The National Defence Academy (NDA) is a leading centre for training and military scientific research of Viet Nam People’s Army (VPA) and country. It also has high prestige and good reputaion in the region and beyond. Under the Party’s and State’s leadership, directly the Central Military Commission (CMC) and Ministry of National Defence (MND), as well as support of units in the entire military and localities nationwide, the NDA always excellently accomplishes all missions.

In recent years, the academy has actively streamlined itself in an “adept, compact, strong” direction; concentrated on popularising and implementing synchronous, drastic measures to build a robust system of departments, faculties, and units with proper organisation and staffing, efficiency, and effectiveness. The academy attaches importance to development of a corps of lecturers, education management cadres, and scientific researchers with sufficient quantity and quality on a par with requirements and missions. Education, training, and scientific research are regularly reformed to improve quality. The academy successfully completes training programmes for both domestic and international learners as provided by plans for each year and course, which contributes not only to the building of a high-quality human resource for the VPA but also increased state management of national defence and security and strengthening of military, defence power, and protection of the Fatherland. Moreover, the academy makes a breakthrough in raising the quality of building a comprehensively strong, “examplary, representative” unit; adopts standards extensively and with focus, bringing about drastic, holistic changes and falicitating task accomplishment.

President Vo Van Thuong speaks at the opening ceremony of 2023 - 2024 academic year at the National Defence Academy (Photo credit: qdnd.vn)

In the time to come, given increasingly high requirements of building and safeguarding the Fatherland, especially modernisation of the VPA, the academy must continue to be built into a strong unit by means of many synchronous, comprehensive, scientific solutions.

First, there is a need to focus on reforming and promoting training quality. The academy keeps grasping and carrying out effectively resolutions and policies of the Party, State, CMC, and MND on reforming education and training, most notably Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW, dated 4 November 2013, of the Party Central Committee (11th tenure) on reforming education and training fundamentally and comprehensively, Resolution No. 1657-NQ/TW, dated 20 December 2022, of the CMC on reforming education and training to meet the requirement of building the VPA in the new situation. It also implements leadership measures synchronously and comprehensively; instructs enhanced training quality, notably the training of operational- and strategic-level cadres and provision of defence, security knowledge for high-ranking cadres of the Party and State. The training aims to develop a corps of cadres who have political steadfastness and pure revolutionary ethics; are qualified enough for planning and implementing the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and law on military, national defence, and protection of the Fatherland successfully; have competence and prestige to well command and control operational- and strategic-level departments and units and beyond.

On further grasping and implementing the mottos: “The training quality of colleges is units’ capacity for combat readiness” and “Substantive teaching, substantive learning, substantive evaluation of learners’ performance,” the academy seeks to monitor developments of theory and reality closely; comprehensively reform and improve training processes, programmes, content, and methodologies to ensure suitability for fundamental principles of modern education. It concentrates on making training programmes and content comparable to graduation standard for each type of learners as well as their positions and missions. This also aims to avoid overlaps among subjects, maintain a balance between theory and practice, and increase the time for practice, test command, excercise, and study tour in conducive to new theory and thinking about safeguarding the Fatherland, building an “adept, compact, strong” VPA, and training goals and requirements. It is necessary to further enhance teaching quality; attach importance to inclusion of research findings in training; timely update the training content with perspectives and policies of the Party and State as well as new developments; step up application of the active teaching method and technologies in accordance with trends of modern education; manage training programmes as provided by plans, processes, and regulations; intensify inspection of all exams and tests, ensuring that results truly reflect learners’ performance while resolutely punishing violation of training regulations.

