Industry Engagement in TVET and the Japanese Cooperation in Vietnam: The Case of Hanoi University of Industry

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of the industry engagement system in Vietnam through a case study of the Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI). There is a world-wide consensus on the importance of industry engagement in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). However, a question is how to strengthen and institutionalize it. Preceding studies often display developed countries’ models as ‘best practice,’ but simple import of these models does not work in developing countries due to the difference in socio-economic, institutional, cultural contents, and stages of industrial development. Therefore, translative adaptation of foreign models are required to establish a workable industry engagement system in developing countries. This chapter analyzes how HaUI learned and adapted to foreign models. After studying various foreign models related to industry engagement, HaUI selected the Japanese training process management system, taking into account the current capacities of HaUI and the extent of support from industry. However, as the translative adaptation is dynamic process, it is predicted that HaUI will keep transforming the current model. It also discusses challenges of scaling up the HaUI experience to the national level, in part due to the insufficient involvement of government at the learning and adaptation stage.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

1 Introduction

Strengthening industry engagement is a common challenge for the governments and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutions in developing countries across Asia and Africa [3, 6, 28]. In order to involve industry more in TVET, many developing countries are attempting to adopt measures to develop an employer-led skill formation system, which is created primarily in developed countries and promoted as international best practice by those countries. They comprise the competency-based training (CBT) system and Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) [11, 16, 24].

However, many developing countries, including Vietnam, still struggle to effectively engage industry in TVET [3, 6]. Some TVET institutions have invited selected firms to curriculum improvement meetings to obtain more information about their skill needs, following curriculum development methods commonly utilized in the CBT system [4]. Nonetheless, their attempts often fail to deliver tangible results [28]. This may of course mean that they need to improve their approach to engaging firms, but there are more fundamental issues with directly applying the standard measures of the employer-led skill formation system to developing countries.

First, the standard measures of the employer-led skill formation system often focus on the general improvement of regulatory framework and business environments. But, in order to make the system work and deliver the required results, it is also necessary to develop the capacity of respective TVET institutions to enhance industry engagement. Therefore, the approach to improving the ‘framework’ of the TVET system needs to be complemented by an approach to enhancing ‘ingredients,’ such as key institutions of the system [35, 46, see also Chap. 1].

Second, it is hard for developing countries to achieve the level of international best practices, which were usually formed in developed countries, in a single step. They have to find a step-by-step path toward this goal, implementing solutions according to their particular stage of development [19]. Finally, international best practices do not necessarily work in all countries [39] since skill formation models can differ according to each country’s historical and institutional background [5, 7]. Although other countries’ practices can be a useful reference for policy learning, eventually each country needs to design an industry engagement system that is workable within its own economic, social, and institutional contexts.

In other words, developing countries need to give due attention to the process of local learning and to the ‘translative adaptation’ of international best practices [25, p. 175, 36, p. 12], rather than simply borrow them from developed countries [9]. However, there is little research addressing how developing countries can develop their capacities and adapt foreign systems for industry engagement in TVET to their country-specific contexts. Therefore, this chapter aims to examine the process of developing a system for industry engagement in TVET through learning foreign countries’ models by studying the case of the Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) in Vietnam. The research has found that HaUI has adopted a Japanese approach with technical guidance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) after studying various countries’ models. Furthermore, HaUI continues to adapt the Japanese model to their economic and institutional contexts. This chapter analyzes HaUI’s learning processes, introduces how Japanese development cooperation assisted these processes, and highlights challenges facing HaUI. This examination is based on the analysis of 25 qualitative interviews conducted in December 2019 with three key sets of actors: five HaUI staff, 17 employers, and three policymakers.

2 Overview of Industry Engagement with TVET in Vietnam

2.1 Government Policies

In Vietnam, employers are often passive participants with limited engagement in skills formation [43]. As a result, the Vietnamese government has started paying closer attention to the importance of industry engagement in TVET [10, 34], in accordance with the recommendations of various international organizations [1, 23, 44]. The government is following the standard policy measures of the employer-led skill formation system, or a ‘vocational education and training tool kit’ [26]. For one thing, the government has adopted the CBT model, which aims to ensure that TVET programs deliver the skills required by industry through curriculum development and skills evaluation with inputs from employers [6]. Accordingly, the government continues to develop the National Qualification Framework (NQF), along with competency-based standards, which are important elements in the realization of CBT [12, 42].¹ Furthermore, the government is promoting training and recruitment contracts between firms and TVET institutions, aiming to implement TVET programs that correspond to employer requirements [2, 14, 40]. In doing so, apparently policymakers were inspired by the apprenticeship contracts promoted in some developed countries, as well as the German Dual Training system [28].

