VietNamNet Bridge - Too many university graduates, many of whom are not well qualified, are one of the reasons behind the high unemployment rate.

 

Employers complain that the majority of university graduates cannot satisfy their requirements and don’t have necessary skills. 

Seventy percent of graduates are believed to lack communication and foreign language skills, according to Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the HCM City Labor Market Information Center.

“The students are not exactly what employers want,” Tuan noted.

Tuan said there are two major reasons for the jobless rate. In some business fields, the number of jobs offered is lower than the number of workers. Second, though the labor demand is high, the unemployment rate remains high because candidates cannot satisfy requirements set by employers.

An education expert noted that in recent years, schools have been expanding the scope of training but not improving training quality. The number of students has increased sharply, but the number of lecturers has risen only 

Schools received 226,000 more students in the 2011-2012 academic year than in 2009-2010, while the number of lecturers increased by 3,900 and the number of lecturers with doctorates rose by 830 only.

Junior colleges (3-year training) even saw the number of lecturers on the decrease. In 2009-2010, the schools had 24,600 lecturers, while the figure dropped to 23,600 in 2010-2011, of which lecturers with doctorates fell from 656 to 586.

A report of the National Assembly’s Committee for Culture, Education, the Youth and Children shows that most non-state universities can satisfy the requirement on the minimum land area of 55 square meters per student.

Dr. Dam Quang Minh, president of FPT University, denied that there are fewer job opportunities now because of the recession. He said businesses have launched recruitment campaigns, scrambling for qualified workers, especially workers for high-technology industries. 

He said the high unemployment rate should be blamed on the low qualification of university graduates, not on low labor demand.

Professor Vo Tong Xuan, former president of An Giang University, noted that the Ministry of Education and Training only maintains tight control over the establishment of new schools, while it does not pay attention to schools’ operations and the quality of graduates.

Meanwhile, he said, MOET should join forces with professional associations to build up the required standards for graduates. Students should only receive bachelor’s degrees if they can satisfy the standards.

“With the high number of unemployed university graduates, the image of Vietnam’s education is getting worse, while higher education quality is unreliable in people’s eyes,” Xuan noted.

NLD