Over the past years, besides the task of training and cultivating cadres of the local armed forces, Thanh Hoa Military School has also been assigned to provide knowledge of national defense and security for 3^rd group of cadres in the area of responsibility. Despite facing many difficulties due to the large number of cadres in need of training, the increasing demand for this work, the limited number of regular staff, and the quality of instructors and facilities which has yet to meet the development of the task requirements, the school has made great efforts to fulfill its assigned tasks. Since 2010, the school has organized 94 training courses on national defense and security education for more than 8,500 cadres of the 3^rd group, cooperated with the Military Region 4’s Military School in organizing three training courses for 211 cadres of the 2^nd group, and participated in many training courses for the 4^th group of cadres of districts, towns and cities. Thus, it has actively contributed to the education and training of national defense and security knowledge in the area of responsibility, which has highly been appreciated by the Provincial National Defense and Security Education Council.

In order to fulfill the assigned tasks, the school has paid attention to thoroughly grasping directives and instructions of higher echelons on national defense and security education. The focuses have been the Politburo’s Directive No. 12-CT/TW (9^th tenure), the Law on National Defense and Security Education, the Government’s Decree No.13/2014/ND-CP, and circulars and instructions of the Ministry of National Defense and the Central National Defense and Security Education Council, particularly the Provincial National Defense and Security Education Council. Thereby, it has made a big change in the awareness and responsibility of cadres, instructors and employees towards this important task. At the same time, the school has defined it as one of the major political tasks to synchronously take measures for leading, directing, counseling, and coordinating preparation for and implementation of the task of providing training courses on national defense and security education for 3^rd group of cadres at its levels.

Col. Nguyen Van Truong addressing the opening ceremony of a training course for the 3rd group of cadres

Thanh Hoa is one of the largest provinces of the country with 27 districts, district-level towns and cities, 635 communes, wards and towns, including mountainous, midland and lowland areas, and many remote and isolated, border and coastal ones; therefore, the quantity as well as specific quality of the cadres of the 3^rd group are quite diversified. In order to complete the task of national defense and security education in its tenure, the Provincial National Defense and Security Education Council has decided to flexibly employ training forms and attach full-time training at the Provincial Military School to the training at the district-level Political Education Centers. In pursuit of the above policy, annually, the school closely follows the plan and guidance of the Provincial National Defense and Security Education Council, actively cooperates with local Party executive committees and authorities, directly with the military offices in districts, towns and cities in developing plans and schedules to organize training courses, ensuring proper and sufficient participants, subjects, contents and duration as intended by the Province. When it comes to the fact that the number of 3^rd group of cadres in need of training in the province is large, working in different fields and specific areas, the school has counselled the Provincial Defense and Security Education Council to convene each training course for each type of cadres who have corresponding titles and locations. This is a scientific way, creating favourable conditions for instructors to select contents properly, especially to apply theory to practice and make it relevant to the characteristics of subjects and area of each course, thereby practically improving the training quality and efficiency.

Grounded on the plan approved by the Provincial Defense and Security Education Council, the school has actively well conducted preparatory work, including selecting and assigning instructors, preparing lesson plans and learning materials, providing accommodations and so on, ensuring the best service for training courses. As cadres of the 3^rd group have been experienced in activities of leadership, direction, management and administration in localities, and most of them have held a high degree of qualifications and awareness as well, the school has attached significance to selecting, cultivating and assigning instructors with good teaching competence and methodology to give lecture. Due to the limited number of instructors involved in providing training courses on defense and security knowledge, together with selecting and assigning instructors to appropriate topics as well as promoting the core role of members of the School Board, heads and deputy heads of faculties, the school has recommended the Province to assign cadres from the Provincial Military Command, Provincial Public Security, Provincial Border Guard Command and Political School to deliver lectures on major and special topics. The school has also cooperated with the PA-83 Office of the Provincial Public Security and the specialized offices of the Provincial Border Guard in presenting lectures on the protection of political, economic, cultural, and ideological security and on the protection of national sovereignty over borders, seas and islands.To create the most favorable conditions for the cadres belonging to the 3^rd group, especially those working in remote and isolated, border and island areas, to attend training courses on on national defense and security knowledge as prescribed, the school has counselled the Province to run training courses at grass-roots level. As for these training courses, besides dispatching instructors to directly give lecture, the school has cooperated with the district-level Defense and Security Education Councils in assigning cadres from the Military Commands and Public Security at district and city level and commanders of Border Posts to participate in giving lectures on specialized issues. Particularly for districts with large number of ethnic minorities and religious people, the school has advised the Province on assigning officials of the provincial Committee for Religious Affairs to give lecture.

