Five-star hotels Rex and Renaissance Riverside Saigon in HCMC and Pandanus Resort in Binh Thuan will join hands with Hoa Sen University, Saigontourist Hospitality College and Long Thanh-Nhon Trach Vocational College to adapt the curricula to the actual demand of the market. They will also jointly form a network among schools and hotels to offer students better conditions for internship.

Tao Van Nghe, general director of the Rex Hotel, said his hotel had clinched a deal with Saigontourist Hospitality College to recruit students of the school.

The partnership is part of the program for improving the quality of hospitality training launched by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry in HCMC (VCCI-HCMC) in association with Norwegian Federation of Enterprises and Business Associations.

A similar program for the auto repair industry was carried out at Long Thanh-Nhon Trach Vocational College in early this year. With the aid of Norwegian Federation of Enterprises and Business Associations, the school exchanged its teaching staff with several Norway-based vocational schools in a bid to improve English competence of their teachers and skills of their students.

Nguyen Hong Ha, deputy director of VCCI-HCMC, said around 55,000 students graduated from colleges and universities in HCMC every year. The figure is 180,000 if students graduated from vocational schools are included.

However, only 55% of them can find appropriate and well-paid jobs.