Friday, March 11, 2022, 09:29 (GMT+7)
Military Region 2’s Military School boosts the quality of defence and security education

Military Region 2’s Military School is tasked with training non-commissioned officers, professional employees, and reservist officers for the building of Military Region 2’s armed forces and providing defence and security education for cadres from the 2nd and 3rd groups and college students in Military Region 2 according to the assignment of the Ministry of National Defence. In spite of difficulties in human resources, facilities, training grounds, and teaching equipment, changes in the contingent of cadres and instructors, diverse groups of learners, asynchronous mechanisms of education and training, and negative impacts made by COVID-19 pandemic, the School’s Party Committee and Board have synchronously adopted measures to make a positive change in cadres, instructors, and learners’ awareness, responsibility, and ability, raise the quality of education and training, and especially improve the work of defence and security education. Between 2011 and 2021, the School provided defence and security education for 5,000 cadres from the 2nd and 3rd groups and nearly 4,000 college students, with more than 90% of learners achieving merit or distinction. Therefore, it was given the Certificate of Merit by the General Staff; it was presented with the emulation flag and recognised to be the leading unit of defence and security education by the Military Region.

Currently, in response to more demanding requirements set by the Homeland construction and protection, the rapid, complex developments of the situation on a global and regional scale, negative impacts made by the dark side of the market economy, and hostile forces’ severe sabotage, there should be more effective measures to carry out the work of defence and security education.

In order to satisfy its task requirements in the new situation, first of all, the School has grasped and effectively implemented our Party and State’s regulations on defence and security education, particularly the Defence and Security Education Law, the Government’s Decree 13/2014/NĐ-CP, dated February 25th, 2014 on the enforcement of the Defence and Security Education Law, and Circular 172/2020/TT-BQP, dated December 30th, 2020 by the Ministry of National Defence and Circular 05/2020/TT-BGDĐT, dated March 18th, 2020 by the Ministry of Education and Training on defence and security education programmes. At the same time, it has included defence and security education in specialised and regular resolutions with specific targets and measures, while assigning tasks to its offices, units, and key cadres. On a yearly basis, grounded on the plan designed by the Military Region’s Defence and Security Education Council, the School has proactively cooperated with provinces and units in making a list of cadres from the 2nd and 3rd groups, organised a conference on joint training with colleges and universities to identify the number of learners, and developed and submitted its own training plan to Commander of the Military Region Command for approval. It has directed its offices and units to complete operational regulations, develop their implementation plans, build a pool of instructors, upgrade accommodation for learners, supplement teaching materials, and design and approve lesson plans in accordance with each group of learners. Due attention has been paid to assigning specific missions to each office, faculty, and unit to avoid overlapping responsibilities between the School and its Defence and Security Education Centre.

Leader of the School giving certificates of graduation to cadres from the 2nd group (photo: quankhu2.vn)

To keep raising the quality of defence and security education, the School has regularly held conferences to review this work, collect feedback from learners and particularly local cadres, opportunely draw lessons, overcome weaknesses and shortcomings, and detect, multiply, commend, and reward typical examples. It has proactively gradually renewed contents, forms, and methods of defence and security education in accordance with each group of learners in order to better the effectiveness of this work and fulfil the goal of socio-economic development associated with defence-security consolidation. At the same time, it has directed all-level party committees and commands to disseminate the Party’s guidelines and the State’s laws and policies on defence and security education and regard the results of this work as a criterion for annual personnel evaluations. It is worth noting that since 2020, due to the complex developments of COVID-19 and the Military Region’s large stationed area, the School has been confronted with difficulties in approving lesson plans and providing defence and security education for cadres from the 3rd group. Therefore, the School has proactively recommended the Military Region to assign the work of defence and security education to provincial defence and security education councils, while flexibly taking measures to both keep the pandemic under control and successfully fulfil its tasks of education and training and defence and security education as the “dual goals.”

