Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - More than 120 participants, including international and localresearchers, policymakers and experts, discussed human resource development atan international conference that opened on in Hanoi on November 6.

The four-day event isbeing organised by the Foreign Trade University (FTU) in collaboration with theAcademy of Human Resource Development and Viettel Academy for the first time inVietnam.

Speaking at the event,FTU President Bui Anh Tuan said the Fourth Industrial Revolution anddigitalisation changed the way the Government, organisations and businesses in Vietnamwork with human resource development.

“Increasingglobalisation, international integration and especially ever fastertechnological evolution, however, have changed the roles of human resources.They have also required us to change our approaches, strategies, andmethodologies to develop human resources from fundamental to more innovativeones,” said Tuan.

“One of the bigchallenges for Vietnam’s development in the coming years is the issue ofincreasing labour productivity,” said Director of the Education and TrainingMinistry’s Higher Education Department Nguyen Thi Kim Phung at the event.

“Improving and promotinglabour productivity, speeding up the country’s process of industrialisation andmodernisation and minimising the development gap with other countries in theregion are a key task for Vietnam to ensure the goal of fast and sustainabledevelopment,” stressed Phung.

Phung said that therewas still big gap in labour productivity between Vietnam and other ASEANcountries due to slow process of labour restructuring science, levels of thecountry’s science and technology, reform and innovation are low, or limitsexist in human resource management and quality.

“Reforming highereducation is considered one of the key solutions to develop high-quality humanresources to meet the needs of rapid and sustainable development in Vietnam,”she said.

Phung said Vietnam hastaken various measures in reforming higher education, such as the revised lawon higher education, and developing the Overall Strategy for higher educationdevelopment of Vietnam in the period 2021-2030.

Priorities are alsogiven to train teachers and improve capacity of lecturers and managers ofhigher education institutions to meet the requirements of fundamentalinnovation, to increase investment and attract new resources for highereducation development and create a mechanism to strengthen internationalisationof higher education for integration and development following internationalstandards.

With the theme"Human Resource Development: Innovation and Evolution in the Digital Era,"this is also the first time the conference focuses on traditional issues inhuman resource development connected to innovation in the context ofdigitalisation.

During the event,participants will focus discussions on many topics related to human resourcedevelopment (HRD), including HRD and sustainable development; leadershipdevelopment; corporate social responsibility and ethics in HRD; and emergingissues and innovations in HRD.

Participants said thathuman resource development at both national and firm levels was of urgent needin the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as it determinesproductivity, competitiveness, and ultimately sustainable development ofnations and businesses. 

According to statisticsfrom the General Statistics Office and Ministry of Labour, War Invalids andSocial Affairs, there are still about 125,000 to 135,000 unemployed labourersout of 5 million workers with university degrees, accounting for about 2.2 to2.5 percent of total university-level workers. In particular, limitedprofessional and foreign language skills are the main causes leading to theunemployment of university-level workers./.