Viet Nam’s Vocational Education and Training report (VET report) is an annual publication developed by the National Institute of Vocational Training (NIVT), under the Directorate of Vocational Education and Training (DVET), with the support of the German Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BIBB) and the Vietnamese-German Programme “Reform of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) in Viet Nam”. Since its first publication in 2011, this annual report gives an overview of Viet Nam’s  labour market relevant vocational training in the respective year, with its highlights as well as existing deficiencies of the TVET system referring to the criteria of Viet Nam’s vocational training development strategy (in the period 2011-2020). Findings from the reports provide valuable recommendations to refine policies for better quality and effectiveness in vocational training in Viet Nam. BIBB experts, Mr Michael Schwarz and Dr Sandra Liebscher, provided coaching to finalise the VET report 2017, and more importantly, to improve the report 2018, and worked jointly with NIVT researchers and GIZ officers from 19 to23 November, 2018.

Data collection and provision has become the focus of the discussion to enhance the quality of the report. To discuss this topic more comprehensively, on 22 November 2018, a technical meeting on “Improving TVET data collection for monitoring and reporting purpose” was chaired by Dr Truong Anh Dung, the Vice General Director of DVET. At the meeting, participants analysed outstanding obstacles and challenges in the VET data collection process among TVET institutes, DoLISAs and DVET. The participants recommended initial solutions for improving this important issue in sector monitoring. They pointed out that apart from developing an appropriate set of indicators for VET sector monitoring it is necessary to put compulsory measures for VET data collection into effect to ensure an efficient flow of data collection. As a next step, relevant parties agreed to hold a stakeholder meeting on this topic during the next BIBB experts’ mission to discuss the in more in-depth.

Improvement of the report’s chapter on cooperation with the business sector in TVET was emphasised as another topic of focus. Therefore, at the end of the mission, the NIVT researchers were coached by BIBB experts to pretest the questionnaire for data collection of good experiences of companies in cooperation with TVET institutes.

Another highlight of the mission was the signing ceremony of the Trilateral Cooperation Agreement between GIZ-BIBB and NIVT for the period 2018-2020. “This marks a further stage of cooperation and extensive support to capacity development of NIVT researchers to improve their research capacities to enhance quality of VET reporting and contribute to evidence-based VET policy making process”, said Ms Britta van Erckelens, Deputy Programme Director of the Programme “Reform of TVET in Viet Nam”.

The activity was held within the field of activity “Policy Advice and System Reform” as part of the Vietnamese-German “Programme Reform of TVET in Viet Nam”. The programme is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH together with the Vietnamese Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA).