A study of career oriented education and training program in universities in sourthern vietnam

To achieve that goal, the immediate task is to define the building of a selective training model fitted to the development of Vietnam’s education and training, luring students into occup

MEIHO UNIVERSITY Graduate Institute of Business and Management

MASTERS THESIS

A Study of Career-oriented Education and

Training Program in Universities in

Sourthern Vietnam

In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Masters of Business Administration

Advisor: Dr Chien-Chung Lin Co-advisor: Dr Bui Van Danh Graduate Student: Tran Dinh Duong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Firstly, I would like to thank to the Board of Directors of Ho Chi Minh City University

of Industry (HUI) and the Board of Directors of Meiho University (MU Taiwan)!

I also would like to sincere thanks to my Advisor, Prof., Dr Lin, Chien Chung, and other Professors and Staff at Graduate Institute of Business and Management, Meiho University (MU Taiwan) for giving me a lot of instruction, advice and helps when I was participating this EMBA program

I also would like to thank Dr Bui Van Danh at Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry in Vietnam, Lecturer le Nam Hai at HUI’s Branch in Thai Binh province, and PhD’s candidate Nguyen Quang Vinh at the National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, for all useful guidance and encourages when I was doing this study

Many thanks to the Professors and Staff as well as Classmates at Postgraduate Studies Department of Ho Chi Minh City University of Industry in Vietnam for valuable and meaningful supports given for me during the time studying at HUI

A Study of Career-oriented Education and Training Program in Universities in Sourthern Vietnam

in a lively, unanimous and updated manner

To achieve that goal, the immediate task is to define the building of a selective training model fitted to the development of Vietnam’s education and training, luring students into occupational and technological training to serve the national industrialization; the branching must be done in such a manner as to offer students opportunities to have jobs in many industries, at various levels, with different characteristics, suitable to personal ability and securing a proportionate ratios in accordance with the social human resource; the articulation in the training process must be secured; the recognition of defects in trained products and the re-training must be immediate even in the training process itself; how to combine the online training, a training method with updated contents, with the traditional method; and the updating and the renovating of the training curriculum needs to have a mechanism of inspecting and managing in a such manner that the contents of the training curriculums may be fitted to social needs

In order to carry out the tasks and the objectives mentioned above, it is to have a study

of reference materials to gain an overlook of the research, situation issues and the vocational technical training model in Vietnam, and it is also to refer to the training models of several countries with their developed education and training, so that it is to build a training model which will be suitable for training careers and skills in higher education in Vietnam Furthermore, questionnaires were sent to 25 administrators of universities, 25 government officials and 25 business managers

The data analysis results in conclusion that a model of training careers and skills of higher education in 3 phases with the selective input examinations being an unlimited

registration of candidates and the branching even in the process of higher education with a combination of an articulation from lower up and a horizontal articulation; an immediate re-training in the higher education process after students have completed the first phase together with a mechanism of adjusting the training curriculum right after the second phase in accordance with the labor market, which is appropriate to the current conditions of Vietnam

Keywords: Education and Training System, Education and Training Management,

Vocational and Techinical Program, Vietnam

A Study of Career-oriented Education and Training Program in Universities in Sourthern Vietnam

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I ABSTRACT II Contents IV Tables VI Figures VII

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background and Motivation 1

1.2 Research Purpose and Objectives 2

1.3 Research Scope and Limitations 3

1.4 Definition of Terms 3

Chapter 2 Literature Review 5

2.1 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam before 1975 5

2.1.1 The period of French colonialism 5

2.1.2 The period of 1954-1975 in Saigon 6

2.1.3 Section summary 7

2.2 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam after 1975 7

2.2.1 About the curricula of education and training program 9

2.2.2 About learner, teaching method, examination and evaluation 11

2.2.3 Traditional model of vocational training at universties since 1975 12

2.2.4 Section summary 17

2.3 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in other Countries 18

2.3.1 Vocational and technical education and training in Singapore 18

2.3.2 Vocational and technical education and training in Malaysia 20

2.3.3 Vocational and technical education and training in France 21

2.3.4 Vocational and technical education and training in Britain 21

2.3.5 Section summary 22

2.4 The Career-oriented Education and Training Models 24

Chapter 3 Research Methodology 27

3.1 Research Process 27

3.2 Research Model 30

3.3 Population and Sampling 37

3.3.1 Education and training consultant experts 38

3.3.2 State education management officers 39

3.3.3 Education and training managers at universities 40

3.3.4 Enterprise managers 40

3.4 Questionnaire Design 41

3.4.1 Validity 43

3.4.2 Reliability 43

3.5 Data Collection 44

3.6 Data Analysis 44

Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Result 46

4.1 Descriptive Analysis 46

4.2 One-sample t Test 47

4.3 One-way ANOVA 51

Chapter 5 Findings, Conclusions and Recommendations 52

5.1 Findings 52

5.2 Conclusions 52

5.3 Recommendations 55

References 56

Appendix 1 – English Questionnaire 59

Appendix 2 – Vietnamese Questionnaire 63

Tables

Table 2-1 Differences between Universities in Colonialism’s Period and the Ones Today 6

Table 2-2 Differences between Universities in Period of 1954-1975 and the Ones Today 7

Table 2-3 Model of School Year-based Education and Education and Training Program 12

Table 2-4 Model of the 2-Stage Education and Education and Training Program 12

Table 2-5 Model of the Credit-based Education and Education and Training Program 13

Table 2-6 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Malaysia and Vietnam 20

Table 2-7 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in France and Vietnam 21

Table 2-8 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Britain and Vietnam 22

