Two years of apprenticeship can catch up with mother with 20 years of experience
Nguyen Phuong Thao, born in 2007, residing in Hanoi, is one of 30 students in the 2022-2025 dual-degree intermediate beauty care class at Hanoi Industrial Vocational College.
After completing grade 9, Thao did not take the entrance exam to grade 10 public school but applied to this school with the desire to follow in her mother's footsteps - a manicurist.
Since childhood, Thao has been attached to her mother's nail kit and is familiar with the tools. In 9th grade, Thao started earning money by doing nails for her friends. Thao charged 100,000 VND for each completed set of nails.
The image of her mother carrying a toolbox to work for customers every day according to the appointment schedule with a beautiful face and a bright smile is an ideal model in Thao's eyes. Naturally, Thao determined her career early when she grew up without being confused and uncertain in choosing like her peers. Because her hobbies only focus on doing nails, makeup, and skin care.
Nguyen Phuong Thao - a student of the intermediate level of dual degree in beauty care at Hanoi Industrial Vocational College (Photo: Lan Nguyen).
Those are also the three main areas of the beauty care industry that Thao is studying to get a vocational intermediate degree.
Entering her second year of school, Thao began to see the difference between herself and her mother. Although she admitted that her skills were not as good as her mother's - a person with nearly 20 years of experience - Thao was confident that she had more points than her mother.
"I keep up with the latest and most fashionable nail trends before my mother does because I diligently follow celebrities and artists online. There are many new techniques that my mother doesn't know about, but I already know.
I can also make more elaborate designs than my mother because I was taught properly about operations, how to use chemicals and safe materials. Understanding chemicals and materials is the foundation for me to be creative and freely express the ideas in my head," Thao shared.
In class, the advantage of being a "family heir" makes Thao stand out from her friends. Good at nail art, Thao is also praised for her makeup major.
Thao used to be very confident in her makeup skills. But since entering school, Thao has abandoned her old habits and started learning from scratch.
Practical classes in beauty care at Hanoi Industrial Vocational College (Photo: HNIVC).
"Before, I did my makeup based on what I learned, skipping a lot of steps because I thought they were unnecessary. But now I follow the full makeup process and the results are really different in terms of aesthetics.
Following this process helps the face become more complete, without common errors such as skin mold, patchiness. More importantly, the skin's health is improved, without irritation or acne.
I also formed a new habit of reading product ingredients to deeply understand and thoroughly understand skin care cosmetics before using them for myself or others. I think this is very meaningful when I work for customers," Thao confided.
At the end of this school year, at the age of 17, Thao will have a vocational certificate in beauty care. After that, she will have another year to get a high school diploma. Thao plans to apply for jobs at large spas to gain experience and have some capital before opening her own spa.
She expressed: "Owning a beauty salon is to be a professional. My dream is to become a nail expert, creating unique nail sets for the entertainment industry and celebrities."
Another outstanding student in Thao’s class is Nguyen Trung Hieu. The 16-year-old Hanoi boy is shy, reserved and quiet but stands out in class and practice. Hieu is also one of the very few male students studying this major.
Hieu does not have a real role model like Thao. What led him to choose this career were actors and singers. Gen Z like Hieu no longer thinks that beauty is only for women. Men in modern society also wear makeup and take care of their skin as an important part of self-care.
Nguyen Trung Hieu - a student of the intermediate level with a dual degree in beauty care (Photo: Lan Nguyen).
Hieu said he did not encounter any obstacles when he chose to study beauty care instead of engineering, which is considered a male field. When Hieu expressed his thoughts to his secondary school teacher, she encouraged him to "choose what you love."
Last school year, there was a time when Hieu felt discouraged and thought he had chosen the wrong career. Spa techniques are not easy, there are too many operations that Hieu could not remember all of them. Being male also put Hieu at a disadvantage, such as not having the flexibility and dexterity of his hands like his female friends, and his hand skin is not soft.
In return, the teacher commented that Hieu was careful, meticulous and neat, qualities and skills that are essential for a spa technician.
Talking about job opportunities and income after graduating at the age of 18, Thao and Hieu are both very confident. Hieu said he will work at a spa and receive a stable salary, without any ambition. Thao boldly said: "During peak season, my mother's income is eight or nine figures. I believe my income will be at least equal to or higher than my mother's."
The attraction of "hot" industry codes, training orders
The beauty care major at Hanoi Industrial Vocational College has been enrolling students for three years. In the first year, the school only recruited one class of about 30 students. In the third year, the size of the major doubled, from one class to two classes with more than 60 students.
This is also one of the most favorable recruitment sectors of the intermediate level along with tourism, automation, smart manufacturing...
Ms. Pham Thi Huong - Principal of Hanoi Industrial Vocational College - said that the dual-degree intermediate level system (studying intermediate vocational level in parallel with studying the regular high school education program) has tended to increase in scale in recent years.
Students who have both a vocational and a cultural degree after 3 years of study can enter the labor market at the age of 18 with complete vocational skills and are exempted from 100% of vocational tuition fees. These advantages have attracted an increasing number of students who have completed the 9th grade program to study, of which students in Hanoi's inner city account for a large proportion.
