Mr. Truong Anh Dung, Director General of the DVET gave the opening speech at the Conference

Digital transformation (DT) is an inevitable trend and affects many aspects of life. In education, DT has contributed to creating new methods in management as well as teaching and learning activities. Moreover, under the pressure to change and demands from the labor market, the trend of autonomy and competition in the education sector, and especially the impact of the COVID19 epidemic, educational institutions need to promote the application of digital technology to build a training system that is adaptive, flexible, open and more responsive to changes and impacts from outside.

Ms. Britta Van Erckelens, Deputy Director of Vocational Training Innovation Program

in Vietnam (GIZ), spoke at the Conference

Training workshop: "Digital transformation in VET in Vietnam" was organized by the Vocational Training Innovation Program in Vietnam - GIZ in cooperation with the DVET to improve capacity for Digital transformation for the leadership team. The workshop aims to provide a basic knowledge and an overview of digital transformation. The event also creates an open forum for leaders to discuss and share strategic issues, thereby helping to form a long-term vision for digital transformation development in VET.

Speaking at the Conference's opening, Mr. Truong Anh Dung, Director General of DVET shared a lot of information as well as orientation on the development of VET with scientists and information technology experts. Currently, VET with a training scale of about 2.2 million per year, of which intermediate and college level account for about 25% and the rest are elementary and short-term training. The desire of the Labor - Invalids and Social Affairs sector and also the direction of the Government is that in the next 5 years, the enrollment size will be doubled, the VET system will double, the scale will triple in the next 10 years. It is because the shortage of skilled human resources is the obvious challenge of economic development. Recently, the Prime Minister has issued Directive No. 24 on promoting skilled human resources, contributing to improving labor productivity and enhancing competitiveness in the new situation. For the first time, there is a day named “Vietnamese Labor Skills” to honor and spread the value of labor and occupational skills to the whole society, the aim is to enhance the involvement of community and take advantage of experiences from society, contributing to the development of skillful force.

Regarding digital transformation in VET, this is the requirement set out in the programs and schemes of the Government. In our national digital transformation program, we planned to build up digital government, digital economy, digital society and digital enterprise. In general, it cannot be denied that the central objective of any development policy is human, and human constitutes labor force. The success is based on the cohesion between the parties, from training institutions, businesses, workers, employers, pupils, students and the Government. The Director General said that one of the biggest barriers in digital transformation is the awareness, one of the biggest challenges is changing habits. The VET system basically still relies on the direct exchange between teachers and students with the equipment to form and develop knowledge, skills and attitudes. How VET changes in the digital transformation context is still a question.

Delegates attending the seminar took photos

In the Prime Minister's Directive, there are two projects that need to be implemented in the coming time, which are the Project of digital transformation in VET and the Project on strengthening information technology skills in the workforce. Strive to have 70% by 2020, 80% by 2025, and 90% of the workforce by 2030 will be equipped with basic skills of information technology. And this is also to meet the millennium goal, the sustainable development goal.

According to the Director General, there are few countries that can successfully conduct online training or accomplish the open resources, open materials for VET. This is a challenge, since the outcome of VET is skills and required a lot of practice time.

Digital transformation needs to be in two directions: management and administration; teaching and learning in VET. In recent years, VET system has accelerated the application of information technology and achieved certain results, initial success, especially modernizing a number of facilities and equipment in several occupations. However, it has not achieved as expected.

 The Director General expected that through the seminar, information technology, digital transformation experts will exchange and share the experiences and practices about the digital transformation in VET such as setting goals, starting point, key content, the roadmap for the next 5 and 10 years, the work to implement in each level (country, school) to ensure the success of digital transformation, how to VET digital transformation can have an effect on the provision of information technology skills to the workforce.