Parental Perspectives towards the Vocational Education Training Sector in Vietnam

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to explore the parental perspectives of the vocational education and training (VET) sector in Vietnam. The data were collected from 32 parents in the Northern and Southern regions using six open-ended interview questions focussing on the vocational education training system. Several techniques, namely word repetitions, keywords in context, and similarities and differences were applied to discover the common emerging themes and sub-themes. The issues which corresponded with the six questions were (1) quality and types of VET input, (2) VET teachers’ ability, (3) facilities and equipment, (4) the relationship between VET providers and industries, (5) recognition of VET qualifications and (6) job potential. The results indicated two main positive and negative themes emerging in five of the issues, the exception being the relationship between VET providers and industries. The issue of job potential was evaluated positively by parents. However, the findings indicate wastage of trained manpower due to the weak relationship between VET providers and industries. The recommendations are that Government agencies should be more involved in the VET sector by providing teaching protocols and implementing policy concerning two-way collaboration between VET providers and enterprises, making the sector more attractive to parents, students, industries and other key stakeholders with the primary aim of changing perceptions of the VET sector positively.

A Mixed Method Approach Enabling the Triangulation Technique: Case Study in Vietnam

“…With the open-ended interview method, there is opportunity for exploration of parental perspectives of the VET sector as well. In the Vietnamese context, parents have been seen as the most important people in influencing the career choice of their children (Dang, 2015). This method is one of the most important techniques for collecting data because it enables the researcher to delve deeply into the opinions and perceptions of the interviewee and elicit much valuable information (Creswell, 2002).…”

“…The findings from the open-ended interview questions also indicated that parents had both negative and positive perceptions of the VET sector, but leaned towards the negative side (Dang, 2015). Parents were also concerned that at the time of the interviews, there was a weak relationship between VET providers and industries and that this was the main problem impacting on the quality of VET programs.…”

“…The purpose of this design was to provide the interviewed parents with a wide spectrum of features of the VET sector in order to explore their perceptions more broadly. The reason parents were invited to participate the open-ended was that parents are, in the Vietnamese context, seen as the most important people in guiding and financially supporting the career choice and further study of their children (Dang, 2015). There were two primary considerations in selecting open-ended interview questions as the means of data collection in this study.…”

Using the Nominal Group Technique to Explore Key Stakeholders’ Perceptions towards Vocational Education Training in Vietnam

“…If they understood these situations, they would see that vocational education may be an attractive way for them to reduce their financial stress and be able to enter the labour market earlier. Thirdly, the labour market information system is poor, not transparency and not regularly updated, whereas the employment potential for VET graduates is positive (Dang, 2015). Lastly, the diversity of the upper secondary school such as public high schools, semi-public high schools and continuing education centres make the implementation of streaming policy difficulty (Bui, 2014).…”

“…The findings revealed that the issue of job potential was evaluated positively by parents' viewpoints. However, it pointed out that there was wastage of trained manpower due to the weak and fragile relationship between VET providers and industries (Dang, 2015). The third phase (this study) used the nominal group technique (NGT) approach to unpack key stakeholders' perceptions towards VET sector to find out the factors impact the quality of VET programs.…”