Delegates at a seminar in Hanoi on April 21 discussed the need to connect higher education institutions with businesses in training high-quality agricultural workforce.

Speaking at the event, Minister of Education and Training Phung Xuan Nha said apart from scholarship grants and apprentice opportunities for graduates, connectivity should be expanded to training programme building, scientific research and job generation. 

Nguyen Thi Lan, Director of the Vietnam National University of Agriculture (VNUA), said the VNUA has worked with more than 150 businesses where its students will be employed as apprentices. 

The university has also cooperated with partners from Japan, Israel and the Republic of Korea in short-term training and agricultural production, she added. 

Lan said Vietnam is expected to lack about 3.2 million trained labourers in the farming sector by 2020, and the country has an aging agricultural workforce.

Therefore, training high-quality human resources for agriculture and rural development is a pressing need and a big challenge facing educational institutions, she noted. 

Given that up to 46 percent of the workforce in the local farming sector does not satisfy the requirements of scientific and technological advances, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Xuan Cuong highlighted the importance of training labourers who have enough knowledge and skills to work with high-tech and smart agriculture.

He urged tertiary education institutions to re-design their training programmes and coordinate with MARD agencies in agriculture and rural development programmes. 

After the seminar, more than 30 documents were signed between higher education institutions and businesses on cooperation in training.