Decision No. 579/QD-TTg Approves the Strategy for Human Resource Development in Vietnam for the Period 2011-2020

Pursuant to …;

Approving the Strategy for Human Resource Development in Vietnam during the Period 2011-2020

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PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the Law on Organization of the Government dated December 25, 2001;

Pursuant to the Education Law dated June 14, 2005 and the Law amending and supplementing certain articles of the Education Law dated November 25, 2009;

Pursuant to the Vocational Training Law dated November 29, 2006;

Considering the proposal of the Minister of Planning and Investment at the report No. 6655/TTr-BKH dated September 21, 2010 on the approval of the Strategy for Human Resource Development in Vietnam during the Period 2011-2020,

DECISION:

Article 1. Approves the Strategy for Human Resource Development in Vietnam during the Period 2011-2020 with the following contents:

I. OBJECTIVES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES IN VIETNAM DURING THE PERIOD 2011-2020

1. General Objective

The general objective of human resource development in Vietnam during the period 2011-2020 is to make human resources in Vietnam become the most important foundation and advantage for sustainable national development, international integration, and social stability, raising the competitiveness level of human resources in the country to be equivalent to those of advanced countries in the region, with some aspects approaching the levels of developed countries worldwide.

2. Specific objectives

Specific goals to be achieved include:

- Vietnamese human resources having good physical fitness, robust stature, comprehensive development in intelligence, willpower, capability, and morality, possessing self-learning and training abilities, being dynamic, proactive, self-reliant, creative, having high professional knowledge and skills, and being able to adapt quickly and take the initiative in living and working environments.

- Professional administrative human resources meeting the requirements of a socialist rule-of-law state in an integrated and rapidly changing world;

- Building a team of scientific and technological human resources, particularly leading experts with professional expertise equivalent to that of advanced countries in the region, capable of researching, receiving, transferring, and proposing scientific and technological solutions to address fundamental issues of national development and integrate with global trends in natural sciences, social sciences, and technology;

- Building a team of business leaders and management professionals with strong resolve, proficient in domestic and international business operations, ensuring that Vietnamese enterprises and the economy have high competitiveness in the global economy;

- Vietnamese human resources possessing all necessary factors regarding occupational attitudes, having the ability to interact (professional ethics, vocational conscience, work style, labor discipline, cooperative spirit, sense of responsibility, civic awareness...), and being highly dynamic and self-reliant, meeting the requirements set for workers in an industrial society;

- Through the planning for human resource development in Vietnam during the period 2011-2020, building a Vietnamese human resource structure with reasonable levels, professions, and regional distribution. Alongside focusing on developing high-level human resources reaching international standards, strengthening the development of human resources at various levels to meet the requirements of regional and local development;

- Building a learning society, ensuring equal opportunities for all Vietnamese citizens in education and training, achieving the goal: Learning to be a Vietnamese person in the era of integration; learning to acquire skills and secure effective employment; learning to bring happiness to oneself and others; learning to contribute to the development of the nation and humanity;

- Establishing a modern, diverse, and dynamic system of educational institutions with synchronized structures across different levels and fields both domestically and internationally, widely distributed throughout the country, contributing to the formation of a learning society and meeting the lifelong learning needs of the people.

3. SPECIFIC INDICATORS

Striving to achieve certain key indicators for human resource development by 2020 as follows:

Key Indicators for Human Resource Development during the Period 2011-2020

II. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR IMPLEMENTING THE OBJECTIVES OF HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT DURING THE PERIOD 2011-2020

The guiding principles for implementing the objectives of human resource development in Vietnam during the period 2011-2020 are:

1. Developing human resources based on the Strategy for Economic and Social Development during the Period 2011-2020, emphasizing the decisive role of human factors, and making human resource development a breakthrough to successfully implement the Strategy for Economic and Social Development.

2. Human resource development must be based on the demand for human resources in various sectors and regions. Therefore, it is necessary to plan the development of human resources in various sectors and regions during the period 2011-2020, creating a basis to ensure balanced human resources for economic and social development in regions and the country.

