German expertise for the first Vietnamese car

Eckert Schools International • Training centre and courses established in Vietnam in accordance with German standards

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The Vietnamese industrial conglomerate Vingroup is aiming to launch the first Vietnamese car onto the market soon. Eckert Schools International from Germany have been training 18 Vietnamese teaching staff within the scope of a customised train-the-trainer course in order to be able to meet the need that this will entail for specialist development and production workers.

Vingroup is Vietnam's largest property company, and it has also established a successful presence in the retail, healthcare and hotel/restaurant sectors. The aim now is for a newly founded company division called "Vinfast" to conquer the domestic automobile market. Vingroup plans to invest 3.5 billion dollars in the venture, which would make it the largest automobile project in the world. "Our objective is to develop a high quality but affordable car, made by the Vietnamese for the Vietnamese," said Le Thi Thu Thuy, Deputy Chair of the Vingroup Administrative Board for Future Planning.
 

A factory with an affiliated training centre

Car sales in Vietnam are rising steadily. According to estimates made by the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade, annual turnover could reach 1.8 million vehicles as of 2030. However, qualified skilled workers will be required if Vietnamese-made cars are to form part of these sales figures. Vingroup wants these staff to be trained by domestic trainers.

From January 2018, these trainers completed a six-month programme focusing on industrial mechanics and mechatronics. They spent the first three months of this course at the Eckert Schools International Campus in Regenstauf, Bavaria.

The second half of the programme took place in Vietnam. Especially during the training units staged in Germany, the focus was on the development and planning of teaching sessions, on the methodology and didactics of the teaching process and on evaluation systems to judge the status of knowledge and the skills acquired by future trainees. The basic principles of health protection, health and safety at work and environmental protection were also imparted. The programme also included insights into practice. Visits to Nabburg Vocational School, the Festo Training Centre in Esslingen and BMW’s production site in Regensburg were all scheduled.

Vinfast's manufacturing facility extends over an area of 335 hectares and is located in the northern Vietnamese port city of Haiphong near the Chinese border. The plan is for the first petrol-driven cars to roll off the production line at the end of 2019. The company aims to be producing 500,000 vehicles a year by 2025, including electric cars and buses.

The Vingroup has set up its training centre on the same site. This facility opened in February 2018, and training takes place using teaching material that corresponds to the German standard. The centre was also the venue for the second part of the programme completed by the trainers.

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This sucess story was first published in the following iMOVE publication:

Developing Skills for Employability with German Partners - 8 Case Studies

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Eckert Schools International is member of the iMOVE provider database.

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Cooperation with the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam

The newly qualified trainers have been looking after around 200 trainees at the centre since August 2018. Planned duration of training is two and a half years, and the intention is for it to take place within the scope of dual courses featuring a practical component of 60 percent. Vinfast is the leading Vietnamese company to apply German training standards and is also cooperating with the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Vietnam.

In the long term, Vinfast is seeking to establish a local supply chain and to train potential Vietnamese manufacturers itself. The goal is to maintain one of the leading vocational education and training centres in South East Asia.

Gerald Saule, Head of Vocational Training International at Eckert Schools International, does not believe that the potential of the training measure has yet been exhausted. "Our Vietnamese partners have also displayed a high degree of determination and commitment in pursuing the implementation of the project, and this is encouraging us to look at further stages of development. One possibility could be for the best young industrial mechanics and mechatronics fitters to receive an additional German international qualification as an "certified industrial foreman". We have already implemented this scheme very successfully elsewhere via the training programmes we have developed, and it may also be precisely the right approach here."