Vietnam - Japan Human Resources Training : Potential Cooperation

Dr Nguyen Thi Tue Anh, Deputy Director of CIEM, said, with the target of becoming a basically industrialised nation by 2020, Vietnam defines that human resources development is one of three strategic breakthroughs in 2011-2020. In fact, after nearly 30 years of reform, Vietnam has made many achievements in human resources training. However, its human resources are yet to meet requirements of accelerating industrialisation and modernisation tied to knowledge economy. Particularly, it still lacks skilled technical workers to serve strategic industries because of the lax cooperation between enterprises and training institutions. Therefore, finding appropriate cooperation solutions between training institutions and enterprises and understanding State roles in human resources training is essential.

 

Delivering a keynote to the workshop, Dr Yoichi Sakurada from the Mitsubishi Research Institute shared Japan’s valuable experience in industrial human resources training (10 years ago). He said Japan carried out many nuclear human resources training projects like nucleus personnel training in production and manufacturing by matching businesses’ demands and schools’ capacities (2005-2008), business start-up training application project (2002-2006) or systematised tax deduction project aimed to promote human resources investment (2005-2012). To carry out these strategic tasks, the Government of Japan assigned the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) to be a coordinating agency which was responsible for linking training projects of universities and institutes with economic entities in forms of collaboration/trust. He also emphasised that the trilateral relations among the Government, schools and businesses could also be formed if they share the understanding of cooperation demands. Businesses wished to share their experience of skilled workers; schools trained workers for enterprises; and the Government wanted to export human resources worldwide. What made that interconnectivity was coordination. Currently, the Government of Japan is spending a lot of resources and endeavours for highly qualified human resources development. Japan now has 3,205 vocational training schools with over 669,669 students (2014). Since its inception in 1976, these entities always play a central role in supplying highly qualified human resources. Even now, many Japanese businesses give stronger appreciations to workers graduated from vocational training schools than those graduated from universities. In addition, the Japanese Government applies tax reductions to promote human resources investment.

 

The above policy implications and experience of Japan will be very necessary for Vietnam to apply coordination and linkage among businesses, universities and government.

 

Commenting on Vietnam’s present personnel quality, Dr Nguyen Thi Tue Anh said that, after 30 years of reform, despite certain achievements, Vietnam still fails to produce a desired workforce quality. It lacks skilled workers and professional technical workers to serve the development of strategic industries of Vietnam. A major drawback is that the linkage between businesses and labour training units is weak. In fact, in spite of having an abundant labour force, the country falls short of capable personnel. This hinders Vietnamese companies from entering supply chains run by foreign firms, she noted.

 

Sharing experience in human resources development training cooperation with foreign partners, Dr Pham Xuan Duong, Deputy Rector of Vietnam Maritime University, said, since the 1990s, the university has actively applied State policies to expand international relations and cooperation with domestic and foreign companies through such activities as establishing enterprises, joint venture centre with foreigners and consulting centre, administered by its lecturers. At the same time, the university has established bilateral relations with many maritime universities across the world, international organisations, and foreign companies. It has also signed many agreements on training cooperation and scientific research with institutes and universities in the United States, Russia, Poland, Japan and other nations. As for cooperation with Japan, Japanese steelmaker NS United and the university’s VINIC Company regularly interviewed third-year students to grant scholarships. Each year, 10-15 students are handed scholarships and sent to do internship in Japan. Furthermore, the university has cooperated with three major Japanese partners - Mutsui & Co, Shin-Kurushima Dockyard Co., Ltd and KANAX Ship Equipment Group to establish VMSK Company, a joint venture centre for ship service training.

 

Associate Professor Pham Hoang Luong, Vice Rector of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, said the university has signed 36 cooperation agreements with Japanese universities and institutes and 17 cooperation agreements with Japanese companies. Every year, more than 30 Japanese companies visit and propose cooperation with the university. Major fields of cooperation are training, scientific research and technology transfer.

 

However, Mr Masaaki Toma, Counsellor of the Embassy of Japan in Vietnam, said the above cases are just proactive cooperation between universities and companies. To reach the national scale, the guidance of the Government is decisive. He suggested a coordinating agency to unite cooperation clues. With the State involvement, training cooperation will have long-term vision.