HÀ NỘI – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) aims to provide vocational training to 5.5 million workers in rural areas by 2020, a quarter of whom will be trained to work in the agricultural sector.

The other 4.1 million workers will be trained in other vocations. Of these, 3.84 million will attend training course of under three months, with the aim of at least 80 per cent finding new jobs or increasing productivity and income from their existing jobs, Minister of Labour – Invalids and Social Affairs Đào Ngọc Dung said at a conference in Hà Nội on Thursday.

The vocational training programme, which kicked off in 2016, will require a total investment of VNĐ12.6 trillion (US$552.7 million), of which VNĐ7.74 trillion will be sourced from the State Budget, VNĐ3.4 trillion from local budgets and the remaining from other sources, he said. 

“The major objective of the programme is to enhance the quality and effectiveness of vocational training, to help raise incomes of rural workers, focusing on training in non-agricultural occupations, enabling trainees to work in the industrial, handicraft and service sectors,” he said. 

Ma Quang Trung, head of the ministry’s Co-operative Economy Department, said that in 2016, positive changes were seen in vocational training provided in rural areas. 

In the 2010-2016 period, over 5 million rural workers attended vocational training courses, with 40 per cent enrolling in agricultural courses. After training, 80 per cent found new jobs or kept their current ones, becoming more productive and earning higher incomes, he said. 

Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of northern mountainous Cao Bằng Province, Nguyễn Trung Thảo, told the conference that they faced many difficulties in providing vocational training to farmers because of the large ethnic minority population that still engaged in traditional production practices and had poor infrastructure where they lived. 

Thảo said that the province had chosen 27 occupations suitable for the locality, focusing on livestock breeding and cultivation in association with processing. 

Last year, Cao Bằng provided vocational training to over 1,000 workers in those selected occupations, he said, adding that in the 2017-2020 period, the province targets training 4,000 workers each year. – VNS