Table 2-9 Bases for Developing the Suggested Model 26

Table 3-1 Brief Description of Phases in the Research Model 32

Table 3-2 Education and Training Consultant Experts 39

Table 3-3 Summary of References for Developing Questionnaire 42

Table 4-1 General Information of Research Subjects 46

Table 4-2 One-sample t Test with the 1st Hypothesis 47

Table 4-3 One-sample t Test with the 2nd Hypothesis 48

Table 4-4 One-sample t Test with the 3rd Hypothesis 48

Table 4-5 One-sample t Test with the 4th Hypothesis 49

Table 4-6 One-sample t Test with the 5th Hypothesis 50

Table 4-7 One-sample t Test with the 6th Hypothesis 50

Table 4-8 Difference in Comment of Necessity of 6 Elements between the 3 Subjects 51

Figures

Figure 2-1 Model of Official Higher Education and Vocational Training in Vietnam Today14 Figure 2-2 Model of Singapore 19 Figure 3-1 Research Process 30 Figure 3-2 Proposed Model 31

A Study of Career-oriented Education and

Training Program in Universities in

Southern Vietnam Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 1 includes: (i) Background and Motivation, (ii) Research purpose and objectives, (iii) Research scope and limitation; and (iv) Definition of terms

1.1 Background and Motivation

In general, Vietnam’s human resource after thirty years of industrialization has been remaining about 70% of the nationwide untrained labor force working in agriculture (Nguyen Trung, 2007) In fact, the higher education training in Vietnam, in general, has not satisfied the demand of trained manpower of enterprises in industrial parks, affecting the resolve of developing industrial parks and attracting investments pointed out by the Government

The current human resource is both excessive and lacking According to the statistics

of the Education & Training Ministry, 63% of the graduate students are unemployed The 37% of the employed graduate students cannot meet the work requirements, so companies have to re-train their employees (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007) Such degrees have not been internationally acknowledged According to the survey report of 200 top-ten Vietnamese enterprises by UNDP - Hanoi published in September 2007, in interviews, Vietnamese entrepreneurs said that they had to re-train most employees of all levels - vocational, university, post university - that they have recruited into their companies, they did not believe the higher education system and institutes in the country because the teaching quality was low ; the program is very theoretical and backward ; research competence was poor ; books and equipment are short, not integral, obsolete ; employees are weak at foreign languages ; the organizational and managerial competence are bad (Nguyen Trung, 2007)

The training quality is not good; trained products are not appropriate to the demand of human resource market entailing the dilemma that part of the trained labor force are becoming the burden for families and society, which is a waste of thousands of billion VND

a year In 2007, at least 7117 billion VND in which 4067 billion VND from the population budget and 3050 billion VND from the Government budget (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007)

1.2 Research Purpose and Objectives

This topic aims at develope a new model of vocational and technical education and training that will be appropriate for the current Vietnamese social-economic circumstances The development of the new model was relied on the model existing in Vietnam There would be six new elements hypothesized in the new model The research aims at the 6 following research objectives:

Objective 1: To identify the appropriate enrollment type in vocational and technical

education and training;

Objective 2: To identify the necessity of branching in university training process in

vocational and technical education and training;

Objective 3: To identify the necessity of re-training in vocational and technical

education and training;

Objective 4: To identify the necessity of articulation training in vocational and

technical education and training;

Objective 5: To identify the necessity of e-learning in vocational and technical

education and training;

Objective 6: To identify the necessity of adjusting curricula in vocational and

technical education and training

With the six objectives above, the investigation data will be analyzed to answer the six following questions:

Question 1: Is the enrollment type of registration appropriate in vocational and

technical education and training?

Question 2: Is the branching in university training process necessary in vocational

and technical education and training?

Question 3: Is re-training necessary in vocational and technical education and

training?

Question 4: Is articulation training necessary in vocational and technical education

and training?

Question 5: Is e-learning necessary in vocational and technical education and

training?

Question 6: Is the adjusting of curricula necessary in vocational and technical

education and training?

1.3 Research Scope and Limitations

Due to the limited time, it is possible to survey 25 business managers of 12 industrial parks and 1 production complex in Binh Duong where the development of industrial parks is rated first 25 administrators of 5 province-level authorities concerning management and planning of education and training programs and policies and 25 training administrators of 5 universities in Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City were sent questionnaires Furthermore, 5 experts were also interviewed to give comments on the suggested model of vocational and technical education and training

1.4 Definition of Terms

Vocational and Technical Training in Vietnam

Vocational and Technical training in Vietnam is the training of giving learners information and professional technical skills to serve production and services in the industrialization process (Nguyen Như Y,1999)

Education system of Vietnam

Education system of Vietnam is the totality of policies, educational-training models of Vietnam carried out in the market economy with the command by the State in a socialist orientation (Nguyễn Đình Hương, 2007)

Curricula of undergraduate training program

Curricula of training are knowledge that students have to learn and lecturers have to teach Those contents are promulgated by the Government authority concerned (Prime Minister, 2003, 2006)

Career-oriented education and training program in Vietnam

Career-oriented education and training program is an education and training program with the view of helping learners, after graduating secondary school, be able to meet the practical requirements of the trained careers in the future (Nguyen Như Y, 1999)

The career-oriented education and training program in university

It aims at the demand of the market with flexible amendments so that students may meet their professional jobs after graduating Developing vocational education and training program in universities is to build a higher university training model to help secure trained products in university to be able to serve the demands of industrial parks (Nguyễn Đình Hương, 2007)

Chapter 2 Literature Review

Chapter 2 includes: (1) Overview of vocational and technical education and training in Vietnam before 1975; (2) About vocational and technical education and training in Vietnam after 1975; (3) Vocational and technical education and training in other countries; and (4) The career-oriented education and training models

2.1 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam before 1975

2.1.1 The period of French colonialism

In the French colonialism, professional training consists of college and university College (École supérieur) is a professional school Students want to study there have to pass

an entrance examination Once a candidate is recruited, he will be granted a scholarship for the whole curriculum by the government After graduating, he has to work for the government for a fixed time If he refuses the job, he has to compensate the scholarship granted back to the government On the contrary, the government is obligated to give him an appropriate job as his ability and skills already trained Colleges are of strict discipline with academic and decent education and education and training programs Colleges are obligated

to train students into skilled professionals like engineers, doctors, professors University consists of faculties Students who want to attend a faculty only issue a baccalaureate degree without attending any entrance examination Students can be admitted regardless of age and number The curriculum focuses on the common principle of training a student in a manner

so that he can grasp fundamental professional information This training must abide by a program approved by the faculty /school council of teachers Table 2-1 illustrates the comparison of differences between Vietnamese universities in the period of French colonialism and Vietnamese universities today (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005)

