 |
Students gather at an enrolment consultancy at Can Tho University in 2023 |
Human resources, especially high-quality human resources play an important role in the development of the economy. Although in recent years, the central government has issued many policies to promote education in the Mekong Delta, high-quality human resources for development in the region are still limited.
According to the annual economic report of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) - Can Tho Branch, as of June 2022, the Mekong Delta has about 10 million employees, but the proportion of trained workers accounts for only 14.9 percent and the proportion of the labor force with university degrees or higher accounts for only 6.8 percent, which is lowest in the country. Meanwhile, the proportion of workers with university training in the Southeast region is more than 16 percent and it is 14.5 percent in the Red River Delta region.
Professor Nguyen Thanh Phuong, Chairman of the Can Tho University Council, said that the Mekong Delta has the lowest proportion of trained workers as well as workers with university degrees. Therefore, in order to achieve the goal that the proportion of trained laborers will reach 65 percent according to the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 287/QD-TTg on the planning of the Mekong Delta in the period of 2021 - 2030 with a vision to 2050, the Mekong Delta urgently needs breakthrough solutions and orientations.
The General Statistics Office’s figures have shown that the Mekong Delta has about 160,650 students amongst more than 1.9 million students in the country in 2020. Currently, 17 universities in the region have offered training to approximately 1,000-35,000 university students.
Before 2000, the region had only Can Tho University, now 10 provinces and cities in the region have universities. The remaining provinces including Ca Mau, Ben Tre and Soc Trang also have universities that are branches of large universities in other localities. For instance, Ben Tre has a branch of Vietnam National University, Ho Chi Minh City.
Despite the growth in higher educational facilities, the Mekong Delta is facing an imbalance in the training industry.
According to Prof. Nguyen Thanh Phuong, through the analysis of the trend of career registration in 2020, 2021 and 2022 of Can Tho University, only 19 percent-23 percent of students enrolled in engineering and technology majors while the rest enrolled in economics, law, social sciences and humanities. Meanwhile, the region’s laborers are shifting from agriculture, forestry and fishery to technical and technological occupations.
Therefore, the Ministry of Education and Training should give priority to enrollment quotas for industries and professions that are in high demand by society for the Mekong Delta region.