2.2 Challenges for Industry Engagement

Despite various policies aiming to promote industry engagement, policymakers and educators struggle to involve firms in improving education and training programs. Most cooperation activities between TVET institutions and firms tend to be limited to recruitment and unsystematic employment-related activities such as job fairs and internships, in which students are sometimes treated as seasonal workers rather than trainees [27, 28, 44].

This means that industry engagement in TVET is still in its initial stages in Vietnam. According to JICA [20], the partnerships between TVET institutions and firms require the following six steps for development: (i) recruitment activities, such as job vacancy advertisements and job fairs; (ii) employment support activities, such as company visits by students and special lectures by graduates working in firms; (iii) student capacity development, such as internships, lectures by company experts, and production of simple equipment based on orders from firms; (iv) TVET institution capacity development, such as training for teaching staff by company experts and curriculum development with input from firms; (v) company employee capacity development, such as short-term training courses organized by TVET institutions; and (vi) joint research (see Fig. 6.1). In general, firms proceed to the later steps of partnerships only when they become more confident in the capacity and reliability of TVET institutions, including the management of patent information related to new technologies and the quality of their students. In Vietnam, most TVET institutions are at Step 1 or 2.

Fig. 6.1

(Source Mori [28, p. 228])

Basic steps of partnership development between educational establishments and industry

Some policymakers and educators attribute this situation to industry’s reluctance to participate in TVET reform and claim that employers are not taking adequate responsibility for upskilling [28]. However, this is mainly because skill demand is not growing as dynamically as the government and some international organizations presume. For example, many firms in the machine manufacturing industry do not require a large skilled workforce because they are not necessarily trying to climb up value chains or adopt new technologies [29]. When skill demand is weak, few employers see the benefit in proactively engaging with education reform. This makes it difficult for TVET institutions to develop enduring partnerships with such firms.

3 JICA Support to Hanoi University of Industry

After learning various countries’ models for industry engagement in TVET, mainly through the official development assistance (ODA) project, HaUI introduced the Japanese model for industry engagement with technical assistance from JICA. This section explains what prompted HaUI to introduce the Japanese model and how JICA assisted HaUI in strengthening partnerships with industry. This case may provide one way for TVET institutions to enhance industry engagement by overcoming challenges described in the previous section.

3.1 Background for the HaUI-JICA Project

In order to promote industry engagement in TVET reform, the Vietnamese government has been receiving assistance from multilateral donors, as well as bilateral donors such as Germany and Japan, through ODA projects [13, 17]. As a part of these development cooperation activities, JICA implemented the Project for Human Resource Development of Technicians at the Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter called the HaUI-JICA Project) from January 2010 to January 2013.

The HaUI-JICA Project started five years after the completion of the preceding project, the Project for Strengthening Training Capabilities of Technical Workers at Hanoi Industrial College (hereafter called the HIC-JICA Project), which was implemented from 2000 to 2005. The HIC-JICA Project aimed to upgrade the technological knowledge and skills of prospective technicians in the fields of machinery processing, electric control, and sheet-metal processing. This project provided not only technical guidance from Japanese experts but also training equipment [30]. Immediately following the project’s completion, the Hanoi Industrial College (HIC) added university courses to its offerings, resulting in a status upgrade. In December 2005, it was renamed Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI).

Building on the above achievement, the HaUI-JICA Project attempted to further develop HaUI’s capacity to supply high-skilled workers who meet industry skills needs in the manufacturing sector. The project focused on the delivery of three outputs: (i) the enhanced management cycle to improve HaUI’s education and training programs based on needs of industry; (ii) the development of pilot skill tests; and (iii) the improvement of an employment support system [32].

In order to enhance industry engagement in TVET and based on the Japanese experience of TVET reform in the 2000s [38], the HaUI-JICA Project introduced a training process management system, the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle of training program development and implementation. The training process management system consists of seven main steps: (i) determination of industry skills demand; (ii) selection of the training fields; (iii) development of curricula; (iv) preparation for training program delivery; (v) implementation of training programs; (vi) evaluation of training programs; and (vii) formulation and implementation of action plans. The HaUI-JICA Project focused on the above steps one through three and six through seven, given that the HIC-JICA Project covered the processes four and five.