Table 2-1 Differences between Universities in Colonialism’s Period and the Ones Today Feature/phase Selective form Selective conditions Education and training

program contents Under French rule Registration Not limited number Approved by council of

(Source: Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005)

Such intellects are not coming from a limited field or compulsory qualifications like professional colleges Attending university, students are not granted scholarship (except brilliant students) The curriculum does not emphasize professional details After graduating, the government is not obligated to offer them job The school is only obligated to train students into free-lance experts full of professional knowledge like bachelor, master or doctor After graduating they will manage to seek jobs for themselves However, if they have any aspiration and they are recruited accordingly, the government will have to satisfy the requirements that will be fulfilled by themselves (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005) Then, colleges were abolished to become universities After 1954, Indochina University was moved

to Saigon and such Saigon universities were reformed intensively and they had a new name called Vietnam national university, then Saigon University.

2.1.2 The period of 1954-1975 in Saigon

Under the old regime, there were two groups of universities with their separate training views They were to train students into skilled professional like engineers, doctors, or to train students into scientists of theory other than of practice with degrees of bachelor, master or doctor Some universities held national doctor examinations by means of submitting their essays abroad Universities of that time built various programs under various channel like instant channel and long-term channel with various training periods like training engineers (4-5 years), training assistants (2 years) Especially in the instant channel, there were various training sessions like 12-month training, 24-month training called the first level and the second level for immediate job requirements Several schools gained achievements in the

movement of “self-ruled university” Some schools applied a free registration form without any admissive condition and the others arranged a section-division entrance exam And the other conducted a credit training form and a branching training for each level like granting a theoretical bachelor degree for those who completed the appointed curriculum and granting free-lance bachelor degree for those who completed 4 certificates so that they could look for

a job (Nguyen Quyet Thang, 2005)

(Source: Nguyễn Quyết Thắng, 2005)

2.2 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in Vietnam after 1975

Vocational training in Vietnam today consists of the short-term training and the term training The short-term training is now very prosperous and vigorous nation-wide like training informatics, office secretary, administrative affairs, etc The training period is from three-six months by means of registration form without any requirements concerning popular education, that means, everyone will be able to take part in this study

long-Nowadays, in Vietnam there are various higher education channels like the regular channel, the on-job channel, the specialty consolidation channel and the distant training channel Such channels can issue equivalent higher educational decreases The regular channel is a concentrative training channel with tens entrance examination The session lasts four years or four years and a half according to each department; its curriculum is heavy about politics (340 class hours); the training quality is not high but relatively stable; learners are meanly graduates from senior high school; the manner of training is to insert information

with heavy examinations The on -job channel is a study and work channel mainly reserve for those who are working at offices and companies This channel serves the proper demand of upholding levels to serve requirements of learners’ jobs This channel brings 90% the revenues to universities This channel is popular in developed countries The distant training channel is a non-concentrative training channel and lectures are broadcast on television; after registering, students have to pick up lectures Before the tests, students gather at universities

to review lessons in a short time and then take part in examinations there However, because the training mode is not appropriate, the training curriculum is heavy at politics, the training period is a shorten without applying the mode and training process of enhancing self-study and self- research but with applying a form of inserting information due to little broadcasting; the teaching method is back ward; the learning environment and infrastructure serving learning is bad; lecturers are of disqualifications, resulting in bad training quality Besides, testing and assessing with heavy examinations with mainly memory testing and quizzing This will inevitably result in negativity in examination

Generally speaking, there is confusion between training and propagation with a manner

of compulsory insertion without respecting freedom in discussion and exchanges without any mechanism of encouraging the spirit of self-research and self exploitation from learners, which will erode talent, intelligence of learners and teachers There has not been any teaching method to strengthen learners’ eagerness and contributions of learners in order to form democracy between teachers and learners so that learners may form a habit of defending their ideas before the public confidently and calmly There has not been enough attention to the core that man must be trained both ability fitted to his job requirements and a scientific method, creativity, counter-argument by means of facilitating learners to get genuine knowledge with free choice and multi -dimensioned information There is now a shortage of the combination between study and practice and between and practice (Vo Nguyen Giap, 2007)

Higher education training after Vietnam became the 150th member of the WTO in the connection of globalization (a decisive turning in the renovation work in which is existing educational - training renovation) is very annoying since Vietnam started as a weak partners There was not 50% market fragment; there was not anything to export in the training due to backward training The remaining fragment of 50% was local market Vietnamese population

seems not to be confident in Vietnamese educational (Nguyen Dang Hung, 2007) The demand of higher education in Vietnam is very high The current higher educational training system does not satisfy that demand According to an investigation conducted by the Health Ministry, the statistics administration, the WHO and UNICEF, 90 percent of Vietnamese students want to study university In fact, only 10% gain this will The development in training among regions and areas are not even 14 percent of urban youth graduate university while 1.5% rural youth graduate university (Mark, 2007)

Most establishments do not combine research with teaching Those who do research successfully fail to communicate with learners their achievements in their research work will lead to waste On the contrary, those who teach do not spend any time researching will entail lower lessen quality The current training philosophy in Vietnam tends to shape the persons who can memorize many things as their fortune in order to attend numerous examinations throughout their learning life full of hardships and sufferings, but they cannot have happiness

of initiators The educational managerial habit is backward, excessive and heavy with an

