Students at Cao Thắng Technical College in HCM City. VNS Photo Gia Lộc

HCM CITY — Colleges, vocational training schools and professional and continuing education centres in HCM City aim to enrol 371,000 students in 2021.  

Speaking at a meeting held on December 18 to review vocational training this year, Đặng Minh Sự, head of department’s professional education division, instructed them to step up communication about their strengths in training, enrolment methods, student policies, and investment in modern technical equipment for training, and strengthen co-operation with domestic and international vocational schools and enterprises.

Professional education establishments in the city have been instructed to strengthen co-operation with small and medium-sized enterprises to provide short-term training courses to their workers.  

Lê Minh Tấn, its head, instructed vocational training establishments to use IT in online training since COVID-19 still poses a risk. 

In upcoming time, they should soon complete quality accreditation as scheduled.

The city this year has 393 professional education and vocational training establishments with 13,068 lecturers, down 174 institutions from last year as a result of the pandemic.  

Their average enrolment was 74.48 per cent of the target, though a number of schools such as Cao Thắng Technical College, College of Foreign Economic Relations, and others managed 100 per cent due to innovation in enrolment and high training quality.

Dr Phạm Hữu Lộc, rector of Lý Tự Trọng College, said his college has career counselling programmes at a number of secondary and high schools.

With the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training and the department organising many programmes to honour skilled workers and outstanding students and lecturers at professional education and vocational training schools, more and more parents are allowing their children to enrol for such courses, he said.

Many companies come to these schools to recruit large numbers of students, he added.

In 2020 professional education and vocational training establishments trained 141,832 students, and nearly 81 per cent of them from got jobs after graduating.

The department co-operated this year with other relevant agencies and enterprises to organise job fairs through which 83,000 people were hired. VNS