Construction sector revamp

Workers check their safety working equipment before working at height. — VNA/VNS Photo Ha Thai

HA NOI (VNS)— A pioneering human resource scheme has been given the green light as the Government seeks to improve staff quality in the rapidly expanding construction sector.

Approved by Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung, the programme is the first of its kind in Viet Nam and will run from now until 2020.

Under the scheme, the ministry will implement nine projects including those related to training facilities and techniques, quality of teachers, managers and civil servants at urban management bodies.

According to the ministry, there was an urgent need for a long-term human resource outlook plan in order to meet demand during the country's industrialisation, modernisation and international integration.

From 2005 to 2010, the number of people working in the construction sector rose more than 50 per cent from nearly 2 million to over 3.1 million people, accounting for 6.34 per cent of the country's total workforce.

But only 41 per cent of the workers were properly trained.

The number of skilled workers only makes up around 17 per cent, while few others underwent training at colleges, and a large proportion are untrained manual workers.

Meanwhile, Viet Nam expects the number of construction workers to pass 5 million in the next three years and reach 9 million by 2020.

The newly-approved scheme aims to raise the percentage of trained staff to 60 per cent by 2015 and 65 per cent by 2020.

Of all trained staff in 2020, about 68 per cent are expected to have graduated from job training schools, 24 per cent from vocational schools and 3 per cent from colleges, while 5 per cent will have undergone higher education.

The ministry also hopes to encourage and support enterprises establishing training centres of their own. Moreover, they will boost the co-operation between training institutes and enterprises to help students practise, satisfy quality requirements and obtain jobs.

Mobilising resources from the domestic and international community is another option to improve capacity and quality of construction human resources, according to the scheme, which will also offer incentives for enterprises to set up new training centres, including legal assistance for land rent and tax reductions. — VNS