Being deeply imbued with Uncle Ho’s teaching on patriotic emulation, together with the whole Party, the whole People and the whole Army, the Political Academy has always accelerated Determined-to-Win Emulation movements with multiple contents and various forms so that each collective and individual can be encouraged to accomplish all assigned tasks.

75 years ago, during the fierce resistance war against French Colonists, and while Vietnamese people were implementing two simultaneous tasks which are national defence and construction, President Ho Chi Minh issued the “Appeal for Patriotic Emulation” on 11 June, 2948. Since then, his ideology about Patriotic Emulation has had an all-pervasive influence on inspiring and encouraging the whole Party, the whole People and the whole Army to bring into full play the patriotic tradition, solidarity, and self-reliance to overcome all sacrifices and hardships to accomplish all tasks in each revolutionary stage. Particularly, in difficult predicaments, the “Appeal for Patriotic Emulation” of President Ho Chi Minh permeated the consciousness and actions of the people from all social strata throughout emulation movements and campaigns. It truly functioned as a great driving force that mobilised manpower and resources for the cause of national liberation, reunification, construction, and defence.

As one of the major educational institutions of the Army and the country, the Political Academy is tasked with the training of commissars and lecturers and researchers specialising in social sciences and humanities and military social sciences and humanities, etc. Throughout the course of construction, development and maturity, the Political Academy has always been deeply imbued with Ho Chi Minh’s ideology of Patriotic Emulation to effectively apply it in practice. In line with the increasing requirements of training and scientific research and on the foundation of thoroughly grasping His ideology and resolutions and directives of the Party, the State, the Central Military Commission (the CMC), and the Ministry of National Defence (the MoD), and the instructions of the General Political Department (the GPD) on deploying Determined-to-Win Emulation movement, the Academy’s Party Committee and Directorate have always attached importance to leading and directing, to issue specific and synchronous resolutions, directives, and regulations on emulation work. The focus is placed on the following principles: emulation at grass-roots levels; taking political task accomplishment as objectives for striving; surmounting weaknesses in each individual and unit; combining regular emulation with emulation in peak time and emulation for breakthrough; renewing the contents and forms of organising emulation; associating the objectives of emulation with the results of task implementation of party committees and organisations, agencies, units, and each cadre, party member, cadet, military workers, and soldiers in the Academy.

Leader of the Academy speaks at a national conference

In order to realise those principles, the Academy’s Party Committee and Directorate concentrate on leading and directing the organisation of studying and grasping to form a consensus about perceptions and actions in the implementation of resolutions, directives, and conclusions of the Government, the CMC, the MoD, the GPD on Determined-to-Win Emulation movement. Particularly, the focus has been placed on grasping and implementing the Regulation on managing the ideology of military personnel, keeping track of and orientating public opinion within the Vietnam People’s Army. It is important to provide information, propagate, and orientate public opinion about complex and sensitive issues. Propagation work must be maintained with various contents and forms. Emulation activities on the occasion of national holidays of the Party, the Army, and the Academy have been well-organised to create a vibrant atmosphere. Meanwhile, other movements have also been actively organised by agencies and units in the Academy.

In addition, the agencies and units in the Academy place their focus on the accomplishment of the central political tasks of education, training, and scientific research. Implementing the direction of the Academy’s Party Committee and Directorate, commanders of the agencies and units have fulfilled the breakthroughs determined in the Resolution of the 16^th Academy Party Congress with a focus on “building a contingent of lecturers to satisfy the requirements of standardising, renewing training programmes and contents in association with renewing teaching methods, and improving teaching quality” and the breakthroughs in each academic year such as “Renewing teaching contents in association with renewing teaching methods and improving teaching quality”, “Markedly shifting from topic teaching to thematic teaching and improving lesson quality”, “improving the quality of self-studying, theses, and dissertation”, etc. Multiple emulation movements have been effectively organised. The movements have adhered to the acceleration of studying and following  Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and manners, the Campaign to Promote traditions and devote talents to deserve “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” in the new period, and the implementation of Resolution No. 847-NQ/QUTW of the CMC on “Bringing into play the qualities of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and resolutely fight against individualism in the new period”.

Functional agencies have actively advised and proposed policies and measures to comprehensively and synchronously accelerate the phases of the training process in the direction of standardising and modernising” to meet the requirements of training a contingent of political cadres and lecturers with sufficient qualities and competencies for task implementation. It is necessary to constantly improve the quality of managing and administering the training and perform regulations on education and training to completely address weaknesses in examination and evaluation of learners’ performance. Faculties are required to step up emulation in teaching phases; regularly organise activities for teaching methods and lectures, improve the quality of class attendance, inspection, and lesson ratification, and attach importance to renovating post-lecture activities and linking theory with practice; bring into full play learners’ eagerness and apply active teaching methods; and make maximal use of modern means and techniques in teaching, Units have effectively maintained emulation movements to build a wholesome pedagogic environment as well as prevent the penetration of adverse impacts. Thus, the past years have witnessed the sustainable development of the training quality in the Academy. Political cadres and lecturers specialising in social sciences and humanities and military social sciences and humanities and researchers cultivated by the Academy are of good quality, have the potential for development, and meet the requirements of building all-strong units.

