Hanoi hopes to attract talents by offering sky high salaries Hanoi has decided that it can pay the salaries 20 times higher than the usual levels in order to attract talents. This is one of a series of new policies laid down by the city’s authorities after the Capital Law took effects on July 1.   The “talents” to enjoy the high salaries could be those who come first at the graduation exams of domestic universities, or the bachelors who finish foreign universities at excellent grade. They would also be the PhDs, pharmacists or doctors with level No. 2, the teachers or lecturers with the high achievements in training students who can obtain high prizes at national or international competitions, the sportsmen or artists who win national or international prizes, the leading experts and scientists, craftsmen who receive honorable titles from the State, The talented persons would be recruited by the Hanoi state agencies without having to attend any exams, while they would enjoy the high salaries which are 20 times higher than the basic salaries. They would also get the financial support when defending theses or dissertations. Tran Huy Sang, Director of the Hanoi Department of Interior Affairs, said the policy aims to attract talented officers to satisfy the requirements of the programs on the city socio-economic development. Hanoi is the place which gathers 1,600 representative offices, 14 industrial zones and 16,000 industrial production workshops. Hanoi, over the last 11 years, has been applying many policies, including the Program No. 322, to attract talents. Under the program, VND2.5 trillion has been spent to send 7,129 candidates to foreign training establishments, including 3,838 PhDs. Also according to Sang, many people think that Hanoi does not need to “lay down the red carpet” to attract talents, because the most qualified workers all wish to work for Hanoi, where they can expect big opportunities for job promotion. However, after the last 11 years, Hanoi can only recruit 103 first laureates, 27 PhDs and masters. Meanwhile, the others either refused to work for state management agencies, or have not returned to Vietnam. A question has been raised that why many talented persons refuse to work for Hanoi’s agencies. Is it because they are not wise enough to realize their big opportunities in Hanoi, or is it because Hanoi has not truly reward the talents? Therefore, no one can say for sure if Hanoi can attract and retain talents if it offers the salaries which are 20 times higher than the basic salaries. The “100 percent PhD program” In 2009, Dr. Le Anh Sac, a high ranking official of the Hanoi Department of Interior Affairs, began compiling the personnel plan, under which Hanoi would have 100 percent of the management officers of the city’s committee of the Communist Party having doctorates. Commenting about the plan, analysts said if the plan is implemented, Vietnam would far outstrip the US in the management officers’ qualification. In Vietnam, there are over 100 training centers and universities which can grant doctorates. Every year, the centers and schools receive 1,000 doctoral fellows. A report showed that Vietnam now has 6,600 professors and associate professors, and 6,250 PhDs. However, the number of scientific works conducted by them remains modest. Every year, Vietnam can only publish 1,000 scientific articles, the lowest figure if compared with other South East Asian countries, which is just equal to 1/5 of Thailand and 1/10 of Singapore. Source: Dat Viet