“We came to the conclusion, that the overall project was successful”, Mr. Ralf Lange, independent consultant commissioned by GIZ with the final evaluation, summarized the results of the two-week long evaluation process for the stakeholders of the project “Vietnamese-German Vocational Training Center – Haiphong Polytechnic College” that gathered in Hanoi on Friday, 27^th of November. According to the OECD/ DAC criteria the project has been evaluated as very relevant. It is in line with policies and expectations of its partners. It addresses key problems of the target group with the objective to improve access to decent employment opportunities. The project has proved to be successful in terms of effectiveness, impact and efficiency. There are good potentials for the project to achieve sustainability with continuing efforts of Haiphong Polytechnic College in cooperation with enterprises and other vocational training colleges.

Supported by positive feedback of enterprise representatives, who highlighted their social responsibility for involvement in vocational training, Director General of GDVT, Prof. Lan, once more expressed his deep conviction, that the cooperative model is the model of the future in order to secure skilled labor, economic growth and competitiveness in an ASEAN market. He confirmed that intense discussions on various forms of cooperative training will facilitate a transfer to the system level.

Yet, Mr. Lange reminded that there are still challenges to overcome, such as the distribution of the vocational training cost or the diversity of the enterprises offering unequal chances for students of the same subject. Another issue is the inadequate training equipment in the colleges, he underlined. During a very cooperative and productive discussion of all partners, college and enterprises, GDTV members and GIZ staff, ideas were developed on how to face these challenges. Despite the fact that it was the final workshop of the pilot project in Hai Phong, the work will continue. Britta van Erckelens, Senior Technical Advisor of GIZ stated: “I am looking forward to all the interesting discussions we will have on this in the upcoming years.” The lessons learnt from the cooperative training piloted by the Haiphong Polytechnic College will be shared with other colleges and partner enterprises in a workshop to be organized by GDVT and GIZ in the beginning of the next year.