CPV: Job generation for detoxified drug addicts plays an important role in stabilising their lives and preventing social problems in the community. Only 20-30 percent of detoxified drug users are equipped with vocational training and given jobs after leaving rehabilitation centres. With the goal of helping around 55-60 thousand people give up drugs, job generation for detoxified people will become a burning issue in the society.

According to the deputy head of the Bureau of Social Evil Prevention under the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs, Tran Viet Trung, around 10-18 percent of people pass a training course and 20 -30 percent are given jobs after detoxification.

There are about 83 rehabilitation centres around the country that serve more than 40,000 people, an increase of three times over 2000. Around 70-80 percent of centres have organised vocational training courses. Many of the centres have built their own workshops, bought equipment and organised vocational education courses for their learners or coordinated with enterprises to invest in opening production workshops in centres. Some centres have coordinated with vocational education schools and enterprises to teach informatics, motorbike repair and civil electricity repair and grant certificates to learners.

Some centres have combined detoxification with vocational guidance and vocational education and achieved positive results. The centre in Ho Chi Minh City is a good example. In its year of operation, the centre has organised nearly 1,000 vocational training classes for almost 21,700 people in electromechanics, civil electricity, motorbike repair, driving, carpentry, welding or informatics, computation and clerical work.

Additionally, rehabilitation centres have provided vocational education for 3,000 people and expanded coordination with enterprises and production facilities to create jobs for detoxified people. 72 enterprises and units have invested in production development and job generation for detoxified people with the total investment capital of 62 billion VND.

Work helps detoxified people become more confident, overcome guilt about their mistakes and learn the value of work. Moreover, work will create better conditions for them to re-integrate into the community.

However, according to Tran Viet Trung, vocational education and job generation for detoxified people remains inadequate: vocational training lasts only a short time and is poor quality. Job training is appropriate with production in centres but people meet difficulties finding a stable job when returning to the community. There are a small number of people getting jobs with low income that can not ensure their lives.

In addition, the literacy rate and working skills of detoxified people is usually low. Fewer than 81.1 percent of them have graduated from secondary school. 66.2 percent are out of work or have an unstable job before entering the rehabilitation centre. 25.2 percent of them have not been regularly working.

In fact, there remains a lot of preconceptions of people addicted to drugs. Therefore, many enterprises do not want to employ detoxified people. Furthermore, policies are insufficient. Expenditures allocated for vocational education are very low (240,000 VND/month/person), and that is not enough to educate people in basic jobs. Policies on encouraging enterprises to create jobs for detoxified people through tax incentives, land rent subsidies and capital loans have not been issued yet.

Vocational Education and job creation for detoxified people play an important role in preventing social problems in the community and rehabilitating in the centres. It is necessary to promote more effective coordination between levels and sectors to help detoxified people have healthy lives. The state and authorities should implement synchronous socio-economic plans and issue policies and mechanisms to mobilise capital and draw the participation of organisations into vocational training and job generation for them, contributing to stabilising their lives.