The Role of Information Communication Technology in Technical and Vocational Education and Training in the 21st Century - Vietnam: A Case Study
Abstract:
Vietnam is a developing country, still listed among poorest countries in the world, with a total land area of only approximately 330.000 sqkm ( 1/30 in comparison with Canada ) but the population is around 80 millions ( 4 times that of Canada ).Vietnam has many natural resources of minerals and oil, a well-developed agriculture and more than 2500km of seashore with excellent harborages in the middle of many important international sea routes and many auspicious famous tourist sights.Those natural resources and geographic situations were favorable conditions, which have been implicating the continual and stable socio-economical development (with a high annual increasing rate 7-9% per year) during the last 15 years. Besides, the most important potential for developing of Vietnam is its manpower resource with millions and millions of laborious and intelligent people with their precious tradition of overcoming all difficulties and barriers.
However due to the heavy consequences of a 30 years long war time (1945-1975) and 15 years of an economic embargo, the biggest gap of this human resource is the shortcoming of knowledge, know-how and skill training which limited their capacity and possibility on the way of the economic development and of the integration of Vietnam into the international community in the region and in all the world as well.
Training skilled man power, formation of a high qualified human resource is of vital importance for the existence and development of Vietnam at this new era.
In Part I of the paper the authors presented the current situation of manpower training in Vietnam, especially in the area of Technical and Vocational Training ( TVET ) and have
analyzed for showing that the traditional modes of TVET could not cope with the fast growing demand of the nation in these present and coming periods.Part II was reserved for a survey of Distance Education and Training in Vietnam during the last 10 years ( 1991-2000 ) and its contribution in the area of TVET development.
Part III was the principal component of the paper, in which the authors mentioned about Needs and Perspectives of the applications of Information Communication Technology ( ICT ) in Distance Education and Training, namely in TVET, analyzed and underlined all difficulties for a poor developing country as Vietnam in this process and espescially presented some directions and some possible measures for overcoming these difficulties . The realization of these irectives and measures were illustrated by the resuts obtained during the last 10 years in Vietnam with Hanoi State Open University as a case study.
For conclusion, the authors mentioned about the prospect of the development of ICT applications in TVET in Vietnam in the coming period 2001-2010 and also raised some proposal about necessary and possible international and/or regional co-operation in this area.
Author:
Thai Thanh Son
Thai Thanh Tung