Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has urged the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to focus on the training of human resources for the environment sector from now up to 2015. Deputy PM Nhan, who is also Minister of Education and Training, made the request at a working session with leaders of the two ministries in Hanoi Feb. 26, the Nhan dan newspaper reported Feb. 26. The Deputy PM outlined measures to overcome the shortage of human resources in the sector and proposed the MoNRE to organize a conference on the supply of workers in August. The government of Vietnam will give a nod to set up two universities specializing in natural recourses and the environment soon, Nhan said. Vietnam is facing a serous shortage of staff in the fields of island and sea management, mineral geology and water resources. The country will need an additional 10,000 workers in the fields in the next five years. This year, the Southeast Asian country will spend VND6 trillion ($324.69 million) for environment protection activities, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen has said. Rapid urbanization and industrialization process in Vietnam are worsening the quality of the environment, and hundreds of rivers become dead as it pays undue attention to the issues, analysts said.