‘ask-give’ mechanism; the educational mechanism is old-aged, awkward with large managerial personnel with near-sighted and immoral view In training, it is not to esteem internationalization and not to pay attention to attracting the teaching manpower from abroad

as well as Vietnamese nationals teaching in other countries

2.2.1 About the curricula of education and training program

The current vocational teaching curriculum in Vietnam is backward, not updated and does not base on the demand of labor market Generally, in developed countries, the teaching courses are changed every three years whereas Vietnamese courses did not change for thirty years The improved curriculum cannot clearly define such forms as school year, stage 1, stage 2 and credit training forms, etc Schools do not really have any self-determination in their education and training programs The right to self-determination according to the Education & Training Ministry is not clear, concrete and open-minded, not facilitating universities to be flexible in building vocational programs for students (Tran Thi Ha, 2009) According to the instructions by the Education & Training Ministry concerning using the program framework to build education and training programs, higher educational program framework consists of Government regulations on the structure, the quantity and

minimum information block for each training channel and training level This is the basis for universities and institutes to build specific education and training programs suitable for specific objectives and particular conditions and also a basis to help the Educational & Training Ministry to help the training quality of higher educational establishments throughout the country This program framework is used to build programs for 5-year or 4.5-year channel (for the 4.5-year channel, the contents and compulsory syllabi are unchanged) The remaining syllabi (12 syllabi for general education and 69 syllabi for professional education) are supplemented by schools to build a complete education and training program for each specialty and occupation for their school Any compulsory knowledge which needs

to be added time or to be supplemented will be put into such a semester without separating the compulsory knowledge and the additional knowledge (Ministry of Education and Training, 2007)

The whole training period of the three training levels after graduating high school education concludes 09 years, a long time; common subjects and fundamental subjects coincide with each other, resulting in wasting training time; professional subjects are prescribed stiffly and not lively; the building of vocational education and training program does not result in inheritance, articulation and concentration in the program of the three levels For example, the names of such common subjects as philosophy, politics, law teaching, and general law in the three levels are different with different numbers of periods with their contents being coincided, resulting in laziness, confrontation, and wasting time and money of society The contents of Vietnamese education and training programs are unreasonable in time, quantity and knowledge with cumbersome theory, coincidence and low modernity (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007) The period for the professional training and practice occupies not much in the total training period

For vocational intermediate program, common subjects (applied to training channels stipulated by Education & Training Ministry) total up 435 periods; fundamental subjects account for 510 periods, professional and practical subjects only account for 675 periods For vocational college program, the general educational knowledge occupies 44 syllabus units; fundamental knowledge accounts for 30 syllabus units; the professional knowledge accounts for 9 syllabus units and the practice accounts for only 11 syllabus units For university program, general educational knowledge occupies 80 syllabus units; fundamental knowledge

accounts for 59 syllabus units ; the professional knowledge accounts for 24 syllabus units and the practice accounts for only 13 syllabus units and thesis accounts for only 15 syllabus units

It is not to mention the mid-practice period The training period is very long, but in each course, there is not any policy for updating latest knowledge and skills as required by the labor market

2.2.2 About learner, teaching method, examination and evaluation

There are two main kinds of learners: (1) about the on-job learner: firstly, the learner is trained regularly from lower level with a good learning method with good thinking ability, with good learning motive awareness and with experience of work background, making learners positively affect the training quality; secondly, the learner is not regularly trained and most of them do not have a good learning method with low thinking ability, with low learning motive awareness because their learning is used to satisfy the standardization of office titles, thus making learners negatively affect the training quality; (2) about the concentrative-learner: at present, in fact, a relatively popular phenomenon is that public authorities have not built the process of nominating, appointing titles based on professional competence and occupational morality but mainly based on the political conditions of a functionary to deploy and to appoint This negatively affects learners’ psychology

The elements like the teaching method, the investigation and the evaluation are hot issues At present, our government is determined to renovate the teaching method Besides the traditional explanation method, schools are encouraging the seminar method, the practice method and other supportive method like the team discussion method, the storming method, the fish-ocean method, the role-playing method in order to animate the teaching process, in order to individualize the teaching process and in order to industrialize the university teaching process Together with the methods above is the addition of other investigation and evaluation forms besides the traditional explanation form; it is the objective test However, the problem here is the conflict between the objectives, the teaching method and the investigation-evaluation contents The resolve of innovation, the teaching method aims at developing students’ creativity, but the investigation-evaluation contents aim at testing memory (this is the same as the method of inserting knowledge of the former days) Vietnamese education needs vigorous reforms in testing and assessing It is to get rid of the

university-college entrance examinations which are tense and costly with low efficiency as presently (Seminar, 2007)

2.2.3 Traditional model of vocational training at universties since 1975

Table 2-3 Model of School Year-based Education and Education and Training Program

Contents Basic subjects Basic & Foundation Specialty Specialty Practice Essay writing &

Time 11 months 11 months 11 months 11 months 06 months

Qualifications/

certificates

None None None None University

(Source: Ho Chi Minh City University,1979)

This model is to arrange the input entrance examination which is very heavy, strict and involved in negativity in examination ranging the entrance examination to in-the-year tests The program is divided into annual units There is not any branching in education, not any articulation with intermediate, college levels There is not any mechanism of assessing the training quality as required by the market in the training process, entailing the dissimilarity between the training quality of universities and markets There is not any mechanism of amending the training contents and there is not any description of the improvements of the curriculum contents periodically

Table 2-4 Model of the 2-Stage Education and Education and Training Program

Contents General university Specialty Practice & Essay

writing

Qualifications/

(Source: Decree No 16/CP dated Jan 27, 1995 by Government)

This model is also to arrange the input entrance examination which is heavy, strict and involved in negativity in examination ranging the entrance examination to in-the-year tests, especially in the transitory exam from phase 1 to phase 2 in order to branch in training

