In Vietnam, the education system has seen important development in the last 10 years with the number of schools doubled and an increase state expenditure (World Bank, 2014). As regard to higher education (HE) the number of graduates grew markedly (Vietnam Statistics Office, 2014). Yet, graduates are facing the dual problem of increasing youth unemployment and a mismatch between graduates’ skills and employers’ requirement often ascribed to the poor quality of education (ICEF, 2014,). The creation of modern and sustainable tools based on the provision of updated information for the enhancement of university-enterprises partnership, is highly needed. The project, thus, will support Vietnamese Universities in identifying instruments and methodologies to improve the effectiveness of education system through the implementation, at local level, of a graduates database system that, following the AL model in Italy, pursue two main goals: provide an efficient tool to Universities and Government for the monitoring of long lasting impact of HE on society and improving educational supply accordingly; supporting employability and collaboration between education and business sector. The system (online platform developed on the graduates DB) will allow enterprises to search for graduates to employ according to specific skill needs, giving the graduates a comprehensive and democratic access to labour market. The graduates data platform will enhance the linkage between education and socio-economic partners, the reform of curricula in line with labour market needs, the enhancement of the whole HE system’ efficiency, the production of documentary evidence (the first graduates’ profile survey in the beneficiaries universities) for decision making and policy. The project is expecting to have a long term impact of the whole socio-economic system and society envisaging as beneficiaries: the young and the graduates, the universities and decision makers, the Vietnamese business community.
The Voyage project has set up a web platform, active for an online students and companies registration. Set up in the Vietnamese beneficiaries universities, the platform collects, in a unique database graduates and future graduates data, namely educational experience’ assessment questionnaire data and Certified CVs. The platform has two main scopes: enhancing employability of graduates and strengthening the efficiency of the HE system for curricula reforms in line with labour market needs. The Voyage platform, developed on the graduates DB and conceived to easily integrate new Vietnamese universities, allows enterprises to search for Vietnamese graduates according to specific skill needs, while giving the graduates a comprehensive and democratic access to labour market. Platform data have been exploited to release the first Vietnamese Graduates Profile Surveys: an analysis of beneficiary universities graduates and graduates’ features and performance, including evaluation of university experience, family background and future intentions and perspectives. Guidelines for platform management, deployment and data use as well as a Training Compendium summarizing main training contents have been realized. In the framework of the project the Monitoring enterprises skill needs’ report and the Best Practices for Internship Promotion’ report in Vietnam have been developed. The first report provides feedback on skill needs required by Vietnamese companies as well as on the state of art of Universities-Enterprises cooperation in the country; the second report collects Vietnamese and European best practices for internships promotion. Beneficiaries' universities have agreed to the project sustainability plan detailing the platform configuration in Vietnam, tasks and functions assigned to Consortium members for the release of the main project's outcomes in the future. Project contents and publication are available online at http://voyage-project.eu