Skilling up Vietnam: Preparing the workforce for a modern market economy
Vietnam is at a critical stage in its economic and social development. After a period of remarkable economic growth and poverty reduction over the past two decades, Vietnam has recently joined the ranks of middle income countries. This achievement has triggered a debate among policy makers and the public at large on what it will take to continue the country’s success story over the next decade and beyond. Featured prominently in this debate are education, and the skills of the workforce. Like across much of East Asia, there is wide consensus in the Vietnamese society that good education is necessary for personal and national advancement.
Vietnam’s “Socio-Economic Development Strategy” for 2011–20 identifies developing a highly skilled workforce as one of its breakthrough areas.
This publication is a contribution to the ongoing national policy debate on how to strengthen skills development in middle income Vietnam to keep up with changing demands as the economy modernizes, industrializes, and diversifies. The analysis presented in this book reveals that Vietnamese businesses care about three dimensions of skills: technical, cognitive, and behavioural; stronger cognitive and behavioral skills will help workers to continuously update their technical skills during their working lives. A three-step holistic skills strategy is proposed, which focuses on strengthening both the present and the future workforce.