Besides, the School has frequently reviewed plans to train young instructors. It has actively deployed its instructors to refresher courses held by higher echelons, maintained on-the-spot refresher courses, organised trips to provincial and district-level defensive zone exercises for its learners in accordance with changes in the training contents and programmes to meet the requirements set by defence and security education. In addition, prior to each course, grounded on the training contents and programmes, the School has selected experienced cadres with good teaching methods from its Board, offices, and faculties for teaching work, invited leaders of the Military Region, provinces, municipalities, and provincial public security departments to deliver lectures or specialised topics about socio-economic development and defence-security situation of the country and localities. It has properly assigned teaching contents to its instructors and closely organised teaching rehearsals. In order to improve its instructors’ knowledge and teaching skills, it has launched a self-study movement and well organised excellent instructor and managerial cadre contests. This is also an effective measure for the School to detect, build, and multiply typical examples, and keep raising the quality of its instructors and cadres. In 2021, the School sent 11 cadres and instructors to join training courses and held refresher courses on methodology and information technology for nearly 100 cadres and instructors. Up to now, all instructors of defence and security education within the School have held a Master’s degree, and they have been able to deliver specialised topics of education; many of them have achieved distinction at contests designed for teachers from defence and security education centres.

Additionally, the School has adhered to the curriculum framework to direct its Training Division to develop detailed training programmes. It has also assigned its instructors to design training documents and lesson plans in accordance with each locality’s particularities and each group of learners (cadres from provincial and district-level departments, divisions, committees, and sectors, border districts’ cadres, and cadres of the armed forces). It has required its instructors to grasp higher echelons’ guiding documents and localities’ military-defence work to update training contents and programmes relevant to the development of the Party’s defence-security guidelines. Emphasis has been placed on removing overlapping or irrelevant contents, supplementing new knowledge of defence-security task and the Homeland protection, and providing more information about intensive researches, multidimensional analyses, and new, sensitive issues.

Furthermore, the School has renewed forms and methods of education. It has directed its instructors to flexibly employ teaching methods combined with illustrations and suggest issues for learners’ self-study. Instructors of the School have provided orientations about central contents, research problems, and methods of effectively studying military subjects, frequently organised seminars, and given assignments to learners. Doing so has enabled the School to improve learners’ capacity to apply knowledge to practice and obtain theory via practice. The School has encouraged its instructors to further apply information technology to updating and exploiting information and materials for electronic lesson plans, simulating combat situations and infantry combat movements, and including latest images and information about defence-security activities in lectures to draw attention of learners via each specialised topic. Besides, the School has frequently organised trips for its learners to historical relic sites and dual-purpose constructions so as to build up their national pride and raise their awareness of efforts and sacrifices made by previous generations for the Homeland construction and protection.

Due to a short period of time for defence and security education, the School has brought into play learners’ dynamism and proactiveness, directed instructors to assist and monitor learners’ self-study, and required learners to increase self-study and discussion. Learners have developed and executed their own study plans; they have been allowed to regularly discuss necessary issues with their instructors, propose contents of discussion, and deliver their specialised assignments to their instructors. The School has opportunely commended learners taking part in researches relating to defence and security or training documents. At the same time, it has stringently maintained the military environment for college students, enhanced extra-curricular activities, and well conducted the work of propagation and education to render all learners full aware of the role of defence and security education and bring into play their dynamism and self-consciousness in study and self-improvement.

A part from those above-mentioned measures, the School has paid due regard to ensuring learners’ accommodation and entertainment and sports facilities and sufficiently providing weapons, technical equipment, textbooks, and reference materials for teaching and learning. Priority has been given to building clusters of training grounds and specialised classrooms in a modern, synchronous fashion. At present, facilities for defence and security education within the School can accommodate up to 1,000 learners during a course. This is a solid foundation for Military Region 2’s Military School to continue boosting the quality of defence and security education in the foreseeable future.

Sr. Col. NGUYEN SY HONG, Deputy Commandant of the School

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