Proposal to add vocational high school type

The draft revised Lawon Education establishes vocational education as a level of the national education system consisting of two levels: vocational secondary school and college. In this level, learners are trained at three levels: elementary, intermediate and college.

The Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges disagrees and believes that the concept of "vocational education as a level of the national education system" is unreasonable. The reason is that many countries in the world do not consider vocational education as a level of education but as a parallel training direction.

"International organizations such as UNESCO and OECD also consider vocational education as a branch in the training system," the proposal stated.

Furthermore, vocational education has not been clearly adjusted to be compatible with the 2018 education program, which is reflected in the lack of synchronization and connectivity in career orientation, causing certain obstacles to the learning and development process of post-secondary learners.

In the document proposing new adjustments and feasibility in the structure of the national education system, the Association put forward three main points.

Firstly, vocational education is a training stream parallel to other levels of education.

Second, bring formal college training into the university education system.

Third, bring vocational high schools into general education.

Vocational high school is a type of school at the high school level with the goal of educating students with both high school qualifications and vocational knowledge and skills so that they can continue their studies at higher levels such as colleges, universities or participate in the labor market.

Explaining this proposal, the Association's document stated that integrating college level into university education levels is a reasonable trend, ensuring connectivity in training, bringing many benefits to learners in particular and society in general.

As colleges belong to the levels of higher education, the training program will be designed with a unified mindset from the beginning, helping college students easily study at university without encountering any barriers to the training program.

Regarding the proposal to add vocational high schools, the Association proposed converting some high schools in localities according to regions to both ensure the strategy of developing general education and ensure the policy of streamlining the apparatus and staff.

The association explains that the benefit of vocational high schools is to meet the needs of the labor market. The industries that are currently in great demand, especially the labor force in large industrial zones with unskilled labor, and vocational high schools help students easily join the labor force after graduation.

Students can choose a clearer path. With knowledge and professional skills, students can easily choose between continuing their studies or starting a career right away.

The model of the national education system from 2026 proposed by the Association of Vietnamese Universities and Colleges is specifically as follows: