Legal education for the military youth is of importance to building their way of living and working under the law and military discipline and giving impetus to their self-improvement to deserve to be the vanguard in the performance of the tasks. Thus, enhancing the effectiveness of legal dissemination and education for the military youth is a matter of importance.

Over the past years, the work of legal dissemination and education for the military youth has always been closely directed and carried out in an orderly, effective manner by all-level party committees and commands. Fully aware of the importance of this work, youth union branches have diversified forms and methods of legal dissemination and education relevant to the reality and task of their offices and units, thereby encouraging the participation of a large number of military youth. Typical examples include: the “Military Youth and Traffic Culture Festive Day” in 2018 with the participation of 2,500 youths from both inside and outside the Military, the “Legal Knowledge Contest among the Military Youth” with over 420,000 submissions and initiatives in legal dissemination and education for the youth, and the models of “Legal Consulting Team” and “One Article Weekly” which helped the youth deal with legal issues in their daily life. By doing so, the military youth’s legal awareness and culture have been improved; most of the military youth have been self-aware to observe the State’s law, the Military’s discipline, and their units’ regulations, thereby making contributions to achieving a consensus on willpower and action within each office and unit and the whole Military. There has been a positive change in cadres, youth union members, and young staff members’ awareness towards improving and exercising the cultural lifestyle. Young cadres and officers have been exemplary and responsible for educating and training non-commissioned soldiers.

However, in some units, the work of legal dissemination and education for the youth has yet to be reformed and creative in its contents, forms and methods. The awareness of several cadres towards this work has yet to be fully; the work of legal dissemination and education has been carried out mainly administratively and ineffectively. As a result, the knowledge of law of several youth union members and staff has been limited; some of them violated law and discipline, negatively impacting on the Military’s traditional value.

Today, the task of building a revolutionary, regular, elite, gradually modern Military imposes the high requirements on the observance of discipline and law among all soldiers in general, the military youth in particular. Meanwhile, the hostile forces are promoting their acts of sabotage with various artifices to incite the youth to violate law and discipline. Hence, legal dissemination and education will help bolster the personality of revolutionary soldiers so that this staff will preserve and promote the noble virtues of “Uncle Ho’s Soldiers” to fulfil their assigned task as well as acquire the law knowledge and comply with the obligations of citizens when going back to their hometown. So, enhancing the effectiveness of legal dissemination and education is an objective demand and a central part of the work of educating and managing the military youth. To that end, it is necessary to focus on the following.

First, enhancing the leadership and direction of all-level party committees and commands over legal dissemination and education for the youth. The leadership and direction exercised by party committees, commissars, commands, and political offices guarantee the operation of youth union branches in general and the quality and effectiveness of legal dissemination and education for the youth. Thus, party committees and commands should include the work of legal dissemination and education for the youth in the party committees’ resolutions and units’ working plans. They should clearly set up measures and use the results of legal dissemination and education and the youth’s observance of discipline and law as a criterion for classifying and assessing the youth union branches and cadres. In the process, commanders and commissars should frequently conduct inspections to draw lessons, point out weaknesses, formulate remedial measures, and opportunely commend the “good people, good deed” examples. At the same time, offices and units should create a favourable condition (in terms of funding and personnel) for the youth union branches to carry out the work of legal dissemination and education; organize refresher courses for law lecturers and communicators and youth union cadres; opportunely provide documents and official information for legal dissemination and education.

Second, youth union branches and cadres should unceasingly heighten their responsibility for counselling, giving instructions on, and organizing the task of legal dissemination and education for the youth. Grounded on the leadership and direction of party committees and commands as well as the characteristics of youth union members and branches, youth union cadres should develop the plans and classify group of youths to carry out the work of legal dissemination and education properly, effectively under the motto of “being flexible and continuous”. In the process, youth union cadres must be enthusiastic and grasp advantages and difficulties as well as the youth’s actual state of observing law and discipline to actively give advice and propose good, creative models and approaches within their units. Youth union branches should closely cooperate with other forces in promoting the work of ideological education, orientation and management to opportunely settle the arising ideological problems and prevent violations of discipline, making a huge change in the youth’s awareness of observing law and discipline under the goal of “living and working under the Constitution and law”.

Third, frequently designing the contents, forms, and methods of legal dissemination and education for the youth properly. The contents related to law and discipline are hard to present, study and remember; therefore, the youth are not excited about the academic knowledge (particularly non-commissioned soldiers). Hence, to improve the quality of legal dissemination and education for the youth, it is important to select and make the contents easy to understand, remember, and realize; to flexibly use and diversify forms of education in line with the youth union branches’ activities to encourage the youth’s participation. At present, it is necessary to educate the youth to grasp and conform to the laws, particularly the Cyber Security Law, the penalties for administrative violations against regulations on post and telecommunications, information technology, and radio frequency, and the regulations on using the Internet and social network; to help the youth to raise their vigilance and awareness towards infiltration prevention and secret protection, and prevent them from sharing locations and posting information related to the Military’s operation on the social networks. It is vital to step up the work of education so that the youth will clearly understand the hostile forces’ plots and artifices and will not share or follow evil trends on the social networks. Besides, information on violations of discipline and law and particularly the incidents related to the Military Service Law, illegal credit, and narcotic use should be introduced to every young person so that they could avoid.

Due attention should be paid to applying modern technology and employing forms of education by the youth union branches to create various channels of information and directly impact on the youth’s awareness. Emphasis should be placed on organizing “the military youth and law, discipline, and traffic culture” festive day and the special political movement entitled “the Military youth say no to law and discipline violations”. At the same time, it is important to launch emulation movements to handle weaknesses in discipline management; to promote the role of pioneering youth teams in discipline management; to prevent and resolutely fight against law and discipline violations; to continue multiplying the models of “Youth Union without desertion” and “Youth Union without law and discipline violations”.

Fourth, closely combining legal education with discipline management among the youth. This is an important measure to make the youth conform to the law and discipline in reality. To do so, offices, units, and youth union branches should strictly maintain regulations and standard order and closely manage the youth in days off and rest hours, while attaching greater value to managing the youth’s relationships, ideological development, and manners in order to opportunely prevent and deal with the possible situations related to law and discipline violation, and avoid falling into passivity. At present, it is necessary to quickly detect and opportunely deal with the signs of illegal credit, the acts of storing and disseminating evil publications, and frauds and betting via means of information technology.

In addition, due regard should be paid to creating a favourable condition for the youth’s self-improvement; ensuring their material and mental life; handling their legitimate aspirations; resolutely dealing with violations of law and discipline. It is essential to promote the emulation movements and campaigns, particularly the Campaign entitled “promoting tradition, devoting talent, deserving to be Uncle Ho’s soldiers”; to encourage self-criticism and criticism within the collectives so that each youth union member will be active, proactive, serious, persistent in the work of discipline maintenance.

Legal dissemination and education for the military youth is a central task of the youth union work and the youth movement within the Military as well as the responsibility of heads of offices and units. Synchronously implementing the above-mentioned measures will provide the basis for continuing to enhance the effectiveness of legal dissemination and education so that the military youth will always take the initiative in fulfilling all assigned tasks.

Lt. Col. Tran Viet Nang

Head of the Military Youth Committee