An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Vietnam's Vocational Training Project for Rural Laborers

Abstract

This study focused on evaluating the project on vocational training for rural laborers in Vietnam with respect to its effectiveness in employment creation and poverty reduction among rural laborers. The investigation took the form of a case study; official policy statistics, a survey of 300 project participants and interviews with eight vocational teachers were collected to triangulate the data. Our findings found that while the project met its initial objectives of increasing the trained laborer rate, creating jobs, and reducing poverty, Vietnam's traditional culture in addition to a lack of funding and vocational training poses potential obstacles to further increases in rural laborers’ income and industrial transformation. In contrast to previous work, this study incorporated multidimensional poverty criteria with three sources of data from different stakeholders’ perspectives to provide a more comprehensive and realistic picture of the long-term poverty reduction effect of the vocational training policy. Further implication for policy practice and policy evaluation method were discussed.