Developing education and vocational training will make a great contribution to socio-economic achievements and turn Vietnam into a modern industrialized nation by 2020. This statement was made by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at a meeting of the National Council for Education and Workforce Development in Hanoi on March 8, which aimed at gathering opinions on the draft Education Development Strategy and Vocational Training Strategy for 2011-2020. PM Dung, who is also the council’s chairman, emphasized that the strategies should focus on building a qualified workforce to meet the demands of the nation’s key economic sectors. The draft Education Development Strategy aims to comprehensively improve the quality of education to meet the country’s demand for a high-quality workforce. It defines concrete goals for pre-school, general, vocational and tertiary education. To meet the goals, the draft strategy proposes seven measures for educational development in the 2011-2020 period, including renovating educational management, developing a contingent of teachers and educational managers, renewing curricula, increasing investment in education, supporting educational development in disadvantaged areas, and area inhabited by ethnic minority groups, developing educational science, and expanding international co-operation on education. Meanwhile, the draft Vocational Training Strategy sets an overall target to meet the requirements of the labor market, in both quality and quantity, to improve Vietnam’s competitive edge, increasing laborers’ incomes and ensuring sustainable poverty reduction and social welfare. It also aims to increase the rate of trained workers to 40% or equivalent to 23.5 million by 2015 and 55% or 34.4 million by 2020. It also proposes nine measures, including building a national vocational level framework, renovating state management of vocational training, developing the network of vocational training establishments, ensuring and controlling the quality of training, connecting vocational training with labor market and business involvement, mobilizing investment for training, improving awareness of vocational development and boosting international co-operation in vocational training. (vietnamplus.vn Mar 8)
