Up to 40 people who are members of the central city of Danang’s a high-quality workforce training project have resigned from municipal state agencies.

The one-stop area at Danang Administrative Centre 

Duong Thuy Hang, director of the Centre for Human Resource Development under Danang’s Department of Internal Affairs, said that these staff named health problems, family union or job changes for the resignations.    

Three among four staff from the Department of Planning and Investment will have to repay training fees as the time they have worked less than seven years for municipal services which would have provided them with free education, Hang added.

She noted that right after receiving their resignations, their agencies had a meeting with them and their parents to know whether they have any problems so that they can help them to deal with. But they insisted on resigning. They were also clearly informed about having to repay their education subsidies.

Danang started the high-quality workforce training project or Project 922 in 1998. The city built Le Quy Don High School to encourage talented students. Selected people for the project received billions of VND in funding for training courses. These people had to pledge to work for the city’s state agencies after graduation from training courses of the project.

By April this year, 647 people have been trained via the project. Among those, 460 graduated and are working for the municipal state agencies.

Following the case, Pham Minh Chinh, Politburo member and Head of the Central Organising Committee of the Vietnam Communist Party, said that his committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will co-operate to build a project which is aimed to attract people to work for state agencies for a long time.

Chinh admitted that current low salaries and subsidies are among the main reasons why state agencies find it difficult to lure qualified people.

National Assembly Duong Trung Quoc pointed out the fact that many state agencies have a large number of doctorates, but they are not assigned to suitable positions so they can fully use their skills. 

The resignations of staff from Danang City’s state agencies is an example of the low confidence people have in public services. It is essential for state agencies in Vietnam to have better mechanisms to retain talented people, Quoc warned.

Tien Phong/Dtinews