From this strategic perspective, vocational education becomes a key pillar and a leading force in improving workforce quality in the new era.
However, this pillar is currently burdened with too many constraints. Viet Nam now has more than 1,163 vocational education institutions, yet most are small in scale and uneven in quality, while many still offer training programmes that remain disconnected from actual labour market needs. This is why the Ministry of Home Affairs issued Official Dispatch No. 8150/BNV-TCBC in September 2025, guiding localities to reorganise their vocational education networks towards streamlined, effective, and modern structures, with the principle that each province should have no more than three public vocational colleges (excluding autonomous institutions), and that Centres for Vocational Education and Continuing Education should be merged into vocational secondary schools.
Many localities have proactively acted on this. Ho Chi Minh City has reviewed its network and plans to retain only 19 public vocational schools, including two newly established through “upgrade–mergers” — the Saigontourist Hospitality College and the College of High-tech Agriculture. Notably, all current public secondary-level vocational schools are set to be dissolved or merged. The city also proposes converting 41 centres for vocational and continuing education into 37 regional vocational secondary schools.
Similarly, Ninh Binh Province has merged three provincial medical colleges and is considering integrating several secondary schools into Hoa Lu University to meet the requirement of having no more than three vocational colleges while still maintaining training capacity aligned with local needs.
Streamlining the network is the right direction, but the real question is streamline for what purpose? Resolution No. 71-NQ/TW sets the target that by 2030, 80% of vocational education institutions will meet national standards, and 20% will be modernised to levels comparable with developed Asian countries. The rate of learners enrolled in post-secondary education should reach 50%. If restructuring only stops at “merging to reduce numbers,” it will not create substantive transformation. Conversely, if understood as a foundational step for a stronger national streaming strategy, then this is the opportunity to rebuild the entire vocational education system according to new criteria: modern, interconnected, flexible, and fully articulated.
This mindset was already outlined in 2021 in the Strategy for Vocational Education Development 2021–2030, vision to 2045 (Decision No. 2239/QD-TTg), which emphasises that developing vocational education is vital for leveraging the “demographic dividend,” ensuring widespread vocational training for young people, and prioritising budget allocation for this sector within the overall education and training expenditure.
In terms of the institutional model, Resolution No. 71-NQ/TW proposes a key reform: introducing a vocational upper secondary level equivalent to academic upper secondary education, enabling students to pursue dual qualifications (general education and vocational skills); while also strengthening links between schools, enterprises, and labour markets. It also calls for substantial decentralisation to local authorities for managing vocational institutions, thereby aligning responsibility with authority in ensuring the quality of the local workforce.
Substantively, the resolution demands “renewing curricula, applying digital technologies, and promoting skills training within enterprises,” particularly in technical and high-tech sectors. Financial policies are also being redesigned, prioritising funding for technical disciplines, supporting training for ethnic minority groups, and encouraging enterprises to establish vocational education institutions and their own workforce training funds for reskilling and upskilling.
Digital transformation is also a mandatory direction for vocational education reform. Vocational institutions must build digital learning platforms, integrate artificial intelligence (AI), and enhance digital competencies for teachers and learners so as not to be left behind in the economy’s comprehensive digitalisation.
These directions show that only when vocational education becomes an attractive “destination” for learners, tightly connected with labour markets, adequately resourced, and operated as an open ecosystem, can the national streaming strategy succeed. Streamlining vocational schools is not merely a matter of reducing numbers, it is a test of each locality’s strategic vision and reform capacity.