Constant engagement of employers is at the core of the training process management system. Support provided by the HIC-JICA Project enabled HaUI to develop relationships with some firms, which resulted in the offering of internships and production of simple equipment based on manufacturing orders in order to improve the practical skills of students [30]. However, HaUI did not have a solid method to identify industry needs for curriculum improvement. Therefore, it was necessary for HaUI to strengthen its system to determine industry skills needs and continue improving its training programs in close cooperation with industry.

3.2 Enhancement of Industry Engagement in Improvement of Education and Training

Based on the above situation, the HaUI-JICA Project first encouraged lecturers to visit enterprises, rather than waiting for employers to come to HaUI. In 2010, the project organized an industry needs survey to grasp industry’s perception of HaUI’s training and educational program graduates [31]. Importantly, HaUI lecturers and staff carried out the survey by themselves and did not outsource it to professional research companies. This is because the lecturers and staff can gain more information through face-to-face interviews than by simply reading a survey report, which cannot cover all relevant issues. Throughout this industry needs survey, HaUI members visited 233 enterprises in total during the project implementation period. Among 15 key working group members, the average number of company visits was 32.4 during the project implementation period, while the most active member visited 124 companies [32]. This also indicates that there was variance among working group members in terms of motivation and ability to make appointments with firms.

Through company visits, HaUI staff gradually understood what types of companies are likely to be interested in cooperating with HaUI. Employers tend to approach different types of education and training institutions, depending on their stage of development and occupational demand. For example, manufacturing companies usually try to recruit core professional staff, such as managers, administrative staff, and engineers at the setting-up stage. As they stabilize the operation and increase production, their attention shifts to intermediate workers, such as technicians and skilled operators. TVET institutions have a higher chance of developing partnerships with industry in this stage. In particular, suppliers which produce some components pay higher attention to intermediate workers than assemblers [29]. In short, it is not necessary that HaUI staff receive positive responses from all firms they visited. Understanding this simple fact allowed HaUI staff to accept the inevitability of trial and error and gradually increased their confidence to deal with firms (Fig. 6.2).

Fig. 6.2

(Source Elaborated by the author)

Transition of firms’ motivation to engage education and training institutions

While encouraging HaUI staff and lecturers to go to enterprises, the project asked enterprises to come to visit HaUI [32]. Lecturers can learn a lot from on-site advice by enterprise experts. Furthermore, this provides a great opportunity to develop mutual understanding between HaUI and firms. To promote employers’ visits to HaUI, the project implemented several measures. First, it developed the partnerships with intermediary organizations, in particular industrial zone management companies. Second, the project assisted HaUI to organize events through which company representatives can visit the campus. For example, with technical guidance from JICA experts, HaUI organized four ‘5S Weeks’ during the project implementation period, events meant to increase awareness of the 5S among all lecturers, staff, and students.² For the first 5S Week in April 2012, the project, with support from two large industrial zone management companies in Hanoi and Hai Phong [32], attracted 28 firms. Some firms that participated in this event sent their staff for short-term training courses organized by HaUI in the later stage of the project. Finally, the project assisted HaUI in organizing campus tours more strategically. HaUI improved their displays by highlighting their vision, the characteristics of their training programs, and key achievements. In addition, they showed the results of their 5S activities, which were very useful to convince employers of the quality of HaUI’s training programs.

During the project implementation period, 175 enterprises visited HaUI. On the other hand, as described in Fig. 6.3, the number of company visits from HaUI staff gradually decreased in the second and third years. HaUI did not need to visit companies all the time, as more companies started visiting them. This indicates that a two-way relationship between HaUI and industry has gradually developed.

Fig. 6.3

(Source JICA [20, p. 19])

Visit to and from companies in 2010–2012

Based on the relationships developed through company visits and other activities, HaUI went through the full cycle of training process management, developing and implementing short-term courses based on employer skill needs. With technical guidance from JICA experts, HaUI designed and implemented new short-term courses on machinery maintenance in 2012. The project’s working group members developed the course outlines and training materials during a series of discussions with the focused company group. In meetings with companies, one principle was applied: HaUI had to present their proposal first rather than waiting for industry’s proposal. For example, even at the very first meeting, HaUI brought the outline of training programs based on a sample textbook provided by JICA experts. This is because in the reality, there are not many firms that can articulate their skills needs [28]. The four machinery maintenance courses attracted 76 participants from 17 enterprises [20]. The number of applicants was far more than expected. Therefore, HaUI needed to increase the number of courses from two to four. Furthermore, some companies started asking HaUI to develop tailor-made courses for them, seeing the results of the machinery maintenance courses. HaUI provided tailor-made courses on machinery maintenance and machining for three Japanese firms in 2012. This gave HaUI confidence that industry will join their training programs if they properly respond to their skills needs.

