HOME > Seminar reports > Cooperate Management > Nurturing human-resource development for manufacturing in Vietnam by utilizing experiences from Osaka Prefecture (2014-)

Nurturing human-resource development for manufacturing in Vietnam by utilizing experiences from Osaka Prefecture (2014-)

The Human Resource Development Program for Manufacturing in Dong Nai Province, Vietnam, began in fiscal 2014, through a tie-up with Osaka Prefecture. The project will continue for three years. The program is progressing between the Japan side and people involved with Dong Nai Province with specialists being dispatched and seminars in Japan. In addition, information is shared and confirmed via the Internet. The aim is to improve educational curriculum to reflect the needs of Japanese companies involved in Vietnam and to reinforce the abilities of instructors tasked with leadership, with two vocational training schools in Dong Nai Province serving as model schools.

Solving the human resources problem of SMEs expanding in Dong Nai Province

Securing and training human resources have become issues for SMEs from Kansai that are expanding in Vietnam. Thus our program aims during its 3-year period to make curriculums for human-resource development meet the needs of Japanese companies expanding in local areas, to transplant human-resource development methods for manufacturing, prevailing at the technical schools and vocational high schools of technology in Osaka Prefecture, to Vietnamese vocational training schools, and to build relations between companies and educational institutions to enable the needs of Japanese companies expanding locally to be reflected continuously at human-resource development sites.

Specifically, this means turning two of Dong Nai’s educational institutions (Lac Hong University and Long Than Nhon Trach Vocational Training College) into model schools. Along with:

  • lectures by corporate managers and factory field trips;
  • tackling 3S and 5S;
  • safety education
  • implementing the necessary amount of Japanese language as an educational curriculum, the program aims to nurture human resources who have mastered a practical form of “basic abilities for on-site production” with the setting up of a “mock production location” and “safety experience room.”

Building ties with Japanese companies setting up in Dong Nai Province will be indispensable to move the program forward. In addition, after the end of the three-year program, a “project promotion committee” will be established, along with listening to feedback from the Japanese companies and improving curriculum. The committee is to continue maintaining ties between the educational institutions and Japanese companies so that the students can be hired by the companies locally after their education at the model schools finishes. The committee will comprise Japanese companies that have come to Dong Nai Province and are willing to cooperate in the program; the Dong Nai Industrial Zones Authority (DIZA), which is our counterpart from the Dong Nai Province; the two model schools along with specialists from Japan; and PREX. It will serve as a forum where Japanese SMEs in manufacturing can continue to be involved in the application and improvement to the curriculum.

Cooperation from Osaka Prefecture, and trustworthy specialists from every area From the time of the proposal stage, Makoto Ryoke, then Counselor at the Manufacturing Support Division of the Osaka Prefectural government, offered us a great deal of expertise and networks, from the viewpoint of what could be done for SMEs in Kansai setting up in Dong Nai Province. DIZA and everyone at the model schools on the Vietnamese side and the specialists on the Japanese side were also highly stimulated by Mr. Ryoke.

In addition, Mr. Doi of the Osaka Prefectural Technical High School and Mr. Kimura of the Yodogawa Technical High School kindly provided us with a forum for exchanges between the schools in Vietnam and Osaka Prefecture, along with introducing a human resource development structure that supports Japanese manufacturing to the model schools in Dong Nai Province. Furthermore, Mr. Mori, a specialist who never fails to provide reassurance and who pushed forward program at Hanoi University of Science and Technology to foster engineers, joined us from this year. Together with Mr. Mori, we are promoting a concrete curriculum through the reinforcement of ties among the three parties of the Japanese companies, the educational institutions and DIZA.

Emiko Setoguchi, International Department