Intel chips in with job training ideas

Intel Products Vietnam, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel Corp, is helping improve Vietnam’s human resources through the expansion of an education programme it founded two years ago.

The company late last month announced it would join hands with Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MoLISA), Ministry of Labour, Invalid and Social Affairs, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and US’s Arizona State University (ASU) to further expand the Higher Engineering Education Alliance Programme (HEEAP) in order to training qualified engineers to supply technology firms in Vietnam.

Financial investment for HEEAP’s expansion could total $40 million. HEEAP was established in 2010 with funding support from USAID and Intel. The programme aims to accelerate economic development by providing a more highly trained workforce in Vietnam to meet the growing needs of global high-tech industries. Ultimately, HEEAP will strengthen education and research collaboration, as well as business ties, between Vietnam and the United States. Five top technical universities in Vietnam joined the program in 2010. In 2011, the programme expanded to include three vocational colleges.

To date the programme has trained more than 100 faculty members from Vietnam’s universities and colleges in advanced methods for teaching engineering at ASU. The new investment will enable the programme to provide training to an estimated 1,000 faculty members, and bring engineering programmes into compliance with requirements set by leading higher education accrediting organisations

“Our motivation for this programme started with a desire to build a successful operation in Vietnam, but it has expanded beyond our company. It is our wish that the universities and vocational colleges selected for this programme will be the seeds for improving the quality of engineering education nationwide,” said Rick Howarth, general manager of Intel Products Vietnam.

Intel Corp, for example, several years ago suffered a headache to recruit qualified engineers to work for its $1 billion chip-set plant in Ho Chi Minh City. Howarth recalled the labour headache had led to the establishment of an education programme to help Vietnam improve its human resource.

Since the start of the program, other industry partners like Siemens, Honeywell, Danaher and Cadence have joined the programme. During the expansion of HEEAP, the alliance expects to add at least 12 new industry partners within the next five years.