Da Nang tries to attract talents

When 40 civil servants who were trained under the Da Nang  program on attracting talents to local state agencies (Program 922) resigned from their posts, analysts commented that the program had failed.

The staff attended training courses with funding from the municipal authorities, but refused the jobs arranged for them by the authorities. 

Da Nang City, as a last resort, sued some of them for reimbursement of the training cost.

Vo Ngoc Dong, director of the Da Nang Department of Interior Affairs, said the city will still run the program, together with attracting talents to work for short-term projects.

Dong admitted that there were complaints about low salaries and that some ‘talents’ still had not become official civil servants.

In many cases, the municipal authorities sent ‘talents’ to training courses and planned to arranged certain posts for them. However, when they finished the courses, the city did not need the workers for the posts anymore.

Now, Da Nang will focus on upgrading the qualification of its staff through short-term refresher courses.

In the immediate time, when needing high-quality manpower, the city will try to attract  specialists, and if of it cannot, it will send people to training courses. The individuals to be chosen could be last-year university students or postgraduates.

The city has also shifted from attracting talents for long term to inviting specialists to work for specific short-term programs and projects. The city promises to offer good salaries, travel and house allowances.

The director of the Department of Interior Affairs said that officers will be replaced with ones trained under the program on attracting talents. 

Meanwhile, older officers will be encouraged to retire to make room for ‘talents’.

Vo Kim Son, former Dean of State Management & Department of State Management and Personnel of the National Academy of Public Administration, said that this is the right decision.

“I wondered why Da Nang did not think of recruiting existing ‘talents’, rather than sending capable people for training and waiting for them to come back to work for Da Nang,” he said.

“There are many people with high qualifications, including ones returning from Japan, Singapore and Japan,” he said.

An analyst also said it is easier to choose the most suitable specialists among existing talents. Only when Da Nang cannot choose the officers they want among existing candidates should it think of training from the beginning.

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Mai Thanh