Over the past years, the district of Thuan Thanh has always attached great value to leading, directing, and performing the work of defence-security education via various practical measures and achieved the encouraging results, thereby contributing to raising the people, cadres, and party members’ awareness and responsibility towards the Homeland construction and defence, building the politico-spiritual potential and a firm posture of “people’s hearts and minds”, facilitating the district’s rapid, sustainable development.
Thuan Thanh is a rural district of Bac Ninh province in the Red River Delta Region, having a total area of 117.91km2 and a population of over 168,000. In recent years, the district has witnessed a rather economic growth rate; the proportion of industry and services in its economic structure has been increased; the per capita income has reached 44 million VND per year. However, the economic development process has led to many complex issues, such as environment pollution, land disputes, crimes and social evils of all types, threatening political security and social order and safety in the area. Against that backdrop, while focusing on economic development, the District’s Party Committee and People’s Committee have paid due attention to leading, directing, and performing the defence-security task and particularly the work of defence-security education.
First of all, the district has enhanced the party committees and authorities’ leadership and direction and the military offices’ core role at all levels in counselling and coordinating defence-security education. The district has further disseminated and introduced the directives and guiding documents on defence-security education to objects, with a focus on the Defence and Security Education Law, the 10th Politburo’s Directive 12-CT/TW, and the plans and guiding documents by the Defence and Security Education Councils of the Military Region 1 and Bac Ninh province. Doing so has helped render the people, cadres, and party members’ importance of defence-security education to the Homeland construction and protection. The district has required party committees, authorities, sectors, and unions to strengthen leadership and direction over this important work in accordance with their particularities. At the same time, it has consolidated the Defence and Security Education Councils at all levels with the sufficient quantity and proper structure and maintained their operation in line with local conditions. To implement the Resolution of the 12th District Party Congress and fulfil the target of defence-security education, on a yearly basis, the district directs the Military Command - the Standing Agency of the District’s Defence and Security Education Council to cooperate with sectors and localities in grasping the quantity of objects, classifying groups of objects, developing the plans and targets of defence-security education and informing units about the plans and targets. At the same time, due regard has been paid to inspecting and investigating offices and units’ defence-security education at all levels.
Besides, the district has renewed form, content, program, and method of defence-security education in accord with each group of learners and each area’s particularities. It has provided defence-security education for cadres and party members at each level in a strict manner. Yearly, it proactively sends cadres of the groups 2 and 3 to attend defence-security education courses held by the Military Region 1’s Military School and the Provincial Military School. Moreover, it has used its budget to organize defence-security education courses for cadres of the group 4 in the District’s Political Education Centre. In the process, the District’s Defence and Security Education Council has directed the District’s Military Command to cooperate with the District’s Political Education Centre in making preparations in terms of facility and plan, summoning learners, selecting the contents, and inviting good instructors to deliver lectures. It should be noted that over the past years, the district has actively developed a system of special topics in accordance with each group of learners, removed the overlapped, old contents, and supplemented new topics related to the Homeland construction and defence, political security and social order in the area under the Circular 38/2014/TT-BQP by the Ministry of National Defence on promulgating the programs and contents of defence-security education. In addition, the district has directed committees, sectors, and localities to flexibly include defence-security education for cadres, party members, and heads of the unions in hamlets and villages in their meetings, the refresher courses, and the defensive zone, natural disaster prevention and control, and search and rescue exercises. By adopting the measures synchronously, since 2015, 104 cadres of the groups 2 and 3 and 507 cadres of the group 4 have fulfilled the defence-security education courses under the regulations. As a result, the party committees and authorities’ capabilities in leadership, direction, and operation as well as the sectors and unions’ capacity to counsel the defence-security work have been raised. Typical examples include the District’s Military Command, the District’s Education and Training Office, the township of Ho, and the communes of Song Ho, Tram Lo, Dinh To, and Dai Dong Thanh.
Fully aware of the important role of students, over the past years, the district has attached great value to improving the quality of defence-security education for students. The district has a large number of students while its number of instructors and education managers is limited and inexperienced in defence-security education. Against that backdrop, annually, the district directs the District’s Military Command to cooperate with the Education and Training Office and relevant sectors and committees in formulating the plans and strictly maintaining the regulations on providing defence-security education for students. Besides, it has adopted various measures to train and standardize the contingent of instructors and upgrade teaching equipment. Up to now, all instructors of defence-security education in the district’s high schools have been trained basically and obtained the Certificate of Defence and Security Education. Prior to each school year, the district holds the training courses on general military knowledge and defence-security education for the contingent of instructors. It has directed schools to organize the national defence contests and extracurricular activities, such as visits to museums and historical sites, exchange programs with military units stationed in the area, talks with veterans about traditions of the country and the Vietnam People’s Army. Consequently