VietNamNet Bridge – Only five percent of students have good learning about the training majors they choose, while 20 percent have “general knowledge” and 75 percent don’t know anything about the careers, a survey in HCM City has found.

Leaving universities for vocational schools

Dinh Quoc Phong from An Giang province is among the seniors at the first-year Internet security class of iSpace Information Technology Junior College, a vocational school. Born in 1989, Phong graduated the finance and banking faculty of the An Giang University before he goes to iSpace.

Phong said he likes the information technology. After finishing high school, he intended to attend the entrance exam to the information technology faculty of the Can Tho University. However, he finally decided to become a student of the finance & banking sector of the An Giang University as requested by the parents.

“I am the only child and I had to follow the major I did not like just to please my parents,” he explained.

After the long four-year study, Phong graduated the university in 2011. However, he could not find any job in his trained field. After a short time of working for a supermarket, he decided to go to HCM City in April 2013 to enroll in iSpace.

“My parents want me to have a university education. They don’t like vocational schools. However, this is what I want and I am happy about that,” he said.

There are a lot of students like Phong. They were studying at universities when they suddenly realized that the training majors did not fit them and decided to give up studying.

After two years of studying geology at the HCM City National University, Le Thi Nhung from Khanh Hoa province felt disappointed about the major and decided to leave the school.

Nhung is now a student of the graphics faculty of a vocational school.

According to Tran Anh Tuan, Deputy Director of the HCM City Human Resource Forecasting and Labor Market Information Center (Falmi), about 1 million students attend the national university entrance exams every year. Of these, only 400,000 pass the exams to be able to study at universities, while 370,000 go to vocational schools and the other 1/3 of students continue reviewing for their next year’s exams.

The majority of students said their top priority choices are the “hot” training majors which can bring big job opportunities, not the majors they like. This explains why a lot of students feel tired of their studies.

A recent Falmi’s survey showed that 75 percent of students don’t have any information about the training majors they follow.

“Who to contact to get advice?”

This was the question raised by the 12th graders of the Thanh Binh High School in HCM City at an excursion to the HCM City Agriculture and Forestry.

The students said they did not know where to seek information about training majors and who they should contact to get career advices.

The Ministry of Education and Training has many times requested schools to pay higher attention to giving career guidance to students. High schools have been bringing their students to businesses, production workshops where they can learn more about the jobs. However, as the schools admit, the excursions require big budgets.

K. Chi