Int’l conference discusses human resource development

More than 120 participants, including international and local researchers, policymakers and experts, discussed human resource development at an international conference that opened on in Hanoi on November 6.

The four-day event is being organised by the Foreign Trade University (FTU) in collaboration with the Academy of Human Resource Development and Viettel Academy for the first time in Vietnam.

Speaking at the event, FTU President Bui Anh Tuan said the Fourth Industrial Revolution and digitalisation changed the way the Government, organisations and businesses in Vietnam work with human resource development.

“Increasing globalisation, international integration and especially ever faster technological evolution, however, have changed the roles of human resources. They have also required us to change our approaches, strategies, and methodologies to develop human resources from fundamental to more innovative ones,” said Tuan.

“One of the big challenges for Vietnam’s development in the coming years is the issue of increasing labour productivity,” said Director of the Education and Training Ministry’s Higher Education Department Nguyen Thi Kim Phung at the event.

“Improving and promoting labour productivity, speeding up the country’s process of industrialisation and modernisation and minimising the development gap with other countries in the region are a key task for Vietnam to ensure the goal of fast and sustainable development,” stressed Phung.

Phung said that there was still big gap in labour productivity between Vietnam and other ASEAN countries due to slow process of labour restructuring science, levels of the country’s science and technology, reform and innovation are low, or limits exist in human resource management and quality.

“Reforming higher education is considered one of the key solutions to develop high-quality human resources to meet the needs of rapid and sustainable development in Vietnam,” she said.

Phung said Vietnam has taken various measures in reforming higher education, such as the revised law on higher education, and developing the Overall Strategy for higher education development of Vietnam in the period 2021-2030.

Priorities are also given to train teachers and improve capacity of lecturers and managers of higher education institutions to meet the requirements of fundamental innovation, to increase investment and attract new resources for higher education development and create a mechanism to strengthen internationalisation of higher education for integration and development following international standards.

With the theme "Human Resource Development: Innovation and Evolution in the Digital Era," this is also the first time the conference focuses on traditional issues in human resource development connected to innovation in the context of digitalisation.

During the event, participants will focus discussions on many topics related to human resource development (HRD), including HRD and sustainable development; leadership development; corporate social responsibility and ethics in HRD; and emerging issues and innovations in HRD.

Participants said that human resource development at both national and firm levels was of urgent need in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as it determines productivity, competitiveness, and ultimately sustainable development of nations and businesses. 

According to statistics from the General Statistics Office and Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, there are still about 125,000 to 135,000 unemployed labourers out of 5 million workers with university degrees, accounting for about 2.2 to 2.5 percent of total university-level workers. In particular, limited professional and foreign language skills are the main causes leading to the unemployment of university-level workers.