In recent years, the network of vocational schools and training institutions in Binh Duong has been renovated by adding suitable professions attracting large numbers of students. On the other hand, vocational schools also performed training cooperation to meet enterprise needs, introduce jobs to students after graduation. This is a new direction for vocational schools to be more competitive.
Vietnam-Singapore Vocational College
Diverse professions
Southern College of Technology and Agriculture was established in 1977. Since then, the school has changed a lot, for example, from facilities, modern training equipment and many professions meeting the needs of society. Rector Tran Dang Bong said that at first, the school was established with five professions. In the period 1983-1996, the school increased to 7 occupations. From 2008, the school has had 3 levels of training, including 7 vocational colleges and 20 vocational junior colleges. This addition has helped the school to attract more students.
Duong Economic Junior College (Ben Cat Township), since its foundation, has strived to build the tradition of "Unity - Creativity - Integration - Development", performed well training tasks, and provided many engineers for the province. The school regularly adds professions meeting recruitment needs, such as financial, corporate, government accounting, tax... From April 2017, the school has opened two new majors, computer accounting, industrial and civil electricity. With these efforts, in 2017-2018 academic year, the school’s recruitment number exceeded the target.
Pham Van Tuyen, Deputy Director of Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (DOLISA), said that the province had 72 vocational education institutions, of which 8 were colleges and 13 junior colleges. In order to attract more students, vocational schools have actively changed and supplemented more appropriate professions. Previously, Binh Duong was an agricultural province, so the schools focused on agricultural occupations. At present, the schools have shifted to occupations to meet industrial development and non-agricultural occupations.
School – business association
The addition of new professions is not enough; vocational schools must have a suitable training strategy associated with social reality. Therefore, the training linking under the motto "school is the foundation - business is the practice" is indispensable.
Nguyen Hai Son, Office Chief of Binh Duong Wood Processing Association, said that the association had more than 200 members with about 60,000 employees. Annually, enterprises have the recruitment demand of between 5,000 and 6,000 laborers. To be active in recruitment plan, the association has signed a training linking with Southern College of Technology and Agriculture and a number of vocational education institutions in the province for training and supply of human resources to specific recruitment requirements of each enterprise.
In addition to the cooperation and support from enterprises, the core issue is to promote the internal capacity of vocational education institutions. Schools have to develop themselves training programs with innovate teaching methods in a dynamic learning environment, the connection between theory and practical skills sticking to real requirements of each industry in order to promote the independence, creativity of students. "The proactive spirit of the schools is the most important," said Mr. Son.
"Training links must ensure harmony between the interests of schools and businesses," said Pham Van Tuyen, Deputy Director of Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs. Accordingly, vocational training institutions have improved their training quality by appropriate program adjustments, increased practice in real estate business environment, accurate and objective output quality assessment due to the participation of enterprises, teaching staff also improve qualifications by access to new machinery, technologies...
To businesses, the linking with vocational training schools not only helps to ensure personnel for business activities, but also reduce the cost of retraining for employees, thereby increasing financial benefits of business. Therefore, Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has created good conditions for schools to meet, exchange and set up training cooperation with businesses.
Reported by Thien Ly – Translated by Ngoc Huynh