Second, the academy is committed to improving quality of scientific research and recommendations to the Party, State, CMC, and MND for matters concerning military, national defence, and protection of the Fatherland. Accordingly, it must grasp and carry out perspectives and resolutions of the Party, State, CMC, and MND on science and technology, especially new developments in military theory, national defence, building of the VPA, and protection of the Fatherland; closely combine theoretical research and summation of realities; and focus on doing research to develop military art and Vietnamese military culture. There is a need to promote quality of research projects and coursebook development to ensure scientific values, practical significance, and suitability for the policy on military modernisation; timely update teaching materials with new information about military and national defence, meeting requirement of building and safeguarding the Fatherland from afar. Breakthroughs should be made in scientific research, participation in research projects, and development of training materials with the theme of preventing and repelling the risk of war and defeating the enemy’s types of war such as unconventional warfare and high-tech warfare as well as different types of strategic operations including operations to defend waters and islands, operations to counter enemy fires, electronic warfare, cyberwarfare, hybrid warfare, and so forth.

It is necessary to proactively and actively conduct strategic studies and prediction in many fields, most notably the strategies and strategic competition among major powers as well as hostile forces’ plots and acts of sabotage. This will provide scientific foundation for enabling the CMC and MND to advise the Party and State on appropriate policies, strategies, and stratagems concerning military, defence, security missions, protection of the Fatherland from afar, and other important matters of the country. Attention should be paid to investment in modern material basis and equipment, together with the high-quality human resource, to build the academy into one of the leading centre for scientific research of the VPA.

Third, development of a robust corps of lecturers, training management cadres, and scientific researchers on a par with missions. Party committees and commanders of departments, faculties, and units need to take initiative in training and developing the corps of lecturers, management cadres, and scientific researchers with sufficient quantity and high quality; focus on improving academic standard, thinking capacity at the operational, strategic level, teaching competence, pedagogic skills, and command of foreign languages and information technology. They are to promote political, ideological education aimed to foster lecturers’, training management cadres’, and scientific researchers’ appropriate motive, attitude, responsibility, and the spirit of self-study, self-training, and striving for successfully completing missions; resolutely oppose and deal with signs of working perfunctorily, lack of enthusiasm, fearfulness of study and training; cooperate with functional departments of the MND on formulating the mechanism for appointing cadres and lecturers with good teaching competence and research capacity from units, academies, and colleges in the entire military to the NDA. The development of lecturers and training management cadres must be closely aligned with the development of scientific researchers with proper structure, experience, enthusiam, competence, responsibility, and good command of teaching and scientific research as well as development of the leading experts and scientists in military art and national defence, meeting requirements and missions of building the academy and military modernisation.

Fourth, synchronous, effective implementation of measures to build a comprehensive, “exemplary, representative” academy. On the basis of grasping resolutions, conclusions, policies, and law of the Party, State, CMC, and MND, the academy requests party committees and commanders at all levels to promote education with a view to enhancing cadres’, lecturers’, learners’, employees’, and soldiers’ political steadfastness, morality, lifestyle, and the spirit of surmounting difficulties to complete missions successfully. The academy closely combines the building and enhancement of leadership capacity and combat power of party committees and party organisations with building of the corps of leading cadres at all levels; steps up the Determination to Win Movement in association with implementation of campaigns, especially the campaign of Promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers in the new era; seriously carries out the regulation on grassroots democracy and promotes dialogue to address emerging issues in a timely and thorough manner. It is also committed to well implementing policies towards beneficiaries, ensuring compliance with principles, accuracy, and equality; strictly maintains regulations, especially the duties of combat readiness, command and control, patrol, guarding, preventing and responding to fire and explosion, etc., in order to keep the academy absolutely safe. The academy is to make breakthroughs in increasing the quality of ideological, discipline management and promoting good order, thus creating drastic, comprehensive transformation in building a regular, advanced, exemplary academy; speed up military administration reform, digital transformation, and good implementation of logistic, technical, and financial work; closely, effectively manage, exploit, and use materials, assets, and logistic, technical equipment in line with goals and principles without shortcomings, corruption, and wastefulness. It is to establish a “bright, green, clean, scenic” environment; improve quality of providing healthcare for soldiers; build a comprehensively strong, exemplary, representative academy, contributing to the building of a modern military and firm protection of the Fatherland.

Senior Lieutenant General, Associate Professor, Doctor TRAN VIET KHOA, Member of the Party Central Committee, Member of the Central Military Commission, Rector of the National Defence Academy