Hard to define ‘soft skills’ – decision-making, working in teams, and time management – are major determining factors in the success of people. And University Graduates seem to have learned everything but how to succeed.

Describing herself as introverted and timid, Nhung from Hoa Binh, a fourth year student of the Hanoi University of Foreign Trade said she missed many opportunities to make friends and a golden opportunity to get a good job in Hanoi. During the recent interview for the job, Nhung could not give concise and clear answers to the questions of the employer, and she did not get the job. 

Nhung is one of the hundreds of students who cannot get jobs just because of a lack of confidence, social interaction and general life skills.

Educators have been called on to teach social skills to students in a more intensive way. Pham Manh Ha, MA, from the Hanoi National University stressed that young people need to learn life skills when they go to school, so that they can interact within society.

However, the biggest problem in teaching life skills in schools is the lack of knowledgeable teachers. At many schools, general lecturers have to serve as life skill lecturers as well, which by no means a simple subject. Therefore, life skill lecturers need to have good knowledge in order to make the subject become attractive to students. “Lecturers themselves need to learn more about life skills to improve themselves, so that their lectures can be more attractive,” Ha said.

Explaining the lack of life skills, Hoai Le, a student of the Law University mentioned that students do not attend extracurricular activities organized by the school. The lack of interaction and experience makes them become passive and compliant.

Unlike Hanoi, students from other provinces have to spend their time and energy on a variation of things. They do not have good living conditions like students from big cities and they have to take care of themselves. They learn life skills and how to interact with society naturally, the hard way.

Source: Dan tri