Students try working as chiefs
At a career counseling session held recently by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training in collaboration with the National University of Ho Chi Minh City at Luong The Vinh High School in District 1, students asked many questions related to choosing a career such as What job is easy to get a job after graduating from college and earn high income?, How to make a lot of money after 3-5 years of working?
Vice-Rector of the Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance Pham Doan Nguyen said that after graduation, job opportunities more or less depend on learners’ abilities. Currently, there is no profession with high-income people and vice versa. Each person will have a personal appropriate development depending on their career goals and their efforts to pursue their passion for work.
Sharing the same opinion, Mr. Tran Anh Tuan, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City Vocational Education Association, advised students to determine what they want to do in the future, and how they will make efforts to achieve that goal because there is no common denominator for any profession in society.
According to him, in addition to the professional factor, all jobs require workers to have skills, professional attitude, good foreign language and computer skills.
From another perspective, Ms. Le Thi Thanh Mai, Head of Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City’s Student Affairs Department, said that currently, universities offer about 400 undergraduate majors while there are 600 college majors and intermediate schools offer nearly 1,000 majors. Each level of training requires different levels of knowledge, skills and job opportunities.
One of the new trends today is that colleges and universities train in the direction of multi-disciplinary and multi-field, making students not easy to choose their choices. To choose the right major, students must determine their future career goals and then other factors such as schools. At the same time, learners must regularly update information about admissions to universities and combine information about the labor market to choose the right major.
Former Vice President of Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City Nguyen Duc Nghia said that more and more students tend to learn new subjects such as data science, artificial intelligence, and digital economy. However, he advised students to carefully study the training code to avoid mistakes, and at the same time, students should understand their suitability.
Deputy Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training Duong Tri Dung said that career guidance activities are one of the compulsory contents of the 2018 General Education Program at the high school level. Previously, schools had acted as psychological counselors; moreover, schools will be responsible for supporting students’ psychological problems without career counselors.
Starting from the school year 2022-2023, the General Education Program 2018 is implemented in grade 10, and career guidance becomes an activity included in the main curriculum; plus, teachers who are responsible for career counseling will have a class like other subjects. In particular, in the context of constantly changing professions and the labor market, career counseling teachers are facing challenges to give the right pieces of advice to students.
According to the guidance of the Secondary Education Department (Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training), in the new program, the career guidance experience includes many activities inside and outside the school, such as activities under the flag and in classrooms. On the other hand, because this is a compulsory educational activity, students will be periodically checked and evaluated in accordance with the actual conditions of each school.
In order to improve the effectiveness of career guidance for students, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training has required high schools to integrate career guidance content into other educational subjects and activities and students should really do the job of their choice in the community, agencies and enterprises at least once a school year.
A principal of a high school in District 3 shared that in the past, in order to save costs, many schools cooperated with universities to answer questions and introduce new subjects in schools.
However, he said that this approach has not yielded any real results, making it easy to fall into the trap of promoting admissions to universities. Instead, students need to really learn about the actual working environment at enterprises and directly see employees working in the jobs of their choice.