The improvement in cooperation with firms also led to the development of a comprehensive employment support system, which also increased opportunities to interact with industry and provided HaUI with an alternative route to collect industry skills needs information. It comprises several activities including: (i) internship programs; (ii) company study tours; (iii) lectures by graduates; (iv) job fairs; (v) collection and circulation of job opportunity information; and (vi) career counseling [18]. In order to operationalize the employment support system, HaUI established the Employment Support Committee in May 2011, which consists of members from relevant faculties, centers, and departments.

The HaUI-JICA Project also assisted HaUI in developing an institutional mechanism for industry engagement in TVET, based on the tangible results of enhanced industry engagement activities. The first step was the promotion of information sharing on inquiries from industry across faculties and centers. At weekly project working group meetings, the project presented the list of inquiries from companies and encouraged working group members to respond to them together. HaUI obtained and dealt with 222 inquiries from enterprises in the project implementation period (see Table 6.1).

Table 6.1 Inquiries from firms by category (2010–2012)

In order to maintain project activities and further strengthen industry partnerships, HaUI established an Industry Partnership Board under the Training Department in 2012. HaUI nominated members of this Board from all faculties, centers, and relevant departments, while establishing the office as the secretariat of the Board. The main functions of the Board were to: (i) receive inquiries from enterprises and send them to relevant faculties and centers under HaUI; (ii) follow up on the progress of inquiries and prioritize potential partnerships in cooperation with relevant faculties and centers; and (iii) lead the improvement of various procedures and schemes related to industry partnerships. In short, the Board was supposed to take over the role of HaUI-JICA Project’s office for facilitating partnerships with industry.

After the completion of the HaUI-JICA Project, HaUI established the Center for Enterprise Partnership (CPA) in 2014, which took over the functions of the Industry Partnership Board and the Employment Support Committee.³ It also planned and organized the national skill assessment, the second output of the project. HaUI top management appointed the director and staff of CPA from the project working group members, each of whom went through on-the-job training provided by JICA experts. In addition, they recruited one of the project staff, who was a HaUI graduate, as a full-time staff of the center. Her role was to virtually transfer all project information to the CPA, including tacit knowledge on methodologies to develop partnerships with industry. Moreover, the CPA played an important coordination role in the subsequent JICA project, the Project for Strengthening Training of Trainers (ToT) Functions at Hanoi University of Industry (hereafter called the HaUI-JICA Phase III Project), launched in June 2013. This project aimed to transfer HaUI’s knowledge and experience acquired through the previous two projects to other TVET institutions, focusing on the fields of machining, electric control, and electronics [41].

3.3 HaUI’s Motivation to Learn a Japanese Model

HaUI has learned Western, Japanese, and other Asian countries’ TVET systems by taking advantage of ODA projects. In relation to industry engagement for training program improvement, the first foreign model that HaUI learned was the Developing a Curriculum (DACUM) method, which originated in Canada and was brought to Vietnam through a German development cooperation project with the General Department of Vocational Training (GDVT).⁴ The core of DACUM is to identify employer skill needs through elaborate job and task analysis [12]. This is a well-structured but also rigid process in the sense that TVET institutions need to invite company experts to carry out this analysis. Another curriculum development and industry engagement model that HaUI studied was the Japanese training process management system (see Sect. 6.3.1). While this model also requires input from employers, the method of obtaining their feedback is not as rigid as that of DACUM. If it is difficult to invite employers for job and task analysis, TVET institutions can also obtain information by visiting firms and asking questions from various angles, such as those about the structure and content of internal training programs.

Comparing the foreign models described above, HaUI top management staff found some common elements in the approaches they learned, including DACUM, CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate), and the Japanese training process management or PDCA model. However, they considered that the PDCA model is the easiest to understand and implement and the most applicable in the context of Vietnam. HaUI therefore selected the Japanese training process management system for its TVET programs at their own initiative.⁵

It is presumed that HaUI appreciated the programmatic or flexible aspect of the Japanese training process management system, which aims to improve curricula based on skills needs information collected in various ways. This is because it is not easy to gather a sufficient number of company experts for curriculum development meetings in Vietnam, where skill demand lacks dynamism and is weak in some industries. HaUI staff have perceived that few firms are interested in supporting them to improve training programs by providing them with comments on curricula or sending technical experts to meetings. In particular, small and medium enterprises, especially Vietnamese ones, are not very keen to cooperate with HaUI or other TVET institutions, while a few foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) are eager to assist them. In fact, most interviewed employers stated that they had never participated in curriculum improvement meetings.

