He is typical of a segment of today’s youth who, although they have expertise, lack other skills. Perhaps this is also the reason why some students study well, graduate with honors but still struggle to find a job. Regardless of the training and whether the grades are real or not, there is a difference between school and life. Some experts say that difference is reflected in what students rarely learn: soft skills.
A survey conducted by the regional social change and research organization Love Frankie and the research company Indochina Research Ltd shows that many young Vietnamese people lack important skills such as communication, creativity, teamwork, etc.
According to the survey, formaleducation does not seem to provide the full and necessary skill set for young people to be employable. When asked about the three most important skills for the workplace, survey participants chose communication skills (78%), along with other soft skills such as creativity (48%), teamwork (35%), time management (21%), analytical thinking (21%) and interpersonal skills, the ability to work well with others (21%). “Communication skills are important but no school teaches them,” a teenager aged 16-19 in Hanoi told the survey.
Lack of soft skills is an issue that many employers raise at job fairs. They believe that Vietnamese youth today have knowledge and expertise, but those things only determine 25% of success, the remaining 75% is determined by soft skills.
According to a scholar of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences , traditional education in Vietnam focuses on equipping students with classical knowledge and educating them in ethics and behavior so that they can improve their personality and contribute to society. However, this doctor believes that modern education is not only about systematically enriching knowledge but also creating the need and capacity for lifelong self-study, along with equipping them with life skills and perfecting personal ethics.
According to him, Vietnamese students are good in the sense that they have to focus too much on a certain topic or subject. The good thing about this is that if students are talented, that talent will be pushed to the limit, even to the maximum. But the bad thing is that it turns students into individuals who only know that they need to be good at studying, and that being bad at other things is no problem.
The above opinions show that the lack of soft skills is the result of a theoretical education system. Programs focus on professional knowledge, with little attention paid to soft skills such as communication, teamwork, and critical thinking.
Meanwhile, the learning environment has not created opportunities to practice soft skills, specifically there are few extracurricular activities, clubs, volunteer programs... Pressure on grades and high results makes students spend a lot of time studying theory, less time practicing soft skills...
Learning words, knowledge or learning soft skills, in the end, are all about learning to be human. Knowledge, experience and soft skills combined help people believe in themselves, dare to accept challenges and overcome difficulties in life, be flexible in all situations, easily integrate into new environments and succeed in life.
Therefore, promoting training and equipping soft skills for young people is something that the education sector and relevant agencies need to focus on.
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