On 09 November 2016, State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) Dr Gunther Adler visited and held the opening speech of the German-Vietnamese Forum at the VietWater Expo 2016. In his speech, Dr Adler highlighted the first achievements of the Vietnamese-German technical cooperation project ‘TVET for Skilled Workers in the Wastewater Sector’ such as the completion of the Professional Standard, and the implementation of the pilot cooperative training programme ‘Sewage Engineering Technicians’. Understanding very well about the current situation and problems of the water sector in Viet Nam regarding lack of skilled operational workers and technologies, State Secretary Adler affirmed that the German Government will keep supporting the Vietnamese Government in this sector by strengthening the Vietnamese TVET system with focus on developing more practical training programmes as well as improving professional knowledge and skills of human resources.

At the Forum, Dr Adler also talked to Dr Nguyen Thi Hang, Rector of the Ho Chi Minh Vocational College of Technology (HVCT) – one of main implementation partners of the cooperative training programme. He was glad to hear from Madame Hang that after the first year of implementation all 22 students of the pilot class have not only kept attending the programme, but also gradually developed their passion for this occupation. Towards the partner companies of HVCT, profits earnt through joining in cooperative training programme like the chance to directly train future workforce or the privileged recruitment of best graduates, have become more clearly to them. Hence, the companies have showed their great interest and made strong commitment on cooperation with HVCT in jointly conducting this pilot programme, which will end at the end of 2018.