Digital transformation in education and training is a traditional-to-modern process of fundamental and comprehensive change in elements of teaching and learning activities, scientific research and education management based on the technical application and digital technology. This is an inevitable trend, happening strongly and facing both advantages, difficulties and challenges. Researching solutions to adapt to this process in military schools is an important and urgent issue.

Digital transformation in education and training in general and in military schools in particular is one of the contents on developing the e-government towards digital government within the Ministry of National Defence, and the important and urgent task as well. On grasping and implementing the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines, in recent years, military schools have actively built and implemented plans and programmes on digital transformation, built the model of “smart schools approaching the 4^th Industrial Revolution”, gaining important results. The awareness, attitude and responsibility of cadres, teachers and cadets on digital transformation have been actively changed; the training and cultivation of human resources for digital transformation have been much concerned. The technical infrastructure, information technology and other crucial factors for the digital transformation (including the document managing software, digital signatures, projectors, cameras, electronic portals, digital and electronic libraries, smart operation centres, network systems and broadcasting equipment) have been gradually invested and upgraded. The training processes, programmes, contents, and teaching-learning methods have been drastically renovated towards standardisation, modernisation, etc.

Despite achieving many positive results, the progress of conducting the digital transformation in education and training in military schools has been slow and lacked breakthrough; with the resources invested for this task being limited. A part of cadres, teachers and cadets has not been well aware of the digital transformation; their knowledge and skills of approaching, exploiting, using and applying the information and digital technology into their tasks have not met the defined requirements. The facilities, infrastructure and information equipment for the digital transformation have yet to be sufficient and are nonsynchronous; the digitalisation of lesson plans, textbooks, documents, dissertations, scientific research has been low and inconsistent; the software systems of teaching aids, scientific research and educational management have been nonsynchronous, etc.

There are both objective and subjective causes for this situation, which requires the Ministry of National Defence, directly the military schools to research, propose and implement synchronous solutions for digital transformation to meet the demands of education and training in the new situation. This article mentions several initial research on this issue.

From our perspective, at first, these schools need to attentively improve the awareness and responsibility of cadres, teachers and cadets on the digital transformation. To make this happen, it is necessary to promote the education and grasp of the seniors’ resolutions and directions on this important issue, focusing on Resolution No. 52-NQ/TW, dated 27 September 2019 by the Politburo (13^th tenure) on “Some guidelines and policies on actively participating the 4^th Industrial Revolution”; Resolution No. 1657-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2022 by the Central Military Commission on “Renovating the education and training to meet the task requirements of building the Army in the new situation”; Plan No. 4396/KH-BQP, dated 04 November 2021 by the Ministry of National Defence and Plan No. 588/KH-BTTM, dated 04 March 2022 by the General Staff on “Digital transformation in education and training in military schools in the 2022-2025 period, and orientations to 2030”, etc., through which, to help all-level party committees and commands, cadres, teachers and cadets fully understand the necessity, urgency, meanings and importance of the digital transformation, creating the drastic changes in their awareness and responsibility in conducting stages and steps of the process and contents of digital transformation and building the digital culture. These schools need to consider the digital transformation both a key content and an indispensable condition for the fundamental and comprehensive renovation of education and training; attentively strengthen the leadership and direction by all-level party committees over this important task.

Basing on these initial results, the military schools need to closely follow the seniors’ instructions in order to continually add and adjust their guidelines, targets and solutions in the leading resolutions, strategies, programmes and plans of digital transformation, making them suitable with the reality; continually complete and implement projects and plans on digital transformation in education and training; enhance the implementation of the model of “smart schools approaching the 4^th Industrial Revolution”. Together, they need to enhance the training and retraining of foreign languages, knowledge and skills of information and digital technology for all learners; and build the human resources, especially the core forces to conduct the digital transformation in each office, faculty, department, etc.

