Tran Cong Thang

Vice Director General
Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development
No.16- Thuy Khue Street- Hanoi- Vietnam  
Tel: 84-4-37282590
 

(Article 3. Decision No. 1956/QD-TTg)

With target of annually training for about 1 million rural laborers, on November 27, 2009, the Prime Minister signed Decision No.1956/QD-TTg approving the scheme on "Vocational training for rural workers by 2020". In the scheme, the content of specific policies for the trainees are as follows:

• Rural workers who are eligible for the preferential policies, the poor, ethnic minorities people, disabled people, people whose cultivated land is withdrawn are supported with short-term vocational training cost (primary vocational training under 3 months) with a maximum of 03 million VND/person/course (level of support depends on each specific job and practical training time); food support at 15,000 VND/actually learning day/person; travel support basing on public transport fare with a maximum of 200,000 VND/person/course for trainees away 15 km or more from their residence;
• Rural workers who have maximum of income up to 150% of the poor households’ income are subsidized with short-term vocational education (primary vocational training under 3 months) with a maximum of 2.5 million VND/person/course (level of support depends on each specific job and actual training time);
• Other rural laborers are supported with costs for short term training (primary vocational training under 3 months) with a maximum 02 million VND/ person /course (level of support depends on each specific job and actual training time);
   
• Rural workers participating in vocational training can borrow loans to learn under current regulations on credit for pupils and students. After the apprenticeship, rural laborers working in rural areas will be supported with 100% of interest rate for vocational education loans;
• Ethnic minorities entitled to the preferential policies, poor households and households having incomes up to 150% of the poor household’s income who participating in the courses of  secondary level vocational training, colleges vocational training are entitled to vocational training policies for ethnic minority students in boarding schools;
• After vocational training, rural workers can borrow loans from the National Fund for Employment of the national target program on employment to start their work.

According to the review of  two- years  implementation of Decision 1956/QD-TTg on the Scheme about "Vocational training for rural workers by 2020", the Scheme has quickly brought effective results and achievement. From 2010 to date, 1,087 million people had received short-term training support, of which workers from poor households accounted for 10.7%, workers from nearly poor households accounted for 5.2% and ethnic minorities workers accounted for 20.5%/ year; through the training program for rural workers, after training, 39,221 poor people already had jobs, and they escaped impoverished lives (accounting for 33.7% of poor people participated in vocational training).

Some advanced models were identified in 4 groups: Group of agricultural workers (in the mountainous, intensive farming regions); group of workers in the craft villages in the delta regions; group of farmers switching to industrial service jobs (in upland and lowland, midland regions); group of offshore fishing workers in the central coastal provinces (learning on repairing ships; processing and storage of seafood ...).

However, the implementation of Decision 1956/QD-TTg also has some limitations such as: no clear structure of investments and business capital; no clear financial policy when using the apprenticeship card. Some shortcomings in the implementation process have been pointed out that due to the transfer between two terms of management in local authority management bodies in some areas, the local leaders do not clearly know the contents of operation, so the direction is not clear, not practical. Another problem is that farmers are difficult to access to loans after their apprenticeship. The vocational training scheme has emphasized to support 100% of interest rate for the labor after training but in some provinces, farmers cannot access the capital, so after the apprenticeship they do not have jobs, and it does not promote the training effectiveness after apprenticeship.