The beauty care service market in Vietnam is increasingly vibrant, not limited to urban areas and high-income classes as before, leading to a great demand for a well-trained, highly skilled workforce.
Therefore, opening the beauty care industry code for the dual-degree intermediate system is a wise move for vocational education institutions, and at the same time contributes to promoting the professionalization process of this field.
However, with the college system, schools must ask a different question for training. Not "what does the market need?" but "what do businesses need?".
Hanoi Industrial Vocational College currently has 80 students interning at Vinfast in the after-sales service sector after 45 students from the previous course signed official labor contracts with the company.
The school also has more than 100 students studying a program with Luxshare, a Chinese company that produces AirPods Pro for Apple; 200 students studying electrical engineering with a Taiwanese company.
Ms. Pham Thi Huong shared that training according to business orders is the school's key program. The program is highly applicable, directly providing a source of skilled labor that meets standards in both quality and quantity.
The company integrates its own program into the school's training program, providing new specialized, advanced subjects that update global trends such as: EPLAN (the most popular electrical design software in Europe and North America), PLC application (programming application to implement logic control algorithms), Vision application (machine vision system to detect errors in industrial production lines)...
Students of the Automobile Technology Department of Hanoi Industrial Vocational College do an internship at Vinfast Company (Photo: HNIVC).
Modern visual equipment is delivered by the enterprise to the school for teaching and practice. The enterprise's experts combine training and transfer training to the school's teaching staff through training sessions and teaching assistants. For foreign enterprises, the foreign language training program for students is managed by the enterprise itself.
However, despite having attractive training programs that ensure output for learners, the school's enrollment is not easy. Streamlining at high school level has not been done well. Communication work also faces many difficulties, especially when competing for enrollment with universities.
In addition, the training program according to the orders of enterprises requires high quality of teaching and learning. Many students cannot stand the pressure or have unstable career orientation and give up. There is a training course with an input of about 1,400 students but only about 1,100 graduates, a loss rate of about 21%.
From this reality, Ms. Huong believes that training skilled workers not only depends on the curriculum but also requires continuous guidance, encouragement, and support from the school for students.
"Students need regular and timely companionship and guidance to deeply understand the meaning and value of labor skills for career development, promotion opportunities, and future income increase," Ms. Huong shared.
"Since the Prime Minister's decision to establish Vietnam Labor Skills Day (October 4, 2020 - October 4, 2023), we have had important policies to promote labor skills.
The policy on vocational skills training for workers to meet the requirements of the fourth industrial revolution (issued in Decision No. 1446/QD-TTg dated August 30, 2021 of the Prime Minister) has approved the "Pilot project on training and retraining to improve workers' skills to meet the requirements of the fourth industrial revolution".
The overall objective of the Project is to build a model for training and retraining human resources at all levels of vocational education (VET) to have appropriate knowledge and skills, to be able to absorb, master, exploit and effectively operate the technological advances of the fourth industrial revolution; to connect and meet the needs of businesses for human resources; to contribute to improving labor productivity and increasing national competitiveness, ready to welcome the new wave of FDI investment shifting to Vietnam.
The policy on digital transformation in vocational education was issued in Decision No. 2222/QD-TTg dated December 30, 2021 of the Prime Minister approving the Digital Transformation Program in vocational education for the 2021-2025 period, with a vision to 2030.
The policy aims to deploy vocational education activities in the digital environment, promote the application of information technology in management, teaching activities, teaching methods, testing and assessment to help increase the effectiveness of management and expand methods and opportunities to access vocational education, create a breakthrough in quality, rapidly increase the number of training, contribute to improving the quality of human resources with vocational skills, increase labor productivity and national competitiveness in the context of international integration.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Viet Huong - Deputy Director General of the General Department of Vocational Education (Photo: DVET).
Policy to encourage enterprises to cooperate with vocational training institutions in training soft skills, digital skills and green vocational skills. This is an important content stated in Resolution No. 45/NQ-CP dated March 31, 2023 promulgating the Government's Action Program to continue implementing Resolution No. 10-NQ/TW dated June 3, 2017 of the 5th Conference of the 12th Central Executive Committee to improve the qualifications of young people and workers, meeting the goals of quality human resources and competitiveness of enterprises.
The above policies are the legal basis for central and local state management agencies on vocational education to focus on and direct the implementation of policies on developing vocational skills for workers.
In addition, cooperation and connection between enterprises, state management agencies and vocational training institutions have been improved. Many contents and forms of cooperation and connection between these three subjects have been actively implemented.
100% of vocational training institutions have coordinated and cooperated closely with enterprises in implementing policies in various forms such as: developing training plans, training programs, teaching, testing and evaluating students, sending students to practice at enterprises; receiving scholarships for students and training equipment from enterprises; training workers for enterprises under training contracts; providing graduated students to enterprises through recruitment.
Thanks to that, the capacity of training organization, the capacity of teaching staff and management staff of vocational education institutions has been enhanced.
The models and forms of cooperation between the two sides are assessed as diverse and rich; achieving many results recognized by vocational training institutions, businesses and society; gradually meeting the demand for skilled human resources of businesses in terms of quantity, quality and occupational structure", Deputy Director General of the General Department of Vocational Education Nguyen Thi Viet Huong.
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