Students who pass the examination will be granted general education certificate and will be

accepted to study phase 2 whereas students who do not pass the transitory exam will teach

themselves and will attend the next year’s examination The training program is divided into

phases as units including the general training phase with fundamental knowledge and phase 2

with professional knowledge The filtering is roughly involved in the transitory exam without

the branching in training and without re-training, without any articulation with intermediate

and college levels entailing the dilemma that students who have failed in the transitory exam

will become unemployed because they do not any further schooling, they cannot come back

home, thus losing optimism, boredom and being able to join social evils

The transitory examination is not how to assess the training quality as required by

labor market, so it is theoretically heavy; the training contents are still based on the Soviet

model, which is obsolete without any mechanism of amending and improving the training

contents periodically

Table 2-5 Model of the Credit-based Education and Education and Training Program

Contents Students register subjects as stipulated

Time Students can shorten the program given

Qualifications/

certificates

To grant certificate for each subject, finish the program and pass graduation will be granted the university degree

(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

The credit-based training model is a new training model which identifies the

groundwork of vocational training to be based on competence (competence based vocational

training) This training is strictly involved in module-size the training process (the concept

“module” in training firstly appeared in Harvard University in the USA in 1869

recommended by its Rector Eliot with the purpose that students will be given the choice to

study syllabus appropriate to them with securing quantity and academic level In this

principle, syllabi can be transferred each other Each level in the vocational training system

consists of several transferable syllabi and then, in order to achieve a certain level, it is not

necessary to stipulate previously a session or a training course annually Students may

shorten the appointed duration according to their competence This model will enable

flexibility in the training program, thus certifying the varied demand of learners However, at

present due to not yet studying thoroughly, the application is not yet successful (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007) The vocational education and training program in Vietnam can be depicted as the model presented in Figure 2-1:

Figure 2-1 Model of Official Higher Education and Vocational Training in Vietnam Today

(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

According to this model, branching occurs when finishing the stage of completing junior and senior high school by means of primary vocational, intermediate, college and university Such a branching is not efficient and not practical with the serious imbalance between “teacher” and “worker” because the traditional concept saying that a technical skills certificate is not as valuable as a university degree deeply impresses Vietnamese people (i.e., the ratios of higher educational students, intermediate students compared with high school students of school years For example, in 2006 Vietnam had 3,029,021 high school students, 500,416 intermediate students, 1,087,813 university students (education and training ministry, 2005-2006) these ratios shows a troublesome situation of Vietnamese man power Comparing with other countries, we can see that in China, after junior high school, nearly 60% students enter vocational school, 40% enter high school and higher education ; in Taiwan, 66% enter vocational school 34% enter junior high school and higher education ;in Switzerland, 82% enter vocational, 18% enter higher education (Nguyen Xuan Han, 2007) The situation shows that the branching to orient vocational direction for students in an appropriate ratio is a very urgent problem

Branching is always organically involved with articulation Most countries regard vocational training as a combination with social occupations at different levels Learners after completing the career training, will be able to directly join the labor market as the career studied They can study more about their career or they can transfer a new career as required

by life (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007) In Vietnam today, the articulation problem is being put

Basic knowledge

Higher education graduation

Re-training Professio-

nal knowledge

out and needs to be quickly settled Most educational establishments are lacking articulation with each other The model does not pay attention to the articulation to save time and money

in training with securing the training quality

Building and amending the training contents of this model is not flexible The most essential problem in educational -training reforms is to renovate the educational training contents (Phan Dinh Dieu, 2006) The training contents of Vietnam today is unreasonable in time, quantity and knowledge with heavy theory, coincidence, low modernity (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007) ; training careers and skills of today is not animate, flexible, lively and ready

to meet employers ‘requirements (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007) In fact, training careers and skills in higher education in Vietnam of today does not follow the motto of “study combined with practice” and does not respond to practical production Therefore, the knowledge and skills of students do not meet the requirements of enterprises in industrial park, and most students who have graduated are low in quality, cannot work immediately, need to be retrained, which costs very much and little efficiently (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007).The training contents does not have any mechanism to adjust lively, updated and timely changing

in accordance with the requirement of employers

According to this model, universities by means of the input entrance examination with volume strictly managed by the education-training ministry in order to adjust the ratio of training teachers and workers through stiff administrative measures, not true rules of labor market This is good at the fact of mentioning the impact on learners to upgrade the training quality by carefully recruiting input students to secure input students and output students not fluctuated Students and schools need to facilitate students to complete the university curriculum, including the given targets for the sake of our society, not for the sake of the quality of trained product or learning results The school has to facilitate students to get a degree to look for a job so that such a student will not become a social burden The right to recruit learners (concerning quantity, time, manner is also the self- determination right of Vietnamese universities, which are not guaranteed radically and fully (Le Minh Tien, 2006) The change in entrance university examination form is of negativity, heaviness, causing expenses for society, decreasing the training quality as presently and the research into higher education registration form with a limited number of students of higher education under French rule in Vietnam is an issue to be interested in

The model does not focus on the application of informatics achievements into the training like on line training form, information technology application, communications computer network and internet to arrange the teaching and learning process with a lively methods and forms, opening new possibilities for the learning process everywhere, at every time with the eager effort of information technology by applying lively on line training forms; E-learning is also a newly noticed problem The model above has a common point that the graduating practice takes place at the aim of the curriculum after completing university program the practice at companies and enterprises is very short If the professional skills and the training program at universities are not appropriate to the requirements of enterprises, there will not any solution to settle this problem radically This will entail the dilemma that students have to strive to gain university degrees, and then accept jobs contrary to the occupations trained Enterprises have to agree to employ engineer and bachelors as apprentices

Not similar to common goods, trained products have to be completed in a long time During the time of making such a product, this model did not focus on the change in the demand of man power of labor market If considering that the assessment the quality of the trained product is arranged by the end of the higher education process (6 months of practice

by the closing year), when discovering defects of a trained product, the school will not have any spare time to repair such a defect Correcting such a defect of that trained product will be

to retrain after such a product has penetrated into a market This model uses corrective measures to fix the train product concerning career and skills in higher education after students have completed a on-the-job consolidation program at enterprises), a short term training program A second-degree training program such training programs seem to be costly and little efficient (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