3. Comprehensive human resource development includes physical fitness, knowledge, skills, behavior, and political and social consciousness according to the requirements of comprehensive human development and sustainable national development. Human resource development must focus on key areas, prioritizing the development of talent and building teams of leading experts. In each specific period, according to the requirements of domestic economic and social development and the characteristics of the international context, it is necessary to concentrate on solving critical issues that have a decisive impact on human resource development and economic and social development.

4. The approach to human resources must ensure contemporaneity. The knowledge and skill levels of Vietnamese human resources must reach the standards of advanced countries in the region, with some aspects approaching the standards of advanced countries worldwide.

5. Human resource development must harmonize fairness and national interests with the use of market mechanisms and tools in the development and utilization of human resources. Particularly, the human resource training system must be quickly transformed into operating according to societal and labor market demands, especially in key fields.

6. Human resource development is a mission and a responsibility of the entire society. Promote socialization in education, healthcare, culture, and sports and physical training fields. The State performs macro-management functions, provides guidance, and leads through a legal framework and policies to encourage human resource development, implements universal compulsory education programs, supports the nurturing and development of talent, and ensures social equity in human resource development, supports the development of specific human resource groups, especially for social policy beneficiaries, ethnic minorities, and vulnerable community groups (disabled persons, the poor, near-poor individuals, farmers transitioning to new jobs, etc.). Each citizen and every economic and social organization has the responsibility to actively participate in human resource development. Attract enterprises to strongly participate in human resource development.

7. Strengthen and expand international cooperation for human resource development, with a focus on prioritizing the construction of training institutions reaching international standards and the training of leading experts and high-level human resource groups in key industries to the level of advanced countries.

III. SOLUTIONS FOR HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT

1. Breakthrough solutions

a) Reforming perceptions about human resource development and utilization:

- Firmly grasp the view that people are the foundation and the most decisive factor in sustainable economic and social development, ensuring national security and defense, and the prosperity of each unit and organization. Create strong changes in human resources at all levels of leadership from central to local levels and among the people regarding the need for thorough and revolutionary reform in state management of education and training, building a learning society; the necessity to improve the quality of the population, ensure nutrition, and provide comprehensive health care; the need to increase income and improve working conditions.

- Each ministry, sector, and locality must develop a coordinated human resource development plan with their overall strategic and planning goals. Enterprises and organizations must have human resource development plans.

- The evaluation and remuneration of human resources must be based on actual capability and work results and effectiveness. Overcome the mentality and phenomenon of excessively valuing formal qualifications in recruitment and human resource assessment.

- Human resource training must align with societal needs and labor market demands. Along with the human resource development plans of ministries, sectors, and localities, and the state's investment and encouraging policies, widely and effectively utilize market economy mechanisms to expand the scale, adjust the structure of training professions, enhance the quality of human resources, and mobilize capital for human resource training development.

b) Fundamental reform in state management of human resource development and utilization

- Human resource development planning is a critical task for ministries, sectors, and provinces/cities to ensure a balanced labor supply for the development of industries and localities. When setting economic and social development goals for localities, alongside balancing capital, land, and energy, human resource balance plays a decisive role in attracting investment and ensuring development effectiveness. For the national level and localities, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and local Planning and Investment Departments are the permanent agencies responsible for developing and supervising the implementation of national and local human resource development plans. For sectors, ministries are the agencies responsible for developing sectoral human resource development plans and coordinating with other ministries, sectors, and localities to implement these plans.

- Fundamentally reform the state management mechanism for educational and training institutions towards: completing state management regulations on the establishment conditions and general standards of operation for educational institutions; on evaluating the quality of educational institutions; on the content and responsibilities of state management of education by the Government, ministries, and local People's Committees; developing policies for education and training in difficult regions, for children of ethnic minorities, and encouraging the development of talent ...

- Establish criteria for human resource development and innovation at the local and national levels. Annually evaluate and publish human resource development according to these criteria.

