In addition to training cadres, non-commissioned officers, technical employees, and heads of commune-level military commands, the Military Region 1’s Military School has focused its leadership and direction on providing defence and security education for cadres of the group 2 and students from several vocational schools. In the process, a part from the advantages, the School has been confronted with a lot of difficulties due to a large number of learners and the increasingly high requirements for defence and security education. Meanwhile, the School’s staff members have to perform many tasks simultaneously; its teaching staff’s capacity and facilities have yet to meet the development of its mission.

To fulfill its assigned task, the School has always grasped the Party and State’s resolutions and directives and higher echelons’ guiding documents on defence and security education, particularly the 10^th Politburo’s Directive 12-CT/TW on “Enhancing the Party’s leadership over defence and security education in the new situation”, the Law on defence and security education, and the plans and guiding documents by the Central Defence and Security Education Council and the Military Region 1’s Defence and Security Education Council. As a result, it has raised its staff members’ awareness and responsibility towards this task. The School’s Party Committee and Directorate as well as the party committees and commands of its departments and faculties have attached importance to strengthening leadership and direction over defence and security education, considered it as a central political task, and proactively adopted the measures synchronously to perform this task. On a yearly basis, the School adheres to the plans and guiding documents by the Military Region 1’s Defence and Security Education Council and cooperated with competent offices and localities in developing the plans and organizing defence and security education courses for cadres of the group 2 in accordance with the existing condition. In the process, the School has proactively selected and assigned good cadres and staff members to the task. At the same time, based on the framework programs, it has formulated the specific contents and programs in accordance with the Military Region’s particularities and defence and security mission and equipped the localities’ cadres and the Military Region’s armed forces’ cadres with proper defence, military and security knowledge.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Xuan Phong giving the certificates to graduates with distinction

Over the past years, the School has mainly organized defence and security education courses for cadres of the group 2 from 6 provinces in the area and the Military Region’s armed forces. Most of those cadres are leaders and commanders with high intellectual level, good political theoretical knowledge, and experiences in their work in local sectors, committees, and departments. That is a favourable condition but imposes the high requirements on the School’s defence and security education. To perform this task, teachers must be experienced and knowledgeable on a par with learners. Thus, the School has selected, trained, and assigned the teachers with good capacity and teaching method to this task. Members of the Directorates, heads and deputy heads of the faculties, heads of the departments, and good, experienced teachers have been in charge of teaching cadres of the group 2. Moreover, the School has invited department-level leaders of Thai Nguyen Provincial Public Security to deliver security topics. To improve the quality of lectures, the School has assigned its teachers to proper topics; at least 2 teachers have been in charge of each topic. At the same time, after charging its teachers with the topics, it has provided them with sufficient relevant documents and information so that they could proactively study and design lesson plans to submit to their superiors for approval. The School has directed its faculties to apply information technology to making lesson plans and strictly maintain the order for practising teaching and approving teachers’ lectures from the department to the faculty and School levels. By doing so, the teachers can draw lessons, supplement and complete their teaching methods, align theory with practice, and combine the lectures with practical requirements.

In addition, the School has actively renewed the teaching contents and methods relevant to each group of learners. Its has required its teachers to adhere to the topics’ contents, analyze the issues on the performance of defence and military mission related to the lectures, and make it relevant to the condition of each office, unit and locality in the Military Region’s area. At the same time, it has encouraged learners, cadres, and teachers to exchange their experiences in the military, defence, and security work. It should be noted that the School has frequently updated its teaching staff on new information related to defence and security, particularly the Party and State’s new guidelines and policies as well as the political security, economic, cultural, social, defence, and security situation in the Military Region’s area. Since 2018, the School has directed its faculties to study and include the National Defence Law, the Government’s Decrees 164/2018/NĐ-CP, 02/2019/NĐ-CP, and 21/2019/NĐ-CP, Vietnam’s National Defence Strategy, the Strategy for Homeland Protection in Cyberspace, and the National Border Protection Strategy in the topics for learners.

Defensive zone building is an important component of the military and defence task in localities. Thus, the School has always included this issue in defence and security education. In addition to equipping learners with theory, the School has selected and organized several sections of the defensive zone exercise, with a focus on operating the mechanisms in line with learners’ position, thereby consolidating their theoretical knowledge and improving their practical capacity. During the defence and security education courses, the School has organized field trips to military units or localities in the area so that its learners could more understand the armed forces’ operations and the localities’ military work. At the same time, it has invited commanders of the Military Region and provincial-level cadres to the news briefings related to defence and security and the requirements of the courses so that learners could raise their responsibility, improve their knowledge, and apply theory to the localities’ performance of the defence and military task.

While enhancing the quality of teaching, the School has seriously inspected and assessed the results of study. Adhering to the guidelines on renewing exams and assessment in education and training, the School has built a bank of exam questions, randomly selected exam questions, and combined exams with learners’ reports with emphasis placed on applying the theoretical knowledge to learners’ positions, offices, units, and working areas. After each course, the School has drawn lessons, selected and used learners’ typical writings as reference documents and sent them to the Military Region 1’s Military Science Journal for publication. Consequently, the quality of defence and security education courses has been unceasingly improved. Since 2018, the School has organized 7 courses for 350 cadres of the group 2; all cadres have graduated with credit and distinction.

In addition to the above-mentioned measures, to further enhance the quality of defence and security education, the School’s Party Committee and Directorate have paid due regard to ensuring facilities and materials. Due to its limited budget, the School has directed the Defence and Security Education Centre and offices to make all necessary preparations, carefully receiving and providing learners with sufficient accommodations and facilities, strictly maintaining the daily, weekly regulations, creating a favourable condition for learners to keep their mind on their study.

Adopting those measures synchronously, the Military Region 1’s Military School has successfully fulfilled the task of defence and security education. After the training courses, learners have promoted their role in counselling, leading, directing, and directly performing the military and defence mission in localities and units, particularly the building of provincial, district-level defensive zones, effectively implementing the policies regarding military families and social welfare, which has been highly appreciated by local party committees and authorities and the Military Region 1’s Defence and Security Education Council. Those results provide a solid foundation for the School to continue better performing this important task. In the upcoming time, the School will continue mobilizing the resources in consolidating the Defence and Security Education Centre and specialized classrooms, while building a contingent of teachers of defence and security education in order to provide better defence and security education courses for cadres of the group 2. At the same time, it will cooperate with the Military Region 1’s Defence and Security Education Council and vocational schools in the area in sending students to the Centre to attend the defence and security education courses under the regulations, making contributions to building the politico-spiritual potential, the all-people national defence, and the posture of all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security at the “revolutionary base” of Viet Bac.

Sr. Col. Nguyen Xuan Phong, Commandant of the School

Director of the Defence and Security Education Centre