocational training for the disabled by lowering course costs, he added.

Dao Trong Do, deputy head of the Directorate of Vocational Training under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, called for establishment of a national database of people with disabilities.

The workshop was jointly organised by the Directorate of Vocation Training, International Labour Organisation and Irish Aid.

VNS