Can Tho (VNS/VNA) - The Mekong Deltacity of Can Tho plans to provide vocational training to at least 30,000 peopleby 2020, 10 percent of them poor, ethnic minority and rural people whose livesare affected by industrial and other projects.

Of the 30,000 to be trained, 80 percent would getjobs afterwards, authorities said.

Tran Thi Xuan Mai, Director of the provincialDepartment of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, said training provided torural people usually met their actual needs in terms of occupations.

This year, 123 courses had been organised to trainpeople in 30 agricultural and non-agricultural occupations to enable people towork in handicraft villages, industrial parks and export processing zones, andtrainees had got jobs at companies based in the city or started their ownbusiness to escape poverty, she said.

According to the Can Tho e-newspaper, Vo Minh Chinh,head of the department’s labour, invalids and social affairs division in Co Dodistrict, said weaving courses attracted many locals.

Nguyen Vi Kim Thu, head of the Women’s Union inTrung Thanh commune’s Thanh Phuoc 2 village, said many women who attended thecourse were able to earn an extra income by weaving in their free time.  

Cao Van Son in the district’s Thanh Hung 2 villagesaid he attended a five-month electrician’s training course last year.

Afterwards he has been operating an electricalrepair shop at home, earning some 4 million VND (171 USD) a month on top of hisincome from farming, according to an online newspaper published by the Ministryof Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs.

He said demand for electrical repairs in hisneighbourhood was very high, with many people coming around to have fans andlight bulbs repaired.

Many people in Co Do district have also benefitedfrom training in rice-growing techniques.

Phuong Tuan Tien of the district’s Thanh Loi village,who attended a course, said thanks to it he was able to earn more than 900million VND (38,560 USD) a year from his four hectares of paddy. He has beenrecognised as an outstanding farmer.

The city’s steering committee for a project toprovide vocational training in rural areas said it focused on improvingquality, just learning about skills that local people need was essential.

Nguyen Thanh Dung, Vice Chairman of the Can ThoPeople’s Committee, said the city focused on training human resources in ruralareas based on local strategies and socio-economic development plans.

He instructed the Departments of Labour, Invalidsand Social Affairs and Education and Training to cooperate with each other toachieve the project’s goals.

As of last September the city had trained morethan 7,000 people in its rural areas and nearly 75 percent of them have gotjobs.

The training schools update their programmes tomeet employers’ needs and use modern equipment for training.

To provide jobs to trainees, the city has set upmany small co-operatives in various localities, including for making sewingproducts in Xuan Thang and Truong Thang communes in Thoi Lai district andmaking handbags in Cai Rang district’s Le Binh ward.

Meanwhile, vocational training schools havevarious programmes to attract trainees and also send them to companies to workfor hands-on training.-VNS/VNA