Beside the positive and favourable conditions in approaching, exploiting, using and sharing the huge resources of digital learning materials for the purpose of teaching, examination, evaluation, references and scientific research, digital transformation has entailed the risks of information insecurity. Therefore, the military schools need to proactively make research to build and complete the system of regulations and rules of digital transformation, creating the legal environment for operating the infrastructure systems and applying the digital technology in all working fields. They need to pay attention to building the rules and regulations on administration (setting permissions for users), storing military information and data in the digital environment, defining the connection, exploitation and sharing of information, data security and safety, prevention of military secrets and documents in the digital environment; build the culture of behaviours and solving situations in the digital environment in military schools so that the digital transformation could be fully conducted, meeting the defined purposes and requirements.

On implementing the guidelines of “Transforming the education from mainly equipping knowledge to comprehensively developing the learners’ abilities and qualities; from learning inside classes to more diverse forms of learning including online or internet-based teaching and learning”, the military schools have been tasked with enhancing the renovation of training programmes and contents towards the standardisation and modernisation, closely following the output standards for training participants in demand of digital transformation. Beside training the specific majors, these schools need to improve the quality of teaching and learning foreign languages, information technology and skills of using and applying the digital technology into the units’ leadership and management so that graduated cadets could gain enough knowledge and skills to meet the demands of digital transformation in grassroots units. Together with renovating the training programmes and contents, these schools could take full advantage of the technological foundations brought by the digital transformation to renew the forms and methods of teaching, learning and evaluation. To achieve good results, these schools need to consider investing, upgrading and fully improving the effectiveness of digital and electronic libraries; diversifying the forms of approaching, exploiting and using resources of digital documents and materials to improve the quality of teaching, learning and scientific research; renovate the way of teaching, learning and evaluating by applying digital technology and modern teaching methods; encourage and support the application of new models of education and training based on the digital platforms such as online teaching, electronic lesson plans and materials, simulation software, online examinations, testing software, etc., through which to transform from equipping knowledge to teaching methods of thinking, forming and developing the applying and creating ability in solving problems and situations, training the scientific and creative thinking for cadets, avoiding mechanicalness and stereotype; at the same time, subjectively evaluate the teaching and learning results as the bases to adjust and improve the quality of education and training.

Information infrastructure and facilities are the foundations for the progress and effectiveness of digital transformation. Presently, military schools, despite being invested and upgraded with the information infrastructure, have yet to be modernised and highly synchronised. Therefore, the Ministry of National Defence and these schools should actively mobilise all resources of investments to modernise the infrastructure systems, facilities and technology to meet the higher requirements of digital transformation in education and training. To deal with, these schools should take advantage of scientific and technological advances to select the suitable advanced and modern technology with the targets and contents of each task of education, training, scientific research, management and command; focus the investments into the information infrastructure, basic and synchronous materials for managing the training, teaching, learning and scientific research, of which, give priority to the modernisation of information infrastructure and internal networks; purchase the connection terminals for the training management centres, simulation centres, multipurpose classrooms, practice rooms, laboratories, digital and electronic libraries; at the same time, attentively build the digital learning materials; newly build the systems of electronic lesson plans, textbooks and documents in accordance with the standards of subjects and modules; enhance the encoding and digitalising process of common data for learning, teaching and scientific research, especially the systems of textbooks, documents, reference books, questionnaires, exam papers and answers, scientific topics and initiatives, graduation papers and dissertations; digitalise the management information (of cadres, lecturers and cadets); drastically apply Big Data into managing, operating, forecasting and supporting the management decisions; further approach the applications, software and platforms to make the teaching, learning and managing activities at all levels compatible and connected with one another. One of the specific characteristics of the Army is that the information applications for teaching and learning subjects regarding weapons and military equipment are not always available, schools, therefore, should highly appreciate the reception and transference of built software for teachers and cadets to use, evaluate the effectiveness and make any improvement. At the same time, all facilities, software and information systems should contain the compulsory configuration of network safety and security.

Digital transformation in education and training in military school is an important, fundamental and long-term task, which needs to be researched and implemented to meet the requirements of building the Army in the new situation.

Colonel, Dr. LE HUY TUYNH, Political Academy