Seeking Quality IT Human Resources

In the context of vigorous economic development and rapid foreign direct investment growth quality information technology (IT) human resources has become a big challenge to many domestic and foreign businesses and organizations. The head of the IT Department, Ministry of Education and Training, Quach Tuan Ngoc, shared his ideas in a recent meeting on IT human resource development in Hanoi.

Balancing the supply and the demand

Preliminary figures show that around 35,000 people now work in software enterprises (more than 95 percent of them are IT professionals); over 20,000 people work in IT services and digital content businesses (65 percent major in IT, electronics or telecommunications fields); around 100,000 people work in electronic and hardware businesses (70 percent major in electronics, telecommunications, and IT fields); nearly 100,000 people work in telecommunications companies (60 percent major in electronic, telecommunications and IT fields) and about 90,000 IT professionals work in businesses and organizations operating in assorted economic sectors.

A sharp growth in the number of foreign IT and telecommunications companies in Vietnam leads to a soaring demand for quality professionals, casting strong pressure on training facilities as well as the education, training, information technology and telecommunications managers. Particularly, Mr. Ngoc put forward concrete figures: Intel Vietnam needs 4,000 laborers, including around 1,000 engineers to be operating in diverse electrical engineering, electronic, information technology and automation fields; Japanese chip design and manufacture company, Renesas, seeks 1,000 semi-conductor designers; the Hong Hai Technology Group (Chinese Taipei) attempts to invest around US$5 billion in Vietnam within the next five years and needs more than 5,000 laborers; Campal (Chinese Taipei) seeks 1,200 engineers for further training abroad to hold key positions in its Vietnamese-based factory that will soon be put into operation, it will then recruit several dozen thousands skilled laborers and Samsung (the Republic of Korea) has built a plant in Yen Phong district (Bac Ninh province) manufacturing state-of-the art mobiles at a cost of several billion US dollars and it now wants to employ several dozen thousands laborers, etc.

Not only in the domestic market, developed countries such as the US, Japan and the EU are also in huge demand for quality IT professionals. This presents vast opportunities for quality Vietnamese professionals to go working abroad, Ngoc asserted.

The deputy head of the IT Department, Ministry of Information and Communications, Dr. Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, said IT progress has been applied widely in diverse areas. Particularly, more than 90 percent of the information and management documents in business exchanges are brought online. Public administrative services are available online to serve businesses and the community. Besides, with an ambitious plan to export quality IT professionals by 2020, the demand for IT professionals is even bigger. By 2020, Vietnam will need around 250,000 people to work in the hardware industry, 130,000 people in the software industry and 148,000 people in the digital content industry. The IT industry is set to post around US$24.2 billion in sales by that time with an average growth rate of 14 percent annually.

Seeking a way-out

Ngoc assumed that for the supply to keep up with the demand, it was important to innovate the training programs, standardize teachers, and foster the relations between businesses and the training facilities. In doing so, businesses should have representatives at the training facilities’ councils and take part in developing the training programs. These measures would help train quality IT professionals.

Mr. Ngoc also said that Vietnamese IT workers were still low on quality. Students are not good in foreign languages, team work, presentation skills and in accessing new technologies. Fresh graduates often have poor logical thinking and find hard to work independently. This is attributed to archaic training programs, incapable teachers, limited material base, poor libraries, and the lax cooperation between the training facilities and businesses.

Dr. Tuyen said the State should develop an information system to forecast the future demand for IT human resource based on market segments, operational areas and qualification levels. It is also necessary to establish a quality assessment system based on the number of students finding jobs after graduations; apply world’s advanced IT programs into training and provide IT training based on orders from businesses and organizations.

For their part, the training facilities must reform the syllabus based on world’s advanced programs, striving to meet businesses’ requirements; improve teacher quality and upgrade material and technical base (libraries, lab rooms and Internet lines, etc.).

Businesses must have a practical look at the IT human resource market. To have quality IT human resource, they need to spend, such as funding the Vietnam Fund for IT Human Resource Development.

The deputy rector, cum the head of the International Training Faculty at Duy Tan University, Le Nguyen Bao, upheld Dr. Tuyen ideas saying that to create quality human resource it was essential to standardize the training programs as well as ameliorate the teaching and learning methodology. In his words, the relations between businesses and the training facilities must be considered a chain in the training process. The universities and businesses need to join hands for the purpose of businesses having quality human resource, students finding jobs after graduation and the universities gaining fame for quality training. – VEN

Tags: Vietnam IT, Vietnam IT Human Resources