Around 1 million rural workers, including 100,000 from communal cadres, will receive vocational training every year from now until 2020.

The 25.9 trillion VND scheme, approved by the Prime Minister, will prioritise poor households, ethnic minority people and policy beneficiaries.

Those taking part in the scheme will be exempt from training fees and also have their accommodation and travel expenses paid for.

The scheme will be carried out in three stages. During the first stage, until 2010, around 800,000 rural workers will get vocational training and new experimental models will be developed for at least 18,000 people. It’s expected that at least 80 percent of the trainees on newly developed courses will find jobs after finishing their training.

Around 5.2 million rural workers and around 500,000 communal officials will also be given vocational training from 2011 until 2015.

During the 2016-2020 period the scheme will provide vocational training for 6 million rural workers and at least 80 percent of them can look forward to being employed soon after.

Five solutions were put forward to help speed up the scheme being put into action. They include raising public awareness of the importance of vocational training in job creation, increasing the incomes and quality of rural workers, and developing a network of training establishments, lecturers, managers, curricula and teaching materials.

As part of the scheme, vocational training centres in the country’s 61 poorest districts will receive funding for training materials and teaching facilities. Each centre set up since 2009 in 30 districts where the poverty rate amongst households has reached 30-50 percent will receive capital of at least 12.5 billion VND.

Seventy-four mountainous, border and island districts that also had their vocational training centres set up in 2009 will each receive 9 billion VND to build workshops, dormitories and motorboats./.