TT - Vietnam's human resources strategy for the 2011-2020 period sets out key targets for highly qualified human resources in breakthrough fields such as state management, policy making and international law; university and college lecturers; science - technology; medicine, health care; finance - banking; information technology...

Top 6 majors with many candidates taking the exam in 2013 - Graphics: V.Cuong - Photo: Nhu Hung

Through the actual selection of majors, comparing with Vietnam's human resources planning until 2020, to increase career development opportunities, contribute to the demand for human resources in breakthrough fields, candidates need to be more careful in choosing majors to take the exam.

Choosing a major during the economic crisis

Since 2013, the Ministry of Education and Training has officially reduced the enrollment quota for economics, management, etc. The standardization of the enrollment list along with the list of training majors, and many universities continue to add the A1 exam block, helping candidates have more opportunities to choose their majors. The trend of choosing majors has changed, but in general, the business major group continues to be the major group with the most candidates.

The trend of avoiding majors with a high number of candidates registering for the exam last year continues to occur in many major groups, leading to majors in 2012 with a lower number of candidates registering for the exam compared to 2011, but in 2013, it increased. Specifically, the teacher training major group increased by 2.05%, the medical major group increased by 1.24%, the construction major group increased by 0.34%, and the foreign language and culture major group increased by 2.43%.

The registration rate has decreased sharply in the groups of economics, business, accounting - auditing, finance - banking - insurance, in which the finance - banking - insurance group has decreased sharply from 8.9% (3rd place in 2010) to 2.64% (13th place in 2013), the economics group from 3.3% (9th place in 2009) to 1.77% (19th place) in 2013, showing that the impact of the economic crisis and the forecast of human resource demand have affected the trend of candidates choosing their majors.

The groups of majors that tend to rise in popularity according to the requirements of the economy, increasing gradually from 2010 to present, such as the law group (from 2.8% in 2009 to 4.28% in 2013); food, beverage and food processing (from 2% in 2010 to 4.44% in 2013); information technology (from 3.5% in 2009 to 4.18% in 2013); mechanical engineering technology (from 1.8% in 2009 to 3.07% in 2013); electrical, electronic and telecommunications engineering technology (from 2.5% in 2009 to 2.93% in 2013).

“Hot” industries with low scores

Similar to previous years, although there have been some changes in the number of candidates, industries with a large number of candidates often have average scores that are not really high. The reality of enrollment shows that the majors of business administration, accounting, food technology, information technology, environmental science, nursing, and primary education are in the top 20 majors attracting the most candidates among nearly 300 majors with enrollment. However, the average score of candidates in these majors is only after 100, such as business administration with an average score of 134, accounting 137, information technology 154, food technology 149... The explanation for this is that candidates may choose majors beyond their learning ability.

In addition to majors with a sharp decrease in registration rates (business administration, accounting...), majors in the food processing group have tended to increase steadily from 2010 to present, including food technology, information technology, general medicine, and primary education.

High demand for human resources

Vietnam's human resource development plan for the period 2011-2020 aims to rapidly increase the proportion of trained human resources in the economy in different forms and levels from 40% in 2010 to 70% in 2020, in which the proportion of trained human resources in the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector will increase from 15.5% to 50%, the industry sector from 78% to 92%, the construction sector from 41% to 56%, and the service sector from 67% to 88%.

The integration period will open up many job opportunities with higher requirements for workers. Sectors such as business, economics, law, environment, urban... still tend to develop in the future with higher recruitment criteria, requiring job applicants to have many other skills in addition to professional knowledge such as communication and computer skills, teamwork skills, reporting skills...

With the orientation of creating human resources suitable for economic restructuring, the management - business sector is still attracting a large number of candidates. In a skill-based economy, any major can help learners prepare for a number of different careers. With the same major having many training institutions, creating a picture of competition in training, besides good communication work, the problem for the institutions is how to create training products with the school's own identity, quickly adapting to the integration trend, to the skill-based economy.

Therefore, candidates need to consider their academic ability, refer to the entrance exam results of previous years, and carefully study the human resource orientation of each locality to choose a suitable major

Dr. LE THI THANH MAI
Source: tuoitre.vn