Ha Huu Phuc, director ofthe representative office of the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) in HoChi Minh City, mentioned a training model entitled “Enterprise in School”allowing students to participate in work sessions at enterprises during theirdegree studies.
The programme will providestudents with opportunities to turn theories into practice and becomeemployeable right after graduation, instead of having to undertake internships,he said.
“Although identified byMoET a long time ago, such a direction for education reform has only beenimplemented at a limited number of universities,” he added.
“Not only will it helpboost universities’ credibility in terms of training quality, the model willalso provide graduates with more job opportunities and reduce staff trainingcosts for employers,” he said.
The model yielded positiveresults after being implemented at Nam Can Tho University in the 2016-17 schoolyear, said university head Professor Vo Tang Xuan. “Our students got toundertake apprenticeships in professional environments during their freshmanyear,” he said.
“It helped sharpen theirsoft skills and provided them with hours of practical training that requireshigh accuracy, especially for medical, law and technology students.”
For public technologyuniversities that are unable to equip themselves with state-of-the-artfacilities, the model is a primary solution to help students keep up with theFourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), said Dr Duong Thai Cong, principalof the Can Tho University of Technology.
“Since our students will goto work for them after graduation, the employers we collaborate with will takeas much responsibility as we do in providing them with modern equipment and aneffective practice environment,” he said. “It takes the pressure off the schooland allows us to open more training programmes.”
Higher educationaccreditation was also discussed at the meeting. It is an effective tool thathas helped several countries, including Vietnam, to maintain their educationquality standards and constantly improve their teaching and learning quality,said director Ha Huu Phuc.
Of five universities in thecity, the Can Tho University has made its way into a number of regional andinternational rankings. The remaining ones have registered to be evaluated inthe 2017-18 school year.-VNA