The training program at enterprises At present, for the sake of the training quality and

knowledge, the skills of trained products that enterprises have recruited are not appropriate to the requirements and the demand of enterprises in industrial parks; such enterprises manage

to overcome such obstacles by ordering university to devise training programs at enterprises

as required by enterprises Such programs aim at reinforcing instant courses including some knowledge and skills in order to settle immediate job requirements carried out at enterprises with expenses to be borne by enterprises This program may last several sessions and may

help settle a certain immediate task In fact, this program does not fundamentally settle the correction of defects of such a trained product so that it will be essentially suitable for an enterprise This is a temporary solution of such an enterprise to settling the problem of the man power of university level not yet suitable for the requirements of the labor market, or to updating knowledge for employees that such an enterprise are employing

The short-term training program It is the program devised by a school, an institute or

a training center with an average training period of 6 months or one year This program is carried out at the main training establishment with expensive borne by learners or by enterprises Finally, the short term training period, a learner with his short term training certificate and with limited skills and knowledge cannot improve basically his current occupational level so as to satisfy tasks of the labor market and cannot also quit the current job and look for another job for him

The second-degree training program It is a concentrative training program reserved

for students who have graduated one university degree in one specialty (4 years) realize they

do not have enough knowledge so as to carry out their current jobs want to register one more specialty nearing their previous specialty so as to complete their knowledge and want to be granted a second university degree within two years and thanks to it, they can change another job suitable for the requirements of the labor market The result of the second-degree training program, in principle, is that with such a degree and such knowledge given in the two years,

a student may seek an opportunity to have a new job, but certainly he does not have enough skills to satisfy the demand of the professional labor force market in industrial parks With this program, a student has to take about 06 years of time, money and energy to orient a job with very big social expenses

2.2.4 Section summary

As for an on-the-spot reinforcement program, the short-term training program and the second-degree training program, the measures of correcting defects are carried out after a product has been put into use This may be suitable for other products with quick completing duration, but may not be suitable for a university trained product As for higher educational trained products, it is necessary to have a mechanism to discover and to correct defects even

in the product - making process because the period for making such a product is very long

and the time needed for correct such a defect is not short Because of this, the measures of correcting defects mentioned above are not appropriate and seen to be expensive, little efficient From the training situation mentioned above, it is to define some standstills to be settled

According to Professor Nguyen Dinh Huong (2007), the cause of the weaknesses of Vietnam’s education and training is that when put into practice some solutions and some training models like the branching model in popular education level, the general higher educational training model, the two-phase training model, the credit training model, etc Because of not studying thoroughly, it has missed something or has to re-adjust something Therefore, it is to concentrate on researching into, building a training model lively and fitted

to Vietnam’s condition; it is not to apply stiffly training models of other countries The problem is to build a training model in order to settle such problems as speculating to build a modern training contents which is lively and flexible, which can combine with industrial parks to build a good learning environment and which can apply the advancement of information technology in teaching so as to branch timely to orient vocational training for students in a reasonable ratio; and even more importantly, it is necessary to build a mechanism of timely recognizing and correcting defects of trained products A training model that can settle such problems mentioned above are the models necessary to study and

to apply for vocational higher educational training in Vietnam In order to recommend a training model appropriate to Vietnam’s requirements, it is to refer to the situation of vocational and technical training situation of several other countries which have gained educational achievements like Singapore, Malaysia, France, Britain and the USA

2.3 Vocational and Technical Education and Training in other Countries

2.3.1 Vocational and technical education and training in Singapore

In the 1980s, in order to guarantee little-gifted students who were learning literature might have some skill to serve society to make their products satisfy the demands of the industry; Singapore spent for its education about 4 % the total GDP Then, this ratio was gradually increased as equal as strongly developed countries like Japan, the USA (Tran Vinh Hao, 2008).The education ministry of Singapore always distributed the registered students in the view of meeting the demand of social labor, encouraging them to register institutes of

technology

The training model of Singapore can assess, recognize and classify students into appropriate curriculums Singapore branches even from the popular education The primary school has 6 grades From grade 5 and grade 6, students are classified into sections at the age

of 10 or 11 based on their educational competence of grade 4 After the primary school, students will be able to enter vocational schools The popular high school of Singapore lasts four or five years, including three curriculums chosen by students according to their taste and skills (special curriculum, instant curriculum and standard curriculum).When completing the popular high school, students will attend an examination to get a popular high school diploma in collaboration between Singapore and British Cambridge university, but students are also encourage to attend institutes of technology to become technical workers After completing popular high school, students who have been given basic knowledge of humanity and sciences, they can register to study at a junior college with a two- year program or at an institute with a three -year preparatory university program After completing the preparatory university program, students are to sit for examination to get a GCE ‘A’, certificate used as a basis to be selected to enter a university Singapore has universities of the first -ranking ten universities in the Asia Pacific region Several universities in Singapore are based on the models of American university and are collaborating with big universities in the world in training (Tran Vinh Hao, 2008) Figure 2-2 describes the branching model of Singapore

Figure 2-2 Model of Singapore

(Source: Tran Vinh Bao, 2008)

2.3.2 Vocational and technical education and training in Malaysia

Malaysia has international popular schools The primary school commences from six years old and lasts 5 to seven years There are to testing examinations at the third years and the fifth years of the primary school Distinguished students of the third year can be selected

to enter the fifth year In popular high school, students will learn vocational and technical subjects After attending the PMR EXAMINATION (the junior high school examination), students will learn more professional subjects then popular high school Completing popular high school students will attend an examination to get an educational certificate o Malaysia (SPM).Universities and colleges in Malaysia manage to make student graduates have jobs immediately Students enjoy the choice in registering to enter school and sections to optimize the educational resource of the whole country The training curriculums are shaped according

to the forces governing the market The teaching curriculum is designed according to the social requirements, helping a close collaboration between universities and industrial parks, especially the sensitivity with global environmental changes, providing for students opportunities to contact industry and the knowledge from classes can be tested immediately

in real environments The Malaysian educational system has put information technology as core in teaching, learning and even in the management process Intelligent school have been established with communication by means of multimedia and global network with distant training program, e-learning and students ‘study becomes lively and abundant (Tran Vinh Bao, 2008)