Another reason to select the Japanese training process management system is the structured learning process applied in transferring this model. HaUI staff valued the hands-on support from JICA experts, including the provision of a concrete roadmap, specific instructions, and capacity development opportunities. They explained that Japanese experts provide more detailed technical guidance in the hands-on approach [35], while European experts present their models and act as facilitators rather than getting involved in the details of an implementation process.⁶

HaUI regards the Japanese training process management model as the most feasible option, but this does not mean they will solely depend on it in the long term. They are also attempting to continue learning Western countries’ methods related to education and training program development. For example, they are utilizing the CDIO for the curriculum development for their university courses. In short, HaUI is open to various learning models and keeps searching for a method or model suitable for their capacity or situation, each of which could dynamically change. This indicates their strong sense of ownership in learning foreign models, realizing that the choice lies with them.

3.4 Confidence with the Accumulation of Small Successes

It is likely that small successes of daily operations, starting from the acceptance of meeting appointments and positive feedback on internships or short-term training courses, gave HaUI staff confidence to deal with more firms. In the process of creating a chain of small successes, HaUI has been simultaneously developing the capacity required for engagement. Interviewed HaUI staff stated that they were able to achieve these small successes, taking advantage of the hands-on development cooperation provided by JICA, which basically supports ‘learning by doing.’ At the same time, they have developed the capacity to not only develop good relationships with firms but also carry out continuous and mutual learning by themselves.

In Vietnam, many firms feel reluctant to communicate with lecturers and staff of TVET institutions, not because of their insufficient technical knowledge but because of their unprofessional behavior, represented by appointment requests made at very short notice and inappropriate outfits worn by lecturers and students [20]. In the past, HaUI was trapped in a vicious cycle in which a lack of organizational strategies, motivation, knowledge of firms, and appropriate behaviors caused negative feedback from employers, making staff more hesitant to approach firms [20, p. 18]. However, the interview results indicate that they are now becoming more confident to engage with employers. This means that they have successfully shifted into a virtuous cycle of partnership development, where positive responses from firms further encourage staff to approach them for partnership building.

Furthermore, the accumulation of these small successes let top management to approve the substantial investment of personnel necessary to establish the CPA as a designated unit for industry engagement. In other words, HaUI needed to accumulate a few small successful cases before setting up an institutional mechanism. In fact, many TVET institutions designate a unit to encourage partnerships with enterprises, but they struggle to develop partnerships [28]. This means that setting up an institutional mechanism, or ‘framework,’ does not work in isolation. Partnerships require ‘ingredients,’ including people who have the knowledge and confidence to approach and partner with firms.

4 Progress of HaUI’s Industry Engagement After the HaUI-JICA Project

HaUI’s activities and its institutional mechanism for industry engagement have been gradually changing since the completion of the HaUI-JICA Project in 2013. This section explores how HaUI has continued to enhance its industry engagement system, focusing on: (i) the ways to learn industry skills needs; and (ii) its institutional mechanism for industry engagement.

4.1 Changes After the HaUI-JICA Project

HaUI has maintained or enhanced some of its industry engagement activities after the completion of the HaUI-JICA Project. For example, HaUI succeeded in attracting more than 100 firms to their job fairs in 2019 and about 1,000 students acquired jobs after the event (Steps 1 and 2 of Fig. 6.1). This also suggests that they have improved their methods for approaching and following up with firms. In addition, HaUI has been attempting to improve the quality of its internship program (Step 3 of Fig. 6.1) by establishing guidelines for the responsibilities of lecturers and employers during internship periods. Finally, HaUI has become more aware of promoting mutual benefits of partnerships with firms. For example, HaUI is helping firms that donate tools and equipment to them to do marketing in their network with other industry partners.⁷ In fact, this practice was introduced through the HaUI-JICA Project [32]. HaUI has adapted and continued what they have learned.

Despite the above successes, HaUI faces some challenges in keeping or advancing partnerships with firms. First, it still has difficulty conducting joint research with firms, which would be the final step of industry engagement (Step 6 of Fig. 6.1). Second, some activities related to the capacity development of HaUI (Step 4 of Fig. 6.1) piloted during the HaUI-JICA Project have been conducted less often than they were during the project implementation period (see Table 6.2). In addition, HaUI did not organize in-company training programs for their lecturers. It is presumed that HaUI has difficulty in negotiating with firms to receive the lecturers for in-company training without support from foreign experts. This may be also in part because some lecturers lack willingness to learn firms’　training methods.

