Quang Ninh is a border, coastal province located in the Northeast of Vietnam, holding a position of strategic importance in economic, defence, security and diplomatic terms to the cause of national construction and defence. Perceiving that, over the past years, Quang Ninh has comprehensively carried out the military-defence work in an effort to build the all-people national defence and the all-people national defence posture associated with the people’s security posture, and to foster its rapid, sustainable socio-economic, cultural development. To that end, the province has attached great importance to defence and security education.
To well execute this important work, as the Standing Office of the Provincial Council for Defence and Security Education, the Provincial Military Command (PMC) has cooperated with province’s departments, committees and sectors in advising the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee on implementing the 10th Politburo’s Directive 12-CT/TW, the Defence and Security Education Law as well as plans and guidance by the Military Region 3’s Defence and Security Education Council via breakthrough measures in accord with the area’s particularities. Notably, the province has expanded the coverage of defence and security education and set an example of providing defence and security education for directors and vice directors of private enterprises and household heads in border, coastal and island areas. It has been among the first localities which have built and put the Centre for Defence and Security Education under the Provincial Military School to use and launched the Military Semester Program for pupils in the area.
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| Providing defence and security education for students of Ha Long University |
To fulfil the increasingly higher requirements and the targets for defence and security, over the past years, the PMC has counselled the province to diversify the format of defence and security education, decentralize defence and security education, assign the responsibility to and promote the proactiveness of sectors and localities in the process. As for the second group of learners, the province has dispatched a section of learners to attend defence and security education courses held by the Military Region 3’s Military School while asking for the permission of the Military Region 3’s Defence and Security Education Council to organize training courses at the Provincial Military School with its budget.
As far as the third and fourth groups of learners are concerned, in spite of the large number of learners, the province has advocated giving priority to the quality of education instead of the quantity and formalism. Grasping that guideline, the PMC has cooperated with the province’s departments, sectors and localities in reviewing and grasping the number of learners, and counselling the province to properly classify learners from districts, towns, cities, departments, committees and sectors. As for the staff of the coal industry, the province has required corporations and enterprises to register the number of learners, proactively develop the plan and submit it to the province so that it could proactively organize training courses in each area. This approach has helped increase the quantity of learners, promote the proactiveness of sectors and localities, save the costs, and create a favourable condition for cadres to both join the courses and do their job.
To improve the quality of defence and security education, the province has made elaborate preparations. The PMC has counselled the Provincial Party Executive Committee to deploy leaders of the province to come to assign the task to and encourage learners of each course. At the same time, it has directed military and public security offices to carefully, properly select instructors. Due attention has been paid to encouraging the role of the Defence and Security Education Centre and the district-level centres for political education as well as inviting lecturers from offices of the Ministries of National Defence and Public Security to provide deep, updated knowledge for learners. Besides, to help learners improve their knowledge, associate theory with reality, and raise their awareness and responsibility towards the Homeland protection, the province has actively organized extracurricular activities, such as visits to military units which are being invested to move forward to modernity, models of economic development and defence-security, defensive zone exercises.
Grasping the area’s characteristics, the PMC has advised the province on providing defence and security education for special objects, such as village patriarchs, prestige persons of communities and clans, ship owners, religious dignitaries, etc. To do that, the PMC has cooperated with the Public Security, Border Guard, Firefighter Police in combining the content of propagation and dissemination with the training of skills in search and rescue, fire, explosion, forest fire prevention and control, and border, sea and island protection. Thanks to the efforts, resolve and flexible, creative approaches, since the beginning of 2017, the province has dispatched 182 cadres of the first and second groups to attend training courses held by higher echelons, organized 13 training courses for over 1,050 cadres of the second and third groups and 41 training courses for over 4,200 cadres of the fourth group.
Recently, hostile forces have taken advantage of the insufficient awareness of a section of the people, particularly the young to incite demonstrations and extreme actions to destabilize the political security. Against that backdrop, the province has promoted defence and security education for students in an effort to raise their awareness and responsibility towards the Homeland construction and protection. To that end, the PMC has advised the province on building and standardizing a contingent of teachers of defence and security education at high schools, and investing in upgrading the Defence and Security Education Centre under the Provincial Military School as well as encouraging the Centre’s role in providing defence and security education for students from universities in the area according to the assignment by the Ministry of Education and Training. Based on the PMC’s counselling, the province has invested hundreds of billions of VND in acquiring equipment for the Centre and ensuring accommodation for 300 learners per course. Over the past time, the PMC has cooperated with the province’s Education and Training Department in holding 3 short-term training courses for 121 high school teachers of defence and security education and many refresher courses for teachers who wear two hats. As a result, the work of defence and security education for students in the province’s area has been put in order while its quality has improved.
A noteworthy feature of the province’s defence and security education work is the organization of the Military Semester Program. Under the guidelines of higher echelons, the PMC has cooperated with the province’s Youth Union and Department of Education and Training while directing the Defence and Security Education Centre and the Regiment 244 to strictly, effectively execute the Program which has been highly appreciated by parents and witnessed active participation of a large number of adolescents. To put this activity in order, the PMC has cooperated with the province’s Youth Union and Department of Education and Training in developing and submitting the Project on “Organizing the Military Semester Program for Quang Ninh province’s adolescents in the 2017-2022 period” to the province’s People’s Council for approval. According to the Project, the province has used its budget to assist each student with 2 million VND so that they could buy personal items when taking part in the Program. That has expressed the province’s leaders’ special interest in providing defence and security education for the youth. In 5 years (2012-2017), the province held 14 seasons of the Program for nearly 1,300 students; in 2018 only, 860 students took part in the Program. The Military Semester Program by the province has really become a highlight of the defence and security education work in the area, which has been highly appreciated by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of Vietnam’s Youth Union and the Military Region 3.
Besides, due attention has been paid to disseminating knowledge of defence and security to all people via the promotion of the role of speakers, communicators and mass media, particularly in the border, sea, island, isolated, remote areas. The province has directed the province’s Newspaper and Radio-Television Broadcasting to maintain the special column of All-People National Defence as well as those at junior levels to further propagate the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law and policy, and local armed forces’ military-defence operations, and to expose plots and acts of sabotage of hostile forces and political opportunists. To achieve the effectiveness, in addition to laying down guidelines for propagation, the province has been proactive in improving defence and security knowledge of speakers, communicators, and editors and journalists of press agencies in order to raise their political awareness during their work. Quang Ninh has international border gates and famous tourist destinations attracting tens of millions of tourists per year, which greatly contribute to its budget but pose threats to its political security and social order and safety. Clearly understanding that, the province has conducted the work of propagating and disseminating the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law and policy, and the values of its tourist destinations to the people and tourists.
The achievements in the defence and security education work lay an important foundation for Quang Ninh province to build solid all-people national defence and posture of “people’s hearts and minds” and successfully fulfil the two strategic tasks of Homeland construction and protection.
Sr. Col. Le Dinh Thuong, Standing Member of the Provincial Party Committee
Commander of the PMC, Deputy Head of the Province’s Council for Defence and Security Education