Students apply their practical skills during an automotive technician training class at Vien Dong College in HCM City. (Photo viendong.edu.vn) TheHCM City Technical and Economic College (HOTEC), for example, will recruit1,400 students for 20 academic areas, an increase of 100 slots compared to2020.
Dueto high demand, HOTEC wants to add seven new subjects with an enrolment of280 students.
Thesubjects include logistics, mechanical equipment and machinerymaintenance, hotel management, vehicle maintenance and repair automobilechassis, automotive air-conditioning and climate control system, mouldingmanufacturing, and industrial electronics.
Graduatesare expected to easily find jobs with high starting salaries.
AtVien Dong College, the enrolment target will be 2,500, up by 10 percentover the same period last year, Tran Thanh Hai, principal of the college,has said.
Thetwo majors midwifery and database administration will beoffered this year at the college in response to the shortage ofhuman resources in health care and to the country's effortsin digital transformation.
Inaddition, the enrolment methods of vocational schools have been changed todraw candidates’ attention.
TranKim Tuyen, Principal of HCM City Vocational College, said that it wouldhave 1,740 enrolment slots for courses at the intermediate andcollege levels, a slight increase of 11.5 percent compared to the same periodin 2020.
Tuitionpolicy has also been amended. HCM City Vocational College will reduce 70 percentof tuition fees for students majoring in metal cutting-CNC. If graduatesfrom junior high school enrol at the intermediate level, the tuitionfees will be fully exempted.
DaiViet College needs 2,000 candidates for this academic year. It will focus ondeveloping two subjects in demand, namely automotive and mechanicalengineering.
Thecollege will offer a 25 percent discount fee on tuition fees for excellent12th grade students and a 50 percent discount on fees for excellent high schoolstudents.
Challenges from teaching online
Inthe meantime, many colleges in HCM City have used e-learning programmesduring the COVID-19 crisis but many of them are struggling to ensure“learning by doing” for their engineering students.
LyTu Trong College, for example, has been operating 167 online classes with morethan 10,000 students. All theory lessons are taught online.
Studentsare instructed to attend online classes and take internet-based exams.Before the online classes begin, teachers send students soft copies of thelessons. Students can also work in groups and answer questionsas they do in conventional classes.
However,job training courses are more difficult to carry out as practical work inengineering laboratories are compulsory.
VuThong Nhat, an automotive engineering student at Thu Duc College of Technology(TDC), said that it was hard to practice by following teachers’tutorial videos.
Practicallessons at TDC account for 70 percent of its training programmesfor engineering majors, which require “on-the-job learning” and directinteraction between teachers and students, Nguyen Xuan Toan, vice rector ofTDC, said.
Accordingto Dr Bui Van Hung, vice rector of Ho Chi Minh Vocational College ofTechnology, teachers need to adopt a digital transformation mindset.
By2030, the entire vocational education system is expected to be digitalisedand reach the level of ASEAN-4 member countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia,Philippines and Thailand, according to the General Department of VocationalTraining, under the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs.
Allpublic services related to vocational education will be online andintegrated into the National Public Service Portal.
Thirtypercent of vocational education establishments, or 600 schools,will complete their digital transformation, and all of them willhave their classes online in the next 10 years.
Torealise the goals, the vocational training department is in charge ofthe legal framework, database systems, technology platforms and humanresources, Dr Pham Vu Quoc Binh, its deputy director general, said./.
VNA