- Promote decentralization, implement autonomy rights, and self-responsibility obligations of training institutions based on state management and social supervision. Encourage healthy competition to shift the training system towards operating under a demand-driven training mechanism, rapidly expanding the scale and improving the quality of training.

- Develop regulations, mechanisms, and policies to promote training according to societal needs, linking training institutions with enterprises, expanding training forms based on enterprise orders, and increasing enterprise participation in human resource training (contributing training funds, organizing training within enterprises, investing in enterprise training facilities, etc.). Institutionalize the responsibility of enterprises for national human resource development.

c) Focus on building and implementing key programs and projects as follows:

- Construct some higher education and vocational training institutions reaching international standards to provide high-level human resources for the education, training, scientific research systems, and the country's economic and social development needs.

- Reform training and cadre utilization policies including: applying advanced and modern civil servant training programs according to administrative management criteria and standards of socialist rule-of-law states; establishing a cadre position system with clear and specific regulations on authority, functions, and responsibilities tied to duties, benefits, and strengthening public service ethics, discipline, and work rules; implementing salary budgeting and civil service pay system reforms to ensure civil servants can live comfortably on their salaries and gradually accumulate savings; organizing entrance exams for mid-level and lower leadership positions ...

- Establish and implement a training program and talent utilization policy in various fields, particularly focusing on forming and developing leading expert teams in administrative management, diplomacy and foreign economic relations, business administration, education and training, science and technology, policy advisory, legal affairs, medicine, culture, and arts.

- Implement the project to improve the quality and effectiveness of foreign language teaching, especially English.

- Vigorously implement the project "Bringing Vietnam to become a strong country in information and communication technology" where developing and ensuring human resources is the top solution.

- Rapidly reduce the rate of child malnutrition, with a focus on school nutrition projects combined with enhanced physical education and sports activities in schools. Implement the Comprehensive Program to Enhance Physical Fitness and Stature of Vietnamese People for the period 2011-2025.

2. Other solutions

a) Establish and implement the Education Development Strategy and the Vocational Training Development Strategy for the period 2011-2020.

The Education Development Strategy and the Vocational Training Development Strategy must reflect the fundamental and comprehensive educational reform requirements according to societal development needs; improving training quality based on standardization, modernization, socialization, democratization, and international integration, serving effectively the cause of national construction and defense. Reforming the educational management mechanism is a breakthrough. Developing the teaching staff and educational management cadre is a central and continuous task.

- Focus on enhancing the quality of education and training, emphasizing moral education, lifestyle, independent working ability, creativity, practical skills, and entrepreneurial capability. Conduct educational quality assessment at all levels. Create a healthy educational environment, closely combining schools with families, the state, and society.

- Radically reform the content, curriculum, and teaching methods at all levels.

- Complete universal preschool education for five-year-olds (by 2015), expand early childhood education for younger age groups, especially after 2015. Increase the scale of secondary general education and vigorously develop vocational training, particularly in plains and mountainous provinces.

- Implement the Program for Strengthening and Standardizing School Facilities, Public Housing Programs, and Student Dormitories, basically completing it by 2020.

b) Train human resources in regions and special groups

- Strengthen and prioritize training human resources for ethnic minorities and extremely difficult regions through appropriate forms (continue the dispatch policy, integrate ethnic minority cadre training in the Cadre and Civil Servant Training Project at the grassroots level, health cadre training for communes, poverty reduction and agricultural extension projects...).

- Expand vocational training for policy beneficiaries, the poor, near-poor, and pay attention to suitable vocational training for disabled individuals.

c) Develop and promote the cultural values of the Vietnamese people.

- Continue to build and implement programs for preserving, developing, and promoting progressive traditional cultural values, creating spiritual strength for Vietnamese people in the context of international integration. Reform the form and content of moral and civic education in schools.