“Effective scientific research” Emulation movement has witnessed accelerated development and great effectiveness. Agencies and units have adhered to the practical requirements and focused their research activities on improving the quality of education and training at the Academy and military schools; safeguarded the Party’s ideological foundation, engaged in struggles on the ideological and theoretical fronts, and criticise erroneous viewpoints; combined basic research with applied research and theoretical research with practical summaries, and compiled textbooks and teaching material. As a result, research projects at state, ministry and branch levels, conferences, scientific seminars, and the compilation of textbooks led by the Academy have consistently achieved high quality. In the academic year 2021-2022, the Academy conducted 262 research projects at all levels, 30 textbooks, 47 teaching materials, 15 reference books and monographs and published 30 teaching materials. The Academy also received awards for all 15 research projects in the Military Creative Youth Award.

The Academy actively promotes the breakthrough phase of "establishing a solid and comprehensive transformation in the building of regularity, disciplinary compliance, and administrative reform". Accordingly, emulations movements have been stepped up by the party committees and commanders of agencies and units with numerous positive measures and creative methods. In particular, the focus is placed on the breakthrough phase of "establishing a solid and comprehensive transformation in the building of regularity, disciplinary compliance, and administrative reform", especially military dressing and manners and full compliance with disciplines and regulations of the Army and the Academy; bringing into full play the roles of party committee levels and leaders of agencies and units to establish a seismic shift in awareness and actions to build regularity, manage, and instil discipline. Agencies and units have also synchronously implemented multiple measures to manage strength and relationships and address all ideological issues; organised numerous activities such as forums, competitions, specialised workshops, discussions, etc. to produce a seismic shift in adhering to state laws, military discipline, and regulations of the Academy.

The agencies and units accelerate emulation to improve the quality and effectiveness of logistics, technical, and financial work. Competitive movements such as “The Military Logistics follows Uncle Ho's teachings”, “Build units excel in soldier care and military supply management”, “Construct and manage regular, green, clean, and scenic barracks”, “Establish 5-goods medical units”, “Medics follow Uncle Ho's teachings”,' and the campaign 'Good, durable, safe and economical management and utilisation of weapons and technical equipment and traffic safety”, etc. have received participation of all cadres, personnel, and soldiers in the Academy, which contributes to improving work performance and meeting the regular and unscheduled tasks of the Academy.

Bring into play the achievements gained in the Determined-to-Win Emulation movement, in the upcoming time, the Political Academy must comprehensively implement emulation, commendation, and the Determined-to-Win Emulation movement with various practical activities that aimed at enhancing the quality and effectiveness of all aspects of work. In this regard, it is necessary to focus on implementing the following measures.

First, continuing to thorough grasp President Ho Chi Minh’s ideology on Patriotic Emulation; the Party’s viewpoints, policies, and guidelines, the State’s policies and laws, the directives, plans, and instructions of the MoD, the GPD, etc. to comprehensively conduct emulation, commendation and Determined-to-Win Emulation movement to accomplish all assigned political tasks.

Second, competing for the building of the all-strong agencies and units in the Academy with a priority given to strong political qualities. All of the cadres, lecturers, cadets, personnel, and soldiers must be equipped with strong political zeal, ethical qualities, and willingness to accept and accomplish all assigned tasks so that major emulation movements and campaigns can be effectively implemented.

Third, strengthening the leadership and direction of party committees and commanders at all levels in the implementation of emulation, commendation, and Determined-to-Win Emulation movement to accomplish all the tasks of education, training and scientific research. In the immediate future, the focus must be placed on effectively implementing two breakthrough measures namely “Enhancing the quality of post-lecture forms and renewing the work of testing, inspecting, and evaluating learners' performance” and ”Promoting fundamental research and improving the quality of scientific projects in association with ideological and theoretical struggles.

Fourth, continuing the renewal of organisational contents, approaches, and forms of emulation to enhance the quality of building regularity, self-discipline, compliance with the law and military administrative reform; the management of the strength and soldiers’ self-discipline to stringently maintain regulations on regularity, and cultivate a conduct culture in agencies and units in association with the building of safe units. It is important to prevent serious disciplinary violations and minimise disciplinary incidents below 0.1%.

Fifth, competing for effective implementation of the targets concerning logistics, technical, financial work, and infrastructure construction. The focus must be placed on the synchronous implementation of measures to encourage active participation in emulation and ensure prompt and sufficient provision of material, logistical, technical, and financial resources for tasks and 99.5% of regular strength to satisfy the task requirements in the new situation.

Lieutenant General, Assoc. Ph.D. NGUYEN VAN BAO, Director of the Political Academy, the Ministry of National Defence