Can Tho city plans vocational training for 30,000 people

Can Tho (VNS/VNA) - The Mekong Delta city of Can Tho plans to provide vocational training to at least 30,000 people by 2020, 10 percent of them poor, ethnic minority and rural people whose lives are affected by industrial and other projects.

Of the 30,000 to be trained, 80 percent would get jobs afterwards, authorities said.

Tran Thi Xuan Mai, Director of the provincial Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said training provided to rural people usually met their actual needs in terms of occupations.

This year, 123 courses had been organised to train people in 30 agricultural and non-agricultural occupations to enable people to work in handicraft villages, industrial parks and export processing zones, and trainees had got jobs at companies based in the city or started their own business to escape poverty, she said.

According to the Can Tho e-newspaper, Vo Minh Chinh, head of the department’s labour, invalids and social affairs division in Co Do district, said weaving courses attracted many locals.

Nguyen Vi Kim Thu, head of the Women’s Union in Trung Thanh commune’s Thanh Phuoc 2 village, said many women who attended the course were able to earn an extra income by weaving in their free time.  

Cao Van Son in the district’s Thanh Hung 2 village said he attended a five-month electrician’s training course last year.

Afterwards he has been operating an electrical repair shop at home, earning some 4 million VND (171 USD) a month on top of his income from farming, according to an online newspaper published by the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

He said demand for electrical repairs in his neighbourhood was very high, with many people coming around to have fans and light bulbs repaired.

Many people in Co Do district have also benefited from training in rice-growing techniques.

Phuong Tuan Tien of the district’s Thanh Loi village, who attended a course, said thanks to it he was able to earn more than 900 million VND (38,560 USD) a year from his four hectares of paddy. He has been recognised as an outstanding farmer.

The city’s steering committee for a project to provide vocational training in rural areas said it focused on improving quality, just learning about skills that local people need was essential.

Nguyen Thanh Dung, Vice Chairman of the Can Tho People’s Committee, said the city focused on training human resources in rural areas based on local strategies and socio-economic development plans.

He instructed the Departments of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs and Education and Training to cooperate with each other to achieve the project’s goals.

As of last September the city had trained more than 7,000 people in its rural areas and nearly 75 percent of them have got jobs.

The training schools update their programmes to meet employers’ needs and use modern equipment for training.

To provide jobs to trainees, the city has set up many small co-operatives in various localities, including for making sewing products in Xuan Thang and Truong Thang communes in Thoi Lai district and making handbags in Cai Rang district’s Le Binh ward.

Meanwhile, vocational training schools have various programmes to attract trainees and also send them to companies to work for hands-on training.-VNS/VNA