Table 2-6 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Malaysia and Vietnam

industry and university

Training curriculum

Malaysia Liveliness in registration

and sorting majors

Students can contact industry

designed as required by society

Vietnam Not liveliness Not yet Not yet contacting real

production

(Source: Tran Vinh Bao, 2005)

2.3.3 Vocational and technical education and training in France

French higher education training formerly was the elite education arranged in the motto of “little but elite “.In the mid - twentieth century, the elite training was gradually change into popular education, in the tendency of globalization The vocational education in France changes according to each period appropriate to the economy of the country and is carried out in all kinds of school from lower level topper level A vocational high school recruits students who have completed junior high school (like grade 9 in Vietnam) Right before entering grade 10, students are branched into two streams being popular and technological Such students who enter the technological stream will attend vocational high school to become workers Students who enter the popular stream mainly enter colleges or university However, there is an articulation way by- passing from the technological stream

to the popular stream The higher education in France is divided into 3 phases The vocational training phase is evaluated at the end of phase 1 (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007).The restrictions of the French vocational training is based on school year; diplomas acknowledged based on the time of compulsory regular training are shown the length of school years on graduating popular high school This model is not flexible and lively as American or Britain models

Table 2-7 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in France and Vietnam

Articulation from lower and horizontal articulation

Both vocational competence guaranteed and academically Vietnam Branching not yet

combined with articulation

Not yet guaranteeing articulation Heavily theoretical and overlapped

(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

2.3.4 Vocational and technical education and training in Britain

Vocational training in Britain is animate, flexible, lively and ready to respond to the demand of employers, offering various ways to study suitable for individual needs of learners The British training model is based on vocational competence (competence based vocational

training) closely connected with module-size the training process; students may choose their syllabi appropriate to students but secure blocks o knowledge and educational level Syllabi can be transferable Each level in the vocational training system comprises a fixed number of syllabi transferable, and then, in order to achieve a level, it is not necessary to stipulate previously a fixed duration for a course or a training curriculum Each vocational level is appropriate to a level of practical competence The qualification system in vocational training

in Britain is applied based on the principle of assessing the previous learning back ground (Accreditation of prior learning) That means, it is not necessary to stipulate what training establishment, when and how long students studied, provided that they guarantee practical competence, pass the scientific evaluation test Formerly, the British educational -training system was separated between vocational training and academic training In 1991, in the white book “education-training for the twenty first century, ministries of education-training and of British labor, it shows the general national vocational qualifications system with the view of abolishing the clear separation between the academic and vocational training certificates, thus broadening higher education training, facilitating skilled workmen to have enough qualifications to enter university in order to prepare for learners both vocational competence and connective learning competence (Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

Table 2-8 Difference in Characteristics of Higher Education in Britain and Vietnam

Features/

Country

adjustment policy England Modulating the training

process, creating articulation

between professions

Concentrating the career ability and studying ability

Being flexible and ready

to meet demands of employers

Vietnam Not getting yet articulation Multi-targets Inflexible and without

meeting demands of employers

(Source: Nguyen Dinh Huong, 2007)

2.3.5 Section summary

To solve the division problems, the career training models of Singapore, France have been divided in training from the phase of universal education The training model of Singapore gets the advantage such ability of consideration, discovery and division to students

based on each correspondent program from the phase of universal education However, Vietnam cannot copy from France and Singapore, because the education-training development grade between towns, rural regions, and other areas in Vietnam has had the great distances The education-training real situation in Vietnam is only applied effectively the division model as developing the universal education equally between regions, to ensure the education program with division trend, combining universal education and career training The training model of Malaysia getting advantages is that it gets the flexibility in registering to study and arranging the professions to students; the students get the chances to contact closely to the enterprise; the training program content is designed as the social demands The training model of France getting advantages is that it gets the division combined with the articulation; the articulation combined with low-high articulation and crossed mode The training program content not only ensures the career ability, but also gets the academy properties The career training model of England is the career training model with many advantages This model presents the soft ability, creates many difficult learning paths, being suitable with the personal demands of each learner, removes the clear separations between the academy and profession certificates, to preparer learners both the profession activity ability and the learning ability The career training system of England operates as the demands of the labor market, with aggression, flexibility and ready for meeting demands of employers, is designed based on the module principles, i.e units can be transferred Each level in the career training system correlative with each level of the implementation ability, it varies the training products, meets the career learning expectations

as well as the universal culture with the difficult ways of youth, attracting the remarkable rate

of students into career training-education Especially, articulation between professions suggests the division way during the university training process

The training model of countries above mentioned, are the models constructed with the modern education science basic, and they have affirmed the strengths through the reaming reality, development of the advanced education So, the developing countries such as Vietnam cannot utilize the inflexibly, lack creations of the training models in the education-training

2.4 The Career-oriented Education and Training Models

With the will of building vocational training in higher education in Vietnam suitable for Vietnamese conditions in order to be able to solve urgent issues of making trained products to satisfy the demands of the labor markets, especially labor markets in industrial parks which much require the quantity and the quality in accordance with the ratios between teachers and workers In order to achieve that target, it is necessary to build a training model with proper reasonability, thus making relations which impact and closely connect between elements like articulation, branching, re-training, amending the training contents, selective modes and training modes in order to correct defects of trained products and re-adjust the ratios between teachers and workers in the social labor composition as demanded by the labor market

