The Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs will restructure vocational training centers in a way that will give them more autonomy so that they can improve the quality of vocational education, said Minister Dao Ngoc Dung.

Students practice lathing

At a question-and-answer session on June 5, National Assembly (NA) deputies grilled the minister over issues such as the restructuring of vocational schools and the handling of shortcomings in labor export.

Asked by Deputy Tran Thi Hang of Bac Ninh Province about how to make breakthroughs in vocational education this year, the minister said the low quality of manpower has been identified as a reason for low labor productivity while training programs have yet to meet the nation’s economic restructuring requirements.

By the end of last year, agriculture accounted for more than 40% of the country’s workforce but contributed only 15% to gross domestic product (GDP).

Regarding the restructuring of vocational schools, Dung said the ministry and local governments have merged three vocational training centers at district level into others over the past three years.

Besides, the ministry has cut the number of colleges by 35 and merged 328 district-level vocational schools.

The minister said 56% of workers have been equipped with professional skills, with 22% of them holding professional certificates.

Dung said last year saw 134,000 Vietnamese being sent abroad for guest work, mainly South Korea and Japan.

In Korea, 55% of Vietnamese workers did not work for the Korean enterprises that signed contracts with them. 

Since Vietnam took measures to lower the ratio to 33%, the Korean government has resumed the import of labor from Vietnam after a four-year interruption.

Dung said cheating brokers, high fees and irresponsibility of relevant government agencies had affected labor export to Korea. 

The ministry has inspected 51 labor export firms and revoked the licenses of five of them and suspended 25 others from labor export service.

SGT