The Signal Technical College under the Signal Corps was founded on March 24^th, 1967 under Decision 20/QĐ-QP by the Ministry of National Defence. Over the past 55 years of construction and development, the College’s generations of cadres, instructors, employees, and soldiers have kept devoting effort to surmounting difficulties, successfully fulfilling all assigned missions, and making significant contributions to national liberation, construction, and protection. In the resistance war against the U.S., for national salvation, in spite of numerous difficulties in its facilities and attacks by the enemy, the College always remained unity and promoted self-reliance to train hundreds of thousands of technical employees for the Military’s signal force so that they could maintain timely, accurate, effective, safe “blood vessels” of communication during battles and campaigns, thereby making contributions to completely liberating the South and unifying the country.

In the period of national construction and protection, in response to its higher task requirements, the College has fostered innovation and development, kept raising the quality of education and training, and managed to train and provide tens of thousands of signal employees for not only the signal force, but also for electronic warfare, cyber warfare, and wireless telegraphy services across the Military, making contributions to developing high-quality human resources for the signal force, the electronic warfare force, and the cyber warfare force to move straight to modernity, building up its tradition of “self-reliance, proactiveness, creativity, good teaching, good learning, unity, uniformity, strict discipline.” With those achievements, the College has been given 2 Third-Class Homeland Protection Orders (in 2016 and 2021), 1 Third-Class Military Exploit Order (in 1980), and many other noble rewards by the State and the Military.

To obtain those significant results, the College has proactively proposed a lot of measures, with a focus on building a pure, strong Party Organisation to improve its leadership capacity and combativeness.

First of all, concentrate on building a politically, ideologically, and morally strong Party Organisation. This measure has been acting as a determinant to the College’s task performance in each period and over the past 55 years. Being fully aware of that, the College Party Committee has focused its leadership on raising the effectiveness of political and ideological education to make all-level party committees and organisations as well as all cadres and party members remain steadfast in Marxism-Leninism, Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, and the Party’s goal and ideal and actively fight against wrong viewpoints to defend the Party’s ideological foundation. It has frequently renewed contents, forms, and methods of education, improved the persuasiveness of ideological work, and listened to viewpoints and aspirations of cadres, party members, and the masses to adopt effective measures. It has maintained theoretical training courses to update political knowledge of cadres and party members, particularly all-level leaderships, commands, and instructors. It is now grasping and seriously implementing the 13^th Party Central Committee’s Conclusion 21-KL/TW, dated October 25^th, 2021 on building and rectifying the Party and the political system, resolutely preventing, repelling, and strictly handling degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle as well as the signs of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” amongst cadres and party members, the 13^th Politburo’s Conclusion 01-KL/TW, dated May 18^th, 2021 on continuing studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle, and the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 847-NQ/QUTW, dated December 28^th, 2021 on bringing into play the virtues of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” and resolutely combating individualism in the new situation. Besides, it has encouraged its cadres and party members, especially key cadres of offices, faculties, and cadet management battalions to well execute the Party’s regulations on the responsibility to set good moral examples under the standards of “Uncle Ho’s soldiers” for the masses to follow.

The College Party Committee’s conference to issue the resolution for the school year of 2021-2022

Second, build an organisationally strong Party Organisation, maintain regulations and principles for Party meetings, renew leadership styles and working methods, and build scientific, effective working styles. Due to the task of training professional technical employees, basically, the number of party organisations and party members within the College is rather stable. However, within cadet management units, the number of party members increases or declines in each course and school year. Therefore, the College Party Committee has attached importance to consolidating all-level party committees and organisations, stringently maintained the Party’s regulations and principles for study and meetings, particularly the principles of democratic centralism, collective leadership, and individual accountability, and enhanced self-criticism and criticism. At the same time, it has directed all-level affiliated party committees to actively renew their leadership styles and working methods in a scientific, effective manner and raise the quality of developing resolutions, with a focus on central tasks and weaknesses. In the process, due attention has been paid to promoting democracy, assigning specific tasks to each party committee member, and heightening a sense of political responsibility amongst party members to effectively implement resolutions. Besides, all-level party committees have regularly examined, supplemented, adjusted, and effectively executed working and leadership statutes, while members of superior party committees have been assigned to join subordinate party organisations’ meetings to exercise direct leadership, draw lessons, and achieve a sense of unity. At the same time, due regard has been paid to aligning the building of a contingent of cadres and party members with the building of a pool of party committee members and commanders, combining the building of pure, strong party organisations with the building of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong offices and units, and well carrying out the work of internal political protection. As a result, all-level party committees and organisations’ leadership capacity and combativeness have been enhanced.

Third, improve the building of a contingent of cadres and party members. This is a key factor in the building of the College Party Organisation and the performance of political task. Thus, thoroughly grasping the Central Military Commission’s Resolution 769-NQ/QUTW, dated December 21^st, 2012 on “building a contingent of military cadres in the period of 2013-2020 and beyond,” the College Party Committee has focused on building a pool of cadres and instructors with proper quantity, fitness, age range, and quality. The College has attached great value to building a corps of cadres and instructors with deep knowledge, capability in command, management, and staff work, good teaching methods, pure morality, and a healthy lifestyle. Cadres and party members have been asked to proactively fight against hostile forces’ “peaceful evolution” strategy and plots of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation.” In order to ensure solid inheritance and development between generations of cadres and instructors both in the long and medium term, the College has always concentrated on the planning, training, and use of its cadres, particularly leaders, commanders, and managers at all levels. It has decentralised the management of cadres, closely carried out personnel evaluations and appointments, and recommended higher echelons to deploy its commanding and managerial officers to grass-roots level units across the Military in order to improve their practical knowledge and experience, build a contingent of high-calibre instructors, and raise the quality of teaching and scientific research.

Fourth, boost the efficiency and effectiveness of inspection and supervision work and strictly maintain the Party’s discipline. Grasping the importance of inspection work to leadership, the College Party Committee has always advocated that “supervision must be expanded, while inspection must be focalised.” It has put leadership over the performance of political task at the forefront of inspection and supervision work. Besides, it has considered the Party building and rectification as well as the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle and the observance of the Party’s Charter and regulations as a criterion for personnel evaluations. Focuses of inspection and supervision work have been placed on leadership over the performance of political task and the Party building in tandem with the settlement of weaknesses pointed out after self-reviews, self-criticism, and criticism. Inspection and supervision work has been carried out closely, publicly, and objectively. Importance has been attached to inspecting and supervising party organisations and key cadres holding sensitive positions. Due attention has been paid to resolutely strictly handling the signs of degradation in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyle amongst cadres and party members so as to maintain the Party’s discipline and the purity of cadres, party members, and party organisations within the College Party Organisation.

Currently, the 4^th industrial revolution is impacting on all aspects of social life, including military communication. Meanwhile, the Signal Corps is executing the Project to “develop the military communication system in the period of 2021-2030, with a vision towards 2045.” That situation is imposing more demanding task requirements on education, training, scientific research, and the building of a “regular, exemplary, standardised” College. Bringing into play its recorded results, the Technical Signal College will continue raising the quality and effectiveness of the building of a pure, strong Party Organisation capable of leading the College to successfully fulfil all assigned missions in order to develop high-quality human resources for the signal force, the electronic warfare force, and the cyber warfare force to move straight to modernity.

Sr. Col. PHAM DUC THINH, Commissar of the College