Skills development a crucial matter in Southeast Asia

Education has proven to be one of the most crucial aspects of maintaining and enhancing a solid workforce so that employees can compete with other contenders in the global marketplace.  While Southeast Asia is certainly a strong economic force, some countries in the region are struggling to train and educate their people, not because of  a lack of attention to the matter, but because of limited budgets.

By Sheree McDonald

Investors have the opportunity to invest in educational projects in order to help establish a skillful workforce so as to have more investment opportunities in the future that a strengthened human resource pool is sure to create.

Vietnam is a country that is combatting the issues of a weakened workforce. The country has projected ideas of where they want to be in terms of education level of its employees. The goals for graduates by 2015 include two million associates, 3.3 million undergraduates and 200,000 graduates. In order to reach these numbers, the country has created an outline of projects to hopefully be able to meet or exceed its goals. The key focus lies on creating a stronger academic backdrop in order to establish a foundation for students to grow in their university and become knowledgeable professionals. The main projects that the country was working on recently were the establishment of the Vietnam-UK University in Da Nang, providing research cooperation, staff and student exchanges between British and Vietnamese universities, as well as the Project 911, which includes overseas scholarships for 20,000 Vietnamese PhDs until 2020. Investors have the opportunity to focus more such projects that provide a solid platform by targeting educational institutions directly.

In Thailand, there is an imbalance of skills between the younger and the older workforce. In the past few years the average age of workers has risen from 27 to 32. With an aging workforce, there has been a decline in productivity. Some of these issues derive from younger employees having to complete lengthier academic programmes before embarking on their professional careers. The issue is that the older workforce is maintaining a position without continuing training which would help them to keep up with the younger workforce and their academic background. For investors, it would be crucial to invest in the training of the older workforce so as to increase productivity and decrease the imbalance of skills between the younger and older employees.

The Philippines are implementing a new approach to enhancing their workforce. The country is focusing more on virtual workplaces so as to expand the diversity of skills and education of the overall workforce.  The attempt of creating such a workforce is to attract more of a technology literate employee pool. For investors this means to have potential investment opportunities based on a variety of skill sets.