- Form mechanisms and programs for close cooperation between the education sector, culture, sports, the Communist Youth Union, the Vietnam Women's Union, and the Veterans' Association in moral and lifestyle education for students.

d) Reform human resource utilization policies

Reform human resource utilization policies based on legal regulations, contributions from workers, and market economy principles, consistent with the formation and development of the labor market, focusing on the following main contents:

- Develop the labor market, establish appropriate mechanisms and tools to utilize human resources effectively, creating motivation for the development of the workforce itself.

Establish a comprehensive employment utilization policy (expanding job opportunities, reducing unemployment, increasing labor time utilization, enhancing labor efficiency...);

Implement the right to self-management and decision-making and the responsibility to bear consequences for all enterprises and organizations under various economic sectors in managing and utilizing human resources according to legal provisions and market mechanisms;

Fundamentally and comprehensively reform the policy on human resource utilization in the public sector in line with market economy laws, from recruitment (organizing fair examinations and expanding recruitment targets through labor contracts), job allocation, wage payment, career advancement, and continuously improving working conditions and environments to create motivation, stimulate, and encourage creative and highly effective work;

Implement clear distinctions in the management and utilization of human resources between administrative agencies (state officials and civil servants) and public service units (civil servants). On this basis, accelerate the process of granting autonomy and responsibility to public service units in managing and utilizing human resources;

Establish regulations (mechanisms and policies) for assigning tasks through forms such as quotas, bidding, responsibility contracts, examinations... linked to incentives based on final results to encourage innovation, creativity, and national pride, honor talent, and those who have made significant contributions to the country;

Establish regulations (standards and procedures) for evaluating human resources based on actual capabilities, performance, productivity, and corresponding rewards according to skill levels and work results.

- Talent Utilization Policy

Industries and localities need to have talent development programs from identification, nurturing, training, to talent development.

Establishing and implementing special mechanisms and policies to create a working environment that encourages the full utilization of talent for the prosperity of the country (for both Vietnamese and foreigners);

d) Mobilizing resources for human resource development until 2020

- Increasing state investment in human resource development

State budget capital: ensuring that expenditure on education and training accounts for 20% of total state budget expenditure; maintaining an annual increase rate for state budget expenditure on healthcare and public health services higher than the overall increase rate of the state budget. Adjusting the structure of state budget expenditure towards enhancing the quality of universal education, implementing key human resource training programs, rapidly reducing the rate of child malnutrition, and nurturing and developing the population;

Continuing to issue government bonds to implement programs to strengthen infrastructure to improve the quality of universal education, modernize key training facilities and primary healthcare networks to enhance public health care and physical fitness;

Increasing the scale of student and trainee credit funds to meet the demand for human resource training and learning. Implementing preferential credit policies for key training and healthcare institutions according to incentive mechanisms and policies to encourage socialization;

- Promoting socialization to develop human resources, especially in training to accelerate human resource development according to societal needs;

Strengthening mobilization of corporate and organizational capital for human resource development: implementing preferential mechanisms and policies (including income tax incentives for businesses, support for land and preferential credit, and support for high-quality human resource training in key industries) to strongly encourage businesses to invest in human resource training through various forms such as ordering from training institutions, organizing training within enterprises, and establishing training institutions within enterprises to train human resources for their own use and for society;

Capital investment from the people (including community organizations and non-state social organizations): mobilizing people's capital for human resource development, including investment in training facilities, organizing scholarship funds, talent promotion funds, etc.;

Continuing to perfect tuition fee policies to reasonably mobilize contributions from the people for education and training while ensuring increasingly better equal educational opportunities for all; encouraging the development of talent;

- Strengthening attraction of foreign capital

Strengthening negotiations, advocacy, and promotion to attract foreign capital (including direct foreign investment, official development assistance, and funding from foreign individuals and organizations, remittances from overseas Vietnamese communities, etc.) for human resource development;

Concentrating foreign capital to build international-level universities, high-quality vocational training centers, and implement key human resource development projects at high levels, basic education, primary healthcare, prevention of child malnutrition, and specialized medical centers;

- Land policy for human resource development

Planning land use for education, training, and healthcare during the period of 2011-2020. Prioritizing land with favorable locations and sufficient area according to standard norms for constructing facilities serving human resource development (schools, hospitals, sports and cultural facilities, etc.);

