Two top brands in education and training from the city-state have made strong commitments to support Vietnam in developing high-quality human resources and building training programmes that are close to international standard.

Digital and professional skills at heart of collaborations, illustration photo/ Source: freepik.com

Last month, James Cook University Singapore (JCU) campus, a training environment for majors in IT, science, the environment, business administration, and accounting and finance, signed an agreement to cooperate with Ton Duc Thang University in Ho Chi Minh City to innovate teaching and improve human resources for Vietnam in the future.

JCU boasts three main campuses in Australia and Singapore, with the highest percentage of students successfully getting a job and top salary expectations after graduation in Australia, according to a survey by The Good Universities Guide.

Elsewhere, at the beginning of August, KinderWorld International Group proposed to build an international education complex as well as a Pegasus education-ecotourism complex in Haiphong.

According to the company, the international complex will include an inter-level education and training from preschool to high school and vocational education institutions such as colleges and universities. Meanwhile, the Pegasus ecotourism facility will be a combination of life skills school and international-standard ecotourism resort.

Educational cooperation has consistently been a bright spot in the relationship between Vietnam and Singapore, and is expected to blossom further as the pair mark 50 years since diplomatic relations were established.

Lai Chung Han, Singapore’s Permanent Secretary for Education, said that Singapore attaches great importance to educational cooperation with Vietnam in a meeting with Nguyen Van Phuc, Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Education and Training, in early June.

Han pledged to double the number of scholarships for excellent Vietnamese high school students and create new advantages to support students and teachers in this country.

The two countries first signed an MoU on educational cooperation in 2007 in general education, higher education, English language refresher training, and English teaching methods for Vietnamese teachers.

Educational cooperation has opened up opportunities for Vietnam to learn from Singapore’s strengths such as STEM, English, and technology. Today, 16 general education institutions in Vietnam and Singapore have been connected for the purposes of cultural exchange for both students and teachers.

Singapore also actively supports Vietnam in vocational training and fostering high-quality workers.

At a meeting with Singaporean Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry Tan See Leng a month ago, Dao Ngoc Dung, Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs of Vietnam (MoLISA) said the results of human resource training cooperation programmes with Singapore in recent times have been “very effective” for Vietnam.

He hoped that Singapore would participate in investing in three National Training Centre projects and high-quality vocational practice in all regions, strengthening the connection between students of the two countries and creating opportunities for Vietnamese students to gain work experience abroad.

The MoLISA also wants Singapore to continue to provide training programmes, grant certificates of mutual recognition for vocational qualifications, and promote links between businesses of the two countries for tech transfer and training high-tech human resources for Vietnamese workers.

Singapore leads ASEAN and ranks second worldwide in investment in Vietnam, with over 3,310 projects and total registered capital of $72.9 billion. This accounts for 22.9 per cent of foreign investment as of July 20, according to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.