The Military Region 4’s Military School, whose forerunner was the War Zone 4’s Politico-Military School, was founded on February 11^th, 1946. Over the past 75 years of construction, combat and development, the School has trained tens of thousands of cadres and non-commissioned officers for the sake of the building of the Military Region 4’s armed forces, while building up the tradition of “being absolutely loyal, disciplined, and self-reliant, well teaching, and well learning.” It has been given the title of Hero of the People’s Armed Forces and many other noble rewards by the Party, the State, and the Military.

In recent years, the School has witnessed new developments in its task. In addition to training and retraining about 40-45 groups of cadres and non-commissioned officers on a yearly basis, the School has been assigned to provide national defence and security education for cadres of the 2^nd group from localities within the Military Region 4. It should be noted that since 2016, the School has established the National Defence and Security Education Centre which has been tasked with organising national defence and security education courses for students from 12 educational facilities within the two provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh. In the process, a part from advantages, the School has encountered a lot of difficulties. The number of learners has increased while the School’s capacity and facilities have been limited.

To successfully fulfil its assigned mission, the School’s Party Committee and Board have synchronously adopted various measures, with priority given to enhancing their leadership and direction over national defence and security education. Grasping the 10^th Politburo’s Directive 12-CT/TW, dated May 3^rd, 2007 on “strengthening the Party’s leadership over national defence and security education in the new situation,” the Law on National Defence and Security Education, the Government’s Decrees 13/2014/NĐ-CP and 139/2020/NĐ-CP, and guiding documents by the Military Region 4’s National Defence and Security Education Council, the School has issued resolutions, developed action plans, and considered this work as a central task. At the same time, it has directed offices and faculties to render their cadres, instructors, and employees fully aware of the importance of national defence and security education in the new situation. Since the inception of the National Defence and Security Education Centre in 2016, the School has assigned one of the Deputy Commandants to be in charge of the Centre and directed the Centre to promote its effectiveness and well perform its function and task. At the same time, the School has established and completed mechanisms for the Centre’s operation, organisational structure, facilities, and equipment, while identifying the responsibilities of the School and the Centre.

Head of the Department of Schools visiting the School

To provide national defence and security education for cadres of the 2^nd group, on an annual basis, the School has adhered to guiding documents and plans by the Military Region 4’s National Defence and Security Education Council and proactively cooperated with offices and localities in making plans on the quantity of learners and the duration for courses in a practical manner. In addition, the School has directed its offices and Centre to make all necessary preparations and create a favourable condition for learners. As cadres of the 2^nd group are leaders and managers with good knowledge and vast hands-on experience, the School has attached great value to selecting instructors and improving their ability and teaching method. While promoting the role of leaders of the School and its offices and faculties, it has concentrated on building a contingent of key instructors to perform the task of national defence and security education. Over the years, the School has actively sent its instructors to attend refresher courses and hold positions at units across the Military in order to enhance their comprehensive knowledge and enable them to meet the task requirements. Besides, the School has proactively organised on-the-spot training courses and encouraged its cadres and instructors to self-study and self-improve their knowledge. To make lectures more scientific and relevant to reality, the School Board has directly take part in approving lesson plans for cadres of the 2^nd group and required all instructors to do teaching rehearsals from divisions to faculties. Up to now, the School’s pool of cadres and instructors in chare of national defence and security education has been standardised. 92% of them have been bachelors or masters.

Due to the short duration of courses and the increasingly high requirements, the School has actively renewed and made the training programme and teaching method relevant to each group of learners. Grounded on the fixed programme of national defence and security education, the School has designed detailed syllabuses for each group of learners (cadres of provincial and district-level offices, cadres of border districts, and cadres of the armed forces) in accordance with local conditions. To keep pace with the development of reality, the School has directed its faculties to proactively include new points of the Party’s guidelines, the State’s law and policy as well as localities’ lessons on the defence-security work in their lectures. Instructors have been required to employ learner-based approach, apply information technology to making lesson plans and delivering lectures, organise more discussions and debates, and restrict one-way teaching method. To combine theory with practice, the School has actively organised additional activities for each group of learners. More specifically, it has held district-level defensive zone exercises for cadres of the 2^nd group and cooperated with localities and units in allowing those cadres to visit defensive zone exercises and undertake field researches. Under the direction from the Military Region 4’s National Defence and Security Education Council, since 2020, the School has worked with and helped provinces to provide national defence and security education for cadres of the 3^rd group. The School has dispatched its cadres and instructors to deliver several special topics, organised refresher courses for instructors of those provinces, provided documents, approved lesson plans, and inspected the evaluation of training results. In 2020, the School granted the certificate of national defence and security education for 965 cadres of the 3^rd group within such provinces.

Amidst the intense competition for training and education services, the School has not relied on the distributional plan by the Ministry of Education and Training. It has proactively organised conferences on training linkage and invited educational institutions to visit its facilities so as to advertise its capacity and attract more education contracts. For those groups of learners, the School has closely combined education with management and training, while directing the Centre to flexibly adopt both boarding and semi-boarding education services. Concerning semi-boarding education, the School has deployed its instructors to deliver political and military lectures, managed learners during working hours, and then organised military skills training at the Centre. Doing so has enabled the School to ensure the quality of education, reduce the duration of management and teaching, cut learners’ tuition fees, and harmoniously deal with the issues relating to educational facilities and the School itself.

Promoting the tradition of self-reliance, the School has always overcome difficulties to provide support for teaching and learning. In spite of limited resources, the School has always strived to make all necessary preparations, while directing the Centre to create a favourable condition for learners and stringently maintain work and study regulations. Thanks to the assistance from higher echelons, over the years, the School has effectively used funds to acquire and supplement training equipment, upgrade its lecture halls, specialised classrooms, and digital library, construct and repair its barracks and training grounds as an important basis for improving the quality of national defence and security education. At the same time, it has promoted the movement of technical initiative and innovation, effectively applied scientific and technological achievements to teaching and learning. Additionally, the School has strictly maintained regulations on managing weapons and technical equipment to avoid degeneration due to a lack of responsibility amongst learners. Between 2011 and 2020, the School has undertaken 15 scientific researches at various levels, introduced more than 1,000 technical initiatives, and designed 30 textbooks and documents. 2 products have been rewarded at sectoral level. 55 initiatives have been awarded by the Military Region 4 while 10 others have been given the Nguyen Viet Xuan Award.

By adopting various measures, in the period of 2015-2020, the Military Region 4’s Military School has provided national defence and security education for nearly 2,000 cadres of the 2^nd group and nearly 10,600 students. All cadres of the 2^nd group and 50% of the students have graduated with merit or distinction. After graduation, those cadres’ responsibility and capabilities in state management of national defence and security have been raised. Besides, they have been able to lead localities to combine socio-economic development with defence-security consolidation and successfully organise defensive zone exercises. Meanwhile, the number of students who have registered to join the reserve force has been increased. Those good results have contributed to building a contingent of “both red and expert” cadres for national construction and protection in the new situation.

Sr. Col. HOANG VAN SINH, Commandant of the School