Through Aus4Skills, Australia’s support for Vietnam’s policy development in vocational education and training (VET) surged in 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, at the request of the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET).
There were two key areas for policymaking support; firstly, for sector skills councils (SSCs) under Vietnam’s amended Employment Law, and secondly, for finalising two draft circulars, one on the development of the VET curriculum and textbooks (replacing Circular No. 03/2017/TT-LĐTBXH, 1 March 2017) and the second on accreditation criteria and VET standards (replacing Circular No. 15/2017/TT-BLĐTBXH, 8 June 2017). Amending and replacing these legal documents aimed to address gaps and strengthen governance in the targeted areas to improve the quality of skills development.
As part of Australia’s support for the amendment of the Employment Law and to inform policy making on SSCs, Aus4Skills shared with DVET our insights and experience over the past decades of Australia’s VET system development and industry engagement, in particular the past seven years with the establishment and operation of the Logistics Industry Reference Council (LIRC), a pilot SSC model including industry engagement in VET in Vietnam. The LIRC was established under the Australian-funded ‘Promoting logistics industry linkages with VET’ project and has proven to be a successful model.
Lessons were shared through various reports and workshops. This included the VET International Forum held on 24 October 2023 in Hanoi, which provided DVET and nearly 250 other participants with insights into the LIRC model and its achievements.
Australia, through Aus4Skills, also contributed evidence to inform GoV’s policy decisions, in response to DVET’s requests for support with policy advocacy. This included sharing the final report of an independent review into LIRC in January 2024, as well as two research papers developed by Australian experts and the Aus4Skills VET team. The first paper explored Australia’s industry engagement model for VET, including the origins and reforms of SSC models, and lessons learnt throughout 30 years of development, while the second discussed Australia’s VET training packages, the development of which is one of the most important roles of SSCs in Australia.
Mr Vu Ninh, Chair of LIRC, delivers a keynote presentation on LIRC model and successes at International VET Forum on 24 October 2023 in Ha Noi.
Australian support for the finalisation of draft replacements for Circular 03 and Circular 15 was also highly appreciated by the DVET. Aus4Skills focused primarily on gathering insights for DVET’s use in refreshing the circulars, and collected opinions, feedback and recommendations from Australian and Vietnamese experts, and 16 partner colleges in Vietnam, including through online workshops co-hosted with DVET.
Mr. Do Van Giang, Vice Director of DVET’s Department of Formal Training said, “We really appreciate Aus4Skills’s approach in policy advisory activities. The final draft Circular replacing Circular No. 03 has incorporated almost all recommendations from Aus4Skills, especially those aimed to improve the quality of curriculum and provide consistent and clearer guidelines for VET institutions.”
According to Ms. Tran Thi Thu Ha, Vice Director of DVET’s Accreditation VET Department, advisory comments from Aus4Skills helped DVET to better understand key issues in updating Vietnam’s accreditation standards to align with regional and international quality standards. In particular, she appreciated Aus4Skills’ prompt and effective responses to urgent requests for support from DVET, and said “The supporting activities helped us update the accreditation standards and contributed to capacity building on VET quality assurance for those who participated in the relevant activities.”
Through Aus4Skills, Australia is supporting Vietnam to refine its VET policy to develop a highly skilled workforce. Read more here.
