There will be outstanding incentive policies to attract STEM students.

There are very broad and outstanding incentive policies to attract STEM students, according to Deputy Minister of Education and Training Pham Ngoc Thuong at the regular Government Press Conference for June 2025, held on the afternoon of July 3.

According to the Deputy Minister, improving people's knowledge, training human resources, and nurturing talents are the tasks and goals of the education sector. Over the past many years, in building programs from general education to university and postgraduate education, the Ministry of Education and Training has paid great attention to STEM subjects, including science, engineering, technology, and mathematics.

With the strong development of science and technology, in the period of bringing our country into a new era, an era of growth, requiring high-quality human resources, especially in science and technology, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, with the capacity to carry out large projects and international cooperation, the Ministry of Education and Training, under the strong direction of the Prime Minister, has had many advisory contents.

On April 25, 2025, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 1002 on training human resources for technology development in the 2025-2035 period, with a vision to 2045, with two general goals and four key task groups.

This is the basis for us to implement the next steps. Regarding the scale of training high-quality human resources, according to Deputy Minister Pham Ngoc Thuong, up to now, 90% of higher education institutions have participated in training STEM majors such as science, technology, and mathematics to serve the above goals. The scale of regular training in 2024 alone will increase by about 10.6%, equivalent to 60,000 students.

The total number of new students recruited in 2024 is 218,000, accounting for 36% of the total number of students nationwide. The trend of studying these majors and fields has increased significantly and the growth rate is higher than many previous years.

Regarding the scale of postgraduate education, in 2024, the number of students in STEM majors will continue to increase sharply. Master's degrees will increase by 34%, reaching nearly 20,000. Doctoral degrees will increase by 33% with nearly 4,000 postgraduate students, an increase of nearly 600 postgraduate students compared to 2023. "This is a trend, showing a very encouraging signal in training high-quality human resources," said the Deputy Minister of Education and Training.

Despite this increase, according to the Deputy Minister, the rate of people studying STEM in Vietnam is still low. Up to now, we are only approaching about 27-31%, while Singapore is 46%, Malaysia is 50%, Korea is 33%, Germany is 39%... "The higher this rate is in developed countries, showing that our needs must increase in both scale and quantity, at a faster rate."

Regarding the training of human resources for semiconductor microchips, Deputy Minister Pham Ngoc Thuong said that the Prime Minister has approved the Program for human resource development in the semiconductor industry until 2030, with a vision to 2050, with the goal of training at least 50,000 engineers to serve the semiconductor industry by 2030 and having a strong enough human resource by 2050 to participate in the global high-value semiconductor industry chain.

In the 2024-2025 school year, we will have about 19,000 students enrolled in majors related to the semiconductor field, accounting for about 10% of students studying STEM. There are 166 training institutions specializing in semiconductor-related majors, of which 97 directly train in these majors.

To ensure quality, the Ministry of Education and Training has developed program standards and established an Expert Council to evaluate this program. Currently, there are 30 training programs announced with 8 higher education training institutions.

He also said that the Ministry of Education and Training is developing a Decree on scholarship policies for students in STEM fields and has consulted with ministries and branches. It is expected that this July it will submit to the Prime Minister on granting scholarships and attractive tuition fees for students and postgraduates. The Ministry has coordinated with the Ministry of Finance to develop a decision of the Prime Minister on credit policies for students.

"There are certainly very broad and outstanding incentives to attract students, especially upon graduation and output, so that students - future human resources - can fully develop their capacity and professional qualifications that have been trained," Mr. Thuong affirmed./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/se-co-chinh-sach-uu-dai-noi-troi-de-thu-hut-nguoi-hoc-nganh-stem-post1047855.vnp