The State implements preferential land policies (exemption or reduction of land rental fees, land use fees, support for land clearance, construction of external infrastructure, implementation of clean land transfer policies, etc.) for non-public education, training, healthcare, culture, and sports facilities in line with policies promoting socialization in these areas;

Encouraging and recognizing those individuals and organizations that donate land for constructing facilities serving human resource development (schools, hospitals, cultural activity centers, children's playgrounds, etc.);

e) Strengthening and expanding international cooperation

Strengthening and expanding international cooperation to accelerate human resource development, prioritizing the training of international-standard human resource teams and key industry personnel in new modern professions. Implementing international cooperation in human resource development mainly in the following directions:

- Joint human resource training: increasing the dispatch of Vietnamese to study abroad (using state budget funds, encouraging self-funded study abroad, encouraging domestic training institutions to expand cooperation and linkages with foreign training institutions and taking advantage of international aid sources) linked to improving efficiency and career orientation (focusing on new and modern fields and fields not yet trained domestically or where training exists but quality is low). At the same time, emphasizing domestic training using overseas resources (capital, technology, faculty, etc.) to quickly train international-standard human resource groups in the short term and establish modern training capacity at international standards domestically over the long term;

- Cooperation in specialized consultant training: through concentrated training and practical work, urgently training a team of consultants in policy planning, international law, international trade, finance, insurance, banking, urban planning, architects, chief engineers, design experts, construction supervisors, etc., reaching international standards;

- Cooperation in management specialist training: expanding international cooperation to train administrative management, business management, auditing, etc., personnel to meet the requirements of administrative reform and enhance enterprise competitiveness;

Article 2. Organizing the implementation of the Strategy

1. This Strategy is the national comprehensive strategy to guide and serve as the basis for the establishment, submission, review, and implementation of planning, programs, and projects for human resource development in sectors, specialties, organizations, and localities.

2. Ministries, sectors, localities, units, and organizations (agencies, enterprises...) shall base themselves on this Strategy to organize the construction of human resource development plans and projects within their respective areas of management; integrate the objectives, viewpoints, and solutions for human resource development from this Strategy into sectoral, local, and organizational plans and projects for human resource development; incorporate and concretize the Strategy into five-year and annual plans of sectors, localities, and organizations with goals and solutions closely aligned with the content of this Strategy.

3. The Ministry of Planning and Investment:

- Take the lead and coordinate with ministries, sectors, and localities to implement specific research to concretize and integrate the objectives, viewpoints, and solutions for human resource development into the Human Resource Development Plan for the period 2011-2020 and five-year and annual plans during the implementation of the Strategy.

- Take the lead and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to regularly evaluate and summarize annually the implementation situation of the Strategy, and report to the Prime Minister.

- Coordinate with the Ministry of Finance to mobilize and balance resources, especially investment capital for human resource development, focusing on key programs and projects for high-level human resource development, talent cultivation, building top-tier expert teams, and identifying projects to attract FDI and ODA for human resource development.

4. The Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs: have the responsibility to take the lead and coordinate with ministries, sectors, and localities to integrate the objectives and solutions of the Strategy into the Strategy for Educational Development and the Strategy for Vocational Training Development, the planning of university, college, and vocational school networks; develop and implement key human resource development programs and projects, focusing on measures to improve educational and training quality and link training with social needs; coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to regularly evaluate and summarize annually the implementation situation of the Strategy.

5. Ministries, sectors, provincial municipalities directly under the Central Government, units, and organizations shall base themselves on their functions, tasks, and human resource development requirements to implement activities to promote investment attraction and seek international support to assist in implementing the Strategy.

Article 3. This Decision takes effect from the date of issuance.

Article 4. Ministers, heads of agencies equivalent to ministries, heads of government agencies, Chairpersons of People's Committees of provincial municipalities directly under the Central Government, and heads of related agencies are responsible for enforcing this Decision.