Table 6.2 Status of employer engagement activities at HaUI

4.2 Learning Industry Skills Needs Through Partnership Activities

HaUI has been customizing and internalizing the way they collect skill needs information, taking into account their capacities and other constraints. During the HaUI-JICA Project, HaUI members visited many firms as reported in Sect. 6.3, but it appears that this activity has not been continued in a structured way based on a shared organizational strategy for industry engagement. This could be because some teachers are reluctant to visit firms due to time constraints or because there is not enough transport budget allocated, as already indicated during the HaUI-JICA Project [32]. HaUI added the cooperation with enterprises to the job description of lecturers toward the end of the HaUI-JICA Project.⁸ However, the interview data indicate that while some lecturers are actively engaged with firms, others are not. This is because they do not have sufficient skills or knowledge to contact and negotiate with firms or they are busy with teaching.

Therefore, instead of industry needs surveys, some HaUI staff are trying to collect skill needs information through partnership activities with firms, such as internships or networking with alumni. In addition, HaUI apparently does not continue to visit as many companies as it did during the HaUI-JICA Project, although many companies appear to keep visiting HaUI instead. They consider it more effective to directly collect industry skills needs information and update curricula periodically than to organize job and task analysis workshops, which they have difficulty convincing experts from companies to join. HaUI staff consider it the most feasible and realistic solution in light of their capacity and the weak motivation of employers to participate in improving training programs.

The formulation and implementation of short-term training courses for firms also provide HaUI with a great opportunity to learn industry skills needs, including up-to-date technologies and challenges. HaUI has been providing an increasing number of short-term training courses customized for client firms and other organizations (Step 5 of Fig. 6.1). In addition to existing partners, HaUI has found new clients, such as non-Japanese FIEs (see Table 6.3). HaUI has been providing some companies with regular training courses every year. For example, it has been organizing a training course on conventional milling and turning for one Japanese firm.

Table 6.3 HaUI’s short-term training courses (by type of client)

It is important to keep the access to new partners across ownerships and sector. This is because a certain amount of turnover among partnering firms is inevitable. In fact, although HaUI developed partnerships with some companies through JICA projects, its relationships with a few of them have diminished since the project completion. For example, one Japanese plastic injection mold supplier used to receive interns and recruit HaUI graduates since the HIC-JICA Project. However, after the change in Japanese top management, the company recently stopped receiving interns. Another case is a Japanese machinery parts supplier that ordered a tailor-made training on machine tool operation for HaUI during the HaUI-JICA Project. This Japanese parts supplier reported that they have not had much interaction with HaUI recently.⁹

This indicates that industry partnerships may rise and fall due to various factors. For example, TVET institutions have a chance to develop partnerships with companies that have corporate culture or top management policies committed to upskilling beyond their company or that require skilled workers in particular at the establishment phase. However, these may deteriorate when there is a change in top management or company policies. Firms may become less motivated to cooperate with TVET institutions when they have established their internal training systems, downsized employment, or do not require many skilled workers. Therefore, HaUI has to keep looking for new partners rather than excessively relying on good relationships with existing partners.

4.3 Institutionalizing Industry Engagement

In order to expand industry engagement activities, HaUI has strengthened the CPA’s capacity by assigning 12 full-time staff. This shows the strong commitment of HaUI’s top management to partnerships with industry. Since HaUI’s leaders have understood and recognized the importance of partnerships with industry, they established the CPA as a focal point by making significant investment in the center in terms of human resources and facilities.

Furthermore, HaUI has been strengthening the coordination mechanism between the CPA and faculties. Even after the establishment of the CPA, faculties continue to directly receive inquiries from some firms. Thus, the top management of HaUI issues internal rules and policies that recognize the CPA as a focal point for industry engagement and require all faculties and centers to cooperate with the CPA. This was a new mechanism after the HaUI-JICA Project. During the project, the project secretariat had to push all faculties to reveal and share information on inquiries from firms. While each faculty’s staff still receive the first contact from firms, some of them are now willing to share the information with the CPA. Some HaUI staff clearly recognize the CPA as the focal point for industry engagement and have shared with the CPA a list of companies who approached them.¹⁰ This is not only because the top management required them to do so but also because some faculties have recognized the benefit of sharing the information with the CPA, which consolidates and analyzes the information.

