Statistics Sector Needs High-quality Human Resources

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Van Trung, said the statistics sector of Vietnam has changed for better to serve higher requirements of statistical information as well as meet the needs of people in the country and abroad. However, he said that when Vietnam is integrating more deeply into an open world, the Government and its agencies will have higher demand for the use of statistical data to formulate, monitor and assess policies at both macro and micro levels. In addition, businesses need statistical data every day to adjust their operations and work out appropriate production and business strategies and plans. Researchers and policymakers cannot analyse, assess and forecast Vietnam's social and economic prospects without trustful and timely statistical information.

 

Therefore, Vietnam badly needs knowledgeable and skilful people to do this work and needs to further enhance professional qualifications of statistics officers. In addition, the capacity building and level lifting of statistics officers are defined as one of the top priorities for the successful implementation of Vietnam Statistical Development Strategy in 2011 - 2020 period, with a vision to 2030. "One of the solutions to improve the capacity and qualifications of statistics personnel is to enhance the quality of statistics education at universities and integrate statistics training units and employers," he added.

 

In fact, in Vietnam, statistics work is not properly cared. There are a lot of gaps in in-depth expertise of statistic officers while training lacks necessary practical knowledge. According to statistics, statistical subjects are being taught in many universities but only five units have specialised statistical training. The Hanoi-based University of National Economics is currently the No. 1 statistic trainer in Vietnam in both trainees and levels of training. International experience shows that statistics is an important subject as it is the supporting foundation for other subjects. Meanwhile, this subject is not compulsory in many universities in Vietnam. Inadequate training framework and contents are the main obstacle to student enrolments.

 

From the perspective of an employer of highly qualified statistics personnel, Mr Nguyen Tri Duy, Deputy Director of the Personnel Organisation Bureau of the General Statistics Office (GSO), said that, in the past 11 years, although the number of personnel at GSO has been on the rise, employees with professional statistics training however dropped from 47 percent to 37 percent. "This fact reveals professional staff at statistical agencies is short and that career opportunities at statistic agencies are unattractive to graduated students," he added.

 

Although the statistics sector falls short of staff, training quota concerning this major are limited. Professor Phan Cong Nghia, Vice Rector of National University of Economics, said: As a rule, statistics training must be based on the demand of statistical agencies and enterprises but universities do not have specialised facilities to meet this requirement. As a result, there is a certain difference in training and market demand. On the other hand, students also lack interest in this subject, evidenced by lower entrance score of this subject than others in the same school. They are not interested in a subject that career opportunities are fewer than others.

 

Mr Nguyen Bich Lam, Director of GSO, said most universities are training according to what they have, not to what the society actually needs. In addition, recruitments at GSO still have a lot of drawbacks; thus, it has not placed any order for trainees with any university.

 

Regarding solutions to statistical personnel quality improvement, he opined that Vietnam needs to upgrade Statistics Colleges to Statistics University. This is entirely consistent with the objectives the Government states in the Action Plan for Statistics Branches, including the upgrading of Statistics Colleges to Statistics University. Then, the Statistics University must have training goals and methodologies and focus practical statistics training, not biased to theoretical studies as in other universities. The University also retrains statistics personnel, particularly statistics methodologies. Mr Lam added that to raise the quality of human resources, GSO will supplement statistics personnel to other units, renovate recruitment methods and employment mechanisms, and boost international cooperation.