"Evaluating the vocational training for women with disabilities in Vietnam"

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY PHAM THI LAN HUONG EVALUATING THE VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES IN VIETNAM MASTER'S THESIS Hanoi, 2019 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI VIETNAM JAPAN UNIVERSITY PHAM THI LAN HUONG EVALUATING THE VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES IN VIETNAM MAJOR: PUBLIC POLICY CODE: PILOT RESEARCH SUPERVISOR: Dr NGUYEN THUY ANH Asst Prof JUN KAWAGUCHI Acknowledgment Hanoi, 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENT Foremost, I would like to extend my appreciation and sincere thanks to my supervisor from the Vietnamese side, Dr Nguyen Thuy Anh Her patient and constructive advice had helped me a lot in the completion of this thesis My great gratitude is due to my supervisor from the Japanese side, Dr Jun Kawaguchi for imparting his valuable guidance and constant supervision during my time in Japan and in Vietnam Special thanks to the lecturers and staffs in Master’s Program of Public Policy and researchers for their studies and reports on the topic I have researched, whose information and findings had been a great support for my thesis My appreciation goes to the directors and staffs of vocational training centers and organizations who willing to participate in the in-depth interviews Their honest and cooperative answers have provided useful information for my analysis Finally, I would like to express my love and gratitude towards my family and my friends Their encouragement and support have shaped my thesis to this stage Hanoi 17th June 2019, Sincerely, Pham Thi Lan Huong i TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TABLES iv LIST OF FIGURES v ABBREVIATIONS .vi Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background 1.2 Problem statement 1.3 Research purpose 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Research scope and time 1.6 Research significance 1.7 Methodology 1.8 Structure of research Chapter LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODOLOGY 2.1 Literature review 2.1.1 Studies on Persons with Disabilities 2.1.2 Studies on vocational training for women with disabilities 17 2.1.3 Research gap 18 2.2 Theoretical framework 18 2.3 Research flow 20 2.4 In-depth interviews 22 Chapter CURRENT STATUS OF WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES AND VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN WITH DISABILITIES IN VIETNAM 25 3.1 Definition of disability 25 3.2 Current status of PWDs and WWDs in Vietnam 28 3.3 Legislation documents and legal framework on PWDs in Vietnam 33 Chapter FINDINGS 35 4.1 Interview sites 35 4.2 Interview results 36 4.2.1 From the perspective of owners of vocational training centers for PWDs 36 4.2.2 From the perspective of a female student with disabilities 41 4.2.3 From the perspective of a company who employed PWDs 44 4.2.4 From the perspective of social organization that works with matters related to PWDs 47 ii 4.3 Findings and discussion 48 Chapter CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 52 5.1 Conclusion 52 5.2 Recommendations 53 5.3 Limitations 55 REFERENCES 56 APPENDIX 60 iii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 2.1 Guidelines and Rules on disability adopted by the UN in the 1990s 13 Table 2.2 Method to evaluate vocational training 19 Table 2.3 Theoretical framework to evaluate vocational training used in the thesis 21 Table 2.4 In-depth interview plan 23 Table 3.1 Share of disability types classified by functional domain and gender (older than 18 years old) 30 Table 4.1 Interview results from the perspective of owners of vocational training centers for PWDs 36 Table 4.2 Interview results from WWDs who are taking vocational training courses 41 Table 4.3 Interview results from the perspective of social organization worker related to PWDs 47 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1.1 Employment inequality between PWDs and the overall population, by sex Figure 2.1 Research flow 22 Figure 3.1 The Interaction between the components of the ICF 26 Figure 3.2 Percentage of PWDs (18 years old and above) in the labor force 31 Figure 3.3 Reasons why PWDs not work or look for a job 32 v ABBREVIATIONS CRPD: Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities PWD: Person with disabilities PWOD: Person without disabilities SWD: Student with disabilities UN: United Nations UNFPA: United Nation Population Fund WHO: World Health Organization WWD: Women with disabilities vi Chapter INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background As stated by the World Health Organization (WHO), the share of persons with disabilities had increased from 10% in the 1970s to about 15% in 2011 (cited in Nguyen, T.A, 2018) According to a report of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2017, there were 15% of the world population (around 7.8 million people) were suffering from physical or mental disabilities As we can see, the quantity of persons with disabilities (PWD) in the world is quite significant and this figure has been increasing year by year There are several reasons for this emerging trend in the world Firstly, the aging population has not only put the world in the situation of the aging labor force but also raised the number of PWDs because there are several types of disabilities appear as people getting older Secondly, due to the advancement of technology in medical practice, new types of disability have been discovered and recognized worldwide Besides that, the world also changed the way to approach and shaping the definition of disability The conventional concept of disability is usually based on the biological and individual aspect However, in recent years, researchers and society have taken into consideration the social and environmental factors in defining disability In consonance with that, the disability of a person is not only represented by the dysfunction of their own bodies but can be affected by the social, cultural and economic barriers Defining disability this way gives the society a new perspective on how to view the PWDs and help to detect and have more people registered as disabled PWDs not only have many difficulties in daily life due to their body dysfunction, but they also face several discriminations Most of PWDs have a low education background, very few of them attend in higher education Due to their disability, especially learning disability, some PWDs are not able to finish the study program Also, the reason could come from prejudices from family, which consider that it would be a wiser choice to let them study at vocational school and working rather than studying Therefore, compared to the academic path, going to vocational training and getting a job is more common for most PWDs Regarding the women with disabilities (WWDs), due to discrimination and prejudice based on gender and disability (Nguyen, Mitchell, de Lange, & Fritsch, 2015), they have to face two types of discriminations: one for they are women, and the other for their disability In the world population with disabilities, the “disability is more common among women, older people, children and adults who are poor” (WHO, 2017) In the report of United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child UNCRC - (UN, 2006), it is said that “Girls with disabilities are often even more vulnerable to discrimination due to gender discrimination.” The struggles and difficulties for women with disabilities in accessing education and vocational training is vivid, and yet the situation has remained unimproved In a smaller scale, among the world’s regions, the South East Asia countries record the second rank and third rank in the prevalence rate of moderate disability (16%) and severe disability (12.9%), respectively (WHO, 2013) However, these high figures are still assumed to be underestimated for this region because most of these countries (except Indonesia and Thailand) applied the medical approach definition for disability rather than the definition of ICF which included the social and cultural aspect The situation that few children with disabilities attend school is quite common in lots of countries in this region Data from Nuri et, al (2012) shows that the difference between school attendance rates of children with and without disabilities varies from 10% in India to 60% in Indonesia In Nepal, there are 68% of PWDs have no education (ILO & IRISH AID, 2013) In a report of International Labor Organization (ILO), it is stated that in Thailand, there are nearly two million people (around 3% of the total population) have a disability and majority of them live in the rural area The report also cited data from Thailand National Statistics Office Survey in 2007 which show that more than 60% of the PWDs over the age of 15 are unemployed Especially, among the employed, only a few of them are hired for professional occupations and a majority (more than 50%) worked in the agriculture and fishing sector (ILO & IRISH AID, 2013) Noticeably, the ... at vocational school and working rather than studying Therefore, compared to the academic path, going to vocational training and getting a job is more common for most PWDs Regarding the women with. .. the vocational training and education system in Vietnam for PWDs and the especially for the women with disabilities and from then can propose suitable solutions to improve the vocational training. .. PWDs have vocational training rather than attending school, improving the quality of vocational training might be good for the integration of people with disability Especially for the WWDs, who