While the Industry Partnership Board and the Employment Support Committee, established during the HaUI-JICA Project, called regular meetings, now the CPA organizes meetings with a designated staff responsible for the industry partnership in each faculty on an as-needed basis. This may be because of constraints to secure time for regular meetings with teaching staff. In Vietnam, teaching staff often receive salaries based on the hours they teach [32, p. 49]. This is different from Japanese TVET institutions, where many teachers work on a full-time basis and consider participation in some committee meetings as part of their duties.

Institutional capacity development enables HaUI to conduct industry engagement activities in a more organized and coherent way than would be possible with each faculty and center taking different actions. Some employers provided positive comments about partnerships with HaUI, particularly regarding recruitment activities and internships. Although these employers organize company introduction seminars in some universities, they consider HaUI more committed than other TVET institutions, observing that it secures a large number of participating students.¹¹ They presume that HaUI staff take seriously the need to conduct public relations (PR) activities for students. The positive evaluation of HaUI by firms gave it more confidence to work with firms, which in turn makes them more proactive. Currently, HaUI is not only collecting information on industry needs but also providing them with more information on their annual training programs and schedule so that firms can find training courses that fit their needs and allocate the budget.

However, HaUI is still in the process of improving the institutional mechanism for industry engagement. For instance, while the CPA is expanding its role internally, it has not yet started playing a significant role in involving industry partners in improving curricula of regular and long-term training courses. This work is mainly led by each faculty at specialized training centers with limited engagement by firms, in particular FIEs.¹² In this sense, HaUI’s internal coordination mechanism is still under development. Faculty members will not fully trust the CPA unless it demonstrates its capacity in developing partnerships with firms. Thus, CPA staff keeps improving their capacity through continuous self-learning, utilizing not only the materials and knowledge provided by the HaUI-JICA Project but also each partnership case. CPA staff sometimes review various documents for industry partnership development drafted through the HaUI-JICA Project and share lessons learned from previous cases and on-going assignments.

The above two examples indicate that HaUI initiatives are supported by pragmatism and persistence, including continuous self-learning. Their pragmatism means that in developing countries, implementing solutions identified during the development stage is required, rather than trying to implement unfeasible international best practices [19]. Their persistence with continuous learning implies that their industry engagement system has not yet reached a complete form and is still in a dynamic process of development.

5 Challenges in Disseminating the HaUI Model

Although HaUI has become increasingly recognized as a good partner by industry, it has made limited progress in disseminating its industry engagement system, or the HaUI model, to other TVET institutions in Vietnam. During the HaUI-JICA Phase III Project, HaUI occasionally shared their experience in developing partnerships with industry with other TVET institutions through seminars and other events. However, at this moment, dissemination only occurs when requested.

HaUI has been disseminating other results of the HaUI-JICA Project, such as the national skill tests on basic machining center operation and 5S, which is based on the Japanese production management system (also see JILPT [22], Mori [27]). However, its industry engagement practice has not been systematically disseminated as much as these activities. There are two possible reasons for limited dissemination of HaUI’s industry engagement model: the difference in capacity between HaUI and other TVET institutions and a lack of government support.

5.1 Difference in Capacity with Other TVET Institutions

One possible explanation for the limited dissemination of HaUI’s industry engagement system is the difference in capacity between the current HaUI and other TVET institutions. The capacity here includes not only the ability to coordinate industry engagement but also the technical ability and the hard infrastructure to provide training, utilizing adequate training equipment and facilities in accordance with industry skills needs. For example, one CPA staff pointed out that industry engagement requires communication capacity, which HaUI has developed with technical assistance from three phases of JICA projects. This is also supported by employers who have indicated that they would be more likely to develop relationships with TVET institutions if they provided more frequent feedback about the training programs and results of internships. Furthermore, HaUI has developed physical training infrastructure with substantial assistance from the HIC-JICA Project [30]. However, many other TVET institutions may not have sufficient capacity to develop partnerships with industries and provide technical training in accordance with their needs.

5.2 Lack of Government Support

Another constraint on dissemination is a lack of policy support. HaUI has not received substantial support from the government to disseminate the HaUI model, besides being invited to present in ad-hoc workshops or seminars. All interviewed policymakers recognize HaUI’s achievement in industry engagement. However, policymakers in charge of skills policies question the applicability of HaUI’s industry engagement system because it is a ‘university’ with more capacity and resources than other TVET institutions.¹³ The government agencies responsible for TVET regard universities as outside their system, following a model not applicable to TVET institutions. It would be true that as a university HaUI has the advantage of attracting better students in Vietnam, where people excessively respect university degrees [28, 33]. Nonetheless, some of their activities, such as the improvement of communication with firms or the quality of internship programs should be applicable to other TVET institutions, too. This means that a more fundamental barrier to dissemination of the HaUI model is a lack of recognition by government agencies responsible for TVET.