Through researching into the training models of Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France in connection with the models of Vietnam, it is to see the articulation from bottom up and the horizontal articulation of France containing many advantages ; however, because socio-economic conditions in Vietnam are poor and obsolete, it is necessary to flexibly apply such branching, simultaneously further researching into the branching even in the training process in higher education in order to match the practice of Vietnam Due to the low growth

of the Vietnamese education and training, trained products of Vietnam are of many defects that cannot immediately satisfy the demands of the labor markets, especially the labor markets in industrial parks, it is necessary to correct trained products after serving by means

of the form of re-training However, this is a situational solution Re-training forms after completing higher educational training program cost a lot and are inefficient The training models of Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France show that, with the present growth impetus, they can be capable and qualified enough to yield trained products as demanded by labor markets and to secure quality in order to immediately meet the demands of the labor markets In the meantime, like some other developing countries, Vietnam are not capable enough to yield trained products that can immediately satisfy the requirements of tasks, so it

is to accept the solution of correcting defects of trained products

However, in order to correct defects of trained products efficiently and promptly the recognizing and the correcting must be carried out at once even in the training process in higher education by means of retraining and amending the training program based on the

surveying of the demands of the labor markets to serve the industrialization, the core of which is the labor markets serving industrial parks The ability of attracting students to take part in the vocational training process in Vietnam is bad in the connection of the demand of the labor force serving the industrialization In order to solve this problem, it is to consider changing the selective examination by registration like the selective recruitment manners of Vietnam before 1975 and to collaborate in branching even in the training process in higher education This will open the way to efficiently solve the ability of attracting and providing trained labor force for the work of industrialization

Therefore, based on researching into the situation, the problems, technological training in higher education in Vietnam and vocational training models of several developed countries in Asia and Europe, it is to see that the vocational - technical training models which can be considered to be applied to the practice of Vietnamese vocational-technical training will be the training models with the selective forms in order to attract human resource to participate in the vocational-technical training by applying the selective recruitment mode of registration, thus saving the budgets by building appropriate training programs, multi-dimensional articulation, simultaneously changing the selective recruitment mode, and then applying the branching even in the training process in higher education to adjust appropriate ratios between teachers and workers, it is to apply the measures of re-training and to adjust the training program even in the training process so as

vocational-to promptly and efficiently correct defects of trained products With the six elements absorbed from hints of training models studied above, roughly drafting a training model, theoretically, can be efficiently applied to the vocational and technical training in higher education in Vietnam Table 2-9 summarizes the basis for shaping the proposed model

Table 2-9 Bases for Developing the Suggested Model

Selective examination Branching Articulation

training

Re-Curriculum contents

Mode of training French rule Registration

Saigon

Administration

Within training process Malaysia

Built as demanded

by society

Learning online for technical faculties

Singapore

Arranging numbers of students as demanded

by society

articulation

Re-training

Concentrative learning

Proposed

model registration

Within training process

dimensional articulation

Multi-training

Re-Built as demanded

by society- module-ized

Collaborating between concentrative training & online

Chapter 3 Research Methodology

Chapter 3 includes the contents: (1) research process: describing the implementation steps of the researching process; (2) the research model; (3) Populationa and Sample; (4) questionnaire design: describing how to develop the questionnaire; (5) the data collection: showing the data collection way quantitatively; and (6) the analysis method: describing the way of analyzing the investigated data collected from questionnaire

3.1 Research Process

Based on literature review, the research process was developed that includes 10 steps

of implementation They are:

Step 1 Determining the researching problem

After surveying the training model situation in current Vietnam via reference from magazines, and articles on Internet for training-education, it is contacted directly to many students graduating universities but unemployed, becoming the burdens for families, determining the researching problems is that the training products get many errors, without meeting the demands of the labor market in general, especially the labor demands of industrial parks

Step 2 Determining the researching motivation

The labor resource demand via the training for serving the country industrialization is very significant, firstly to meet the demand of the human resource for industrial parks However, the labors from university training cannot work soon, they are usually re-trained, expensive and less effective, they not only become the burdens for the families and but also society Evenly, they have depraved and become the forces joining the social evils The fearful thing is that this group is the young group and the social brilliant To develop the economy, it must be improved the labor resource quality via training, to ameliorate the quality of labor force via training, part of affecting particularly, in four elements in interaction training system (teachers, learners, environment, training content elements), affecting synchronously in the above mentioned elements in the suitable training model is very necessary and dialectically So, researching and constructing the suitable training model

with the situation conditions of Vietnam education-training, for solving the problem in a long term, really, necessarily are to contribute to provide benefits to learners and society

Step 3 Determining the researching target

The technique-occupation training situation in Vietnam has shown weaknesses and inadequateness needing to be solved State has implemented the active effects to the interaction elements during training process, but results do not get the expected results, because, nowadays, Vietnam has studied many models of countries, including models of countries with the training-education in the top world, but they are not suitable in Vietnam situation Thus, to solve the necessary problems of the current technology-occupation situation at university level, it must be researched, constructed the technology-occupation training model at university level in Vietnam suitable with the requirements of Vietnam reality

Step 4 Identifying research framework

After studying the training situation, referring the related documents, it is determined the problems for being researched Then, it is researched the situation of the training model, referred to the training model in some countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, France, England to suggest the new training model, in the argument side, it is suitable with Vietnamese situation and it can solved the training products with meeting the general labor market demand and demands of the particular industry parks; it is consulted 5 experts (with PhD diploma) of 5 great universities such as Ho Chi Minh City of Technology Teaching, Ho Chi Minh City of Teaching, Binh Duong university, Ho Chi Minh City university of industry, Poly-technique university of Ho Chi Minh City; it is done the question table of surveying opinions of 25 enterprise managers, 25 training managers, 25 government officers; it is relied

on experts in contributing opinions to fulfill the question table, delivered the surveyed question table; analyzed the surveyed results and advanced conclusion

Step 5 Constructing the question table

For the question table using form of Ho Chi Minh City University of industry, it is used to survey the profession training in Vietnam For the question content, I have referred with the works of the famous researchers of Vietnam in training-education, such as Hoang Tuy, Bui Trong Lieu, Nguyen Dinh Huong, Nguyen Quyet Thang, Nguyen Thuc Hai, Vo Nguyen Giap, to design suitably with 6 targets and 6 researching questions of this researched