In addition, the school has attached significance to building and standardizing a contingent of instructors in charge of national defense and security education in order to meet the mission requirements. Besides dispatching cadres and instructors to receive training at military training institutions and to participate in training courses on national defense and security education organized by higher organs, the school has also provided on-the-spot training courses in order to improve intructors’ knowledge and capability. In the meantime, it has suggested that the Province create favourable conditions for cadres and instructors to visit the defensive zone exercises and to be dispatched on missions in units and localities in order to accumulate field knowledge and experience, meeting the objectives and requirements of national defense and security education. So far, 100% of the School’s cadres and instructors have a Bachelor’s Degree, possessing capability to take in charge of most specialized topics in the program of national defense and security education as regulated.

As prescribed, currently, the scope of specialized topics on national defense and security education for 3^rd group of cadres is relatively broad (14 theoretical topics, 2 supporting topics), and conducted in a short time (12 working days). Therefore, in order to achieve high efficiency, the school has actively renovated the program structure, content and teaching methodology, suitable for groups of learners. Grounded on the Ministry of National Defense’s Circular 38/2014/TT-BQP on the “program and content of national defense and security education” and the guidance of higher authorities, the school has actively studied and redeveloped the program and content on national defense and security education in accordance with the real situation of localities, updated and supplemented the Party’s and the State’s new guidelines and policies on national defense and security as well as the Province’s guidelines and solutions, especially on the building of the all-people national defense and defensive areas. Also, the school has combined the socio-economic development with the strengthening of national defense and security and foreign affairs, etc. Particularly, the school has researched and selected content for the development of special topics for retraining and supplementary courses (3-day duration) for cadres belonging to 3^rd group having been trained in previous years in accordance with the State’s policy. For supporting topics, the school has focused on introducing experience in leading and directing the implementation of national defense and military tasks in localities, informing the hot issues concerned by the society, such as the prevention and combating of corruption, the state management of national defense to link theory to reality and opportunely encourage awareness for learners.

In order to improve the quality of training, the school has attached great importance to renovating and applying the suitable teaching methodology to each group of learners, while encouraging instructors to employ learner-centred teaching approach and to apply information technology use softwares and e-lesson plans to lectures. At the same time, the school has paid due attention to linking theory to national defense and military operations in localities, intensifying the activities of raising issues and organizing discussions for learners to exchange ideas on both the completed and uncompleted contents and on difficulties in the national defense and military work in their own localities, employing practice to clarify theory, helping learners consolidate theory, have more practical experience and improve the capability of task implementation in compliance with their responsibilities.

In addition, due regard has been paid to logistic aspects. The school has actively mobilized resources to upgrade and renew the system of training grounds and classrooms, and to supplement materials and course books for the sake of education and training. Training courses on national defense and security have been carefully prepared by the school, ranging from reception and classes arrangement to provision of full-time accommodation at the school. For all courses, the school has held formal opening and closing ceremonies with the attendance of leaders of the provincial People’s Committee, Military Command, Department of Home Affairs and Department of Public Security to raise awareness and responsibility of cadres, instructors and learners. On completion of each course, the school has drawn lessons seriously and comprehensively on all aspects and informed localities of the results of each learner’s training and learning as the basis for its next courses.

By actively taking the aforementioned measures, in recent years, Thanh Hoa Military School has always completed the assigned target of national defense and security education. These results have made an important contribution to the 2018 plan on completing the training courses on national defense and security for 3^rd group of cadres as determined by the Province, and more importantly, contributed to building a contingent of provincial cadres who are politically strong, both “red” and “expert”, and highly responsible for leading, directing and implementing the military, national defense, and Fatherland construction and protection missions at the grass-roots levels.

Col. Nguyen Van Truong, Rector of the School