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The anticipated restart of the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Project, which was recently approved by the 15th National Assembly, has revealed an urgent need for human resource training in this field.
Director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute under the Ministry of Science and Technology Trần Chí Thanh said it would be hard to find workers in the atomic energy industry.
Atomic energy is such a difficult major and not attractive to young people, who are also put off by the income being lower compared to many other professions, according to Thanh.
Việt Nam will urgently need human resources in this field, while the restart of the nuclear power project will also kick off the investment of a series of other key projects such as the Nuclear Science and Technology Research Centre in Đồng Nai Province and the project to build a national radiation network.
Việt Nam’s nuclear power development must consider retraining those who were trained in the nuclear power industry by the Russian Federation, Japan and other forces.
There need to be mechanisms to attract trained human resources who are currently working in other fields to return to nuclear power to form a network of leading experts in nuclear power, because human resources are the key to success.
The team for the nuclear power sector includes agencies preparing for management work, nuclear regulatory work, agencies serving the construction and installation process and agencies operating and maintaining the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Plant. The forces working at State management agencies, nuclear regulatory agencies and research and development agencies need to continue to be retrained to serve the construction, deployment and operation of the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Plant in the future.
“Hundreds of engineers and workers are needed for the plant’s construction and installation. This team also needs to be retrained, receive advanced training and specialised training by sending them to directly study and work at nuclear power plants in the Russian Federation. We also need the participation of foreign experts in the nuclear power plant’s construction,” Thanh told Vietnam News Agency.
The Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute had built a strong research team in technology, nuclear safety analysis and fields related to atomic energy. This team would continue to be trained to become valued experts and play a role in the construction of the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Plant, he said.
Nguyễn Nhị Điền, former deputy director of the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute and former director of the Đà Lạt Nuclear Research Institute, said in 2010, the Prime Minister signed Decision No. 1558/QD-TTg on training and developing human resources in atomic energy.
Việt Nam already sent nearly 400 people to Russia for training, nearly 100 people to Japan and nearly 100 people to other countries. Experts working in the nuclear energy industry, Vietnam Electricity (EVN) were also sent for training.
In 2016, when the National Assembly issued Resolution No. 31/2016/QH14 on suspending the investment policy of the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Project, most of the trained human resources returned to Việt Nam to work at EVN in nuclear energy and other related fields.
Some continued to study for master's and doctoral degrees while some of the trained experts were hired by Russia to work on nuclear power projects in the Federation and Bangladesh.
Điền said Việt Nam could continue to make use of the skillfully-trained human resources, eight years after the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Project was suspended.
“We can attract well-trained human resources who have changed their profession to return to nuclear power, at the same time, retrain them to improve their qualifications and capacity,” he said.
He emphasised that the volume of the current trained workforce would not be enough to meet the operational demands of the Ninh Thuận Nuclear Power Plant.
From international experience, operating a nuclear power plant would require thousands of people. Việt Nam needed to continue to develop a human resources training roadmap in the nuclear power sector, he said.