Lack of government support may be in part caused by insufficient inter-ministerial coordination, since HaUI belongs to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) while the Vietnamese TVET system is managed by the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET) under the Ministry of Labour, Invalids, and Social Affairs (MOLISA). For example, HaUI’s activities have been introduced often in the events organized by their supervisory ministry, the MOIT, but not others. As a result of low recognition and lack of inter-ministerial coordination, HaUI may have little choice but to disseminate its model on its own. Therefore, the dissemination of their model is sporadic, not systematic.

However, a pilot skill test on machining center operation, another output of the HaUI-JICA Project, was well recognized by the DVET under MOLISA and scaled up to the national skill test [20]. The difference between these two cases may be attributed to the timing and extent of government agency involvement in learning and adaptation. The industry engagement system has been developed mainly by HaUI with little government involvement, although they were always kept updated through project steering committee meetings. In contrast, government agencies, such as DVET, are more involved in the process of developing the national skill test, in part because DVET’s approval is mandatory to conduct such a test. Therefore, even in case that a development cooperation project targets the capacity building of an individual TVET institution, the involvement of the government at an early stage contributes to wider dissemination. It would be too late to approach the government when the model has already been adopted or developed. Simply, they would consider it another organization’s model. In this sense, the strong ownership and capacity of HaUI to manage everything by themselves may have negatively affected the wider dissemination of their achievements through the government agencies responsible for TVET since they did not need significant government involvement in developing partnerships with firms.

6 Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter examined the development process of HaUI’s industry engagement mechanism and activities, with special attention being paid to how HaUI has learned and adapted foreign models presented by donors. After actively exploring various foreign models related to industry engagement, HaUI selected the Japanese training process management system for the improvement of TVET programs and has been attempting to localize it, taking into account their current capacities and the extent of support they receive from industry.

Even after the completion of the HaUI-JICA Project, HaUI has continued to customize the Japanese model with confidence enhanced by capacity building and pragmatism. The accumulation of small successes, which HaUI achieved with hands-on assistance from JICA, provided them with confidence and let them decide to invest in the development of a coordination mechanism, namely the CPA. This means that HaUI improved industry engagement activities and then developed its institution. In other words, they enhanced ‘ingredients’ of industry engagement and then started developing an institutional ‘framework.’ On the other hand, HaUI has not been able to widely disseminate their model due to lack of government recognition and support, which is attributed to weak involvement of government during the early stage of project activities.

Though HaUI selected the Japanese training process management system as a starting point for developing their industry engagement system, it is predicted that HaUI will continue to adapt the current model. There are various possibilities for the future transformation of HaUI’s industry engagement system (see Fig. 6.4). It may aim to fully adopt the Japanese training process management system, which encourages TVET institutions to acquire information on industry skills needs not only through formal meetings for curriculum development but also through other forms of interaction, including company visits. Another possibility is that since HaUI continues to study Western models, they may implement the DACUM method and CBT to the fullest extent, taking advantage of increasing number of partner firms. Certainly, there is also a possibility that they will generate a unique model, which may not exactly follow those developed in Japan or Western countries. In short, translative adaptation is not a static but dynamic process, as far as the recipients of foreign models keep developing their absorptive capacity through learning by doing processes and maintaining a sense of strong ownership. Following up with this transformation process will provide useful lessons to other developing countries, in particular middle-size countries like Vietnam, which have certain size of population and land and are attempting to promote industrialization by utilizing foreign direct investment (FDI) but struggle with a lack of dynamism in skill demand.

Fig. 6.4

(Source Drafted by the author)

Future direction of HaUI’s industry engagement system

Finally, this research also suggests that strong ownership has enabled HaUI to conduct active learning and adaptation. However, it could not determine how HaUI acquired this strong sense of ownership. It may be an endogenous factor such as a national characteristic of the Vietnamese people [37]. Another possibility is that, while it is endogenous, it could have been enhanced by certain events during the process of learning. Further analysis of how HaUI acquired or developed this strong sense of ownership will provide valuable information for future development cooperation in a country that may not possess such a strong sense of ownership and is unable to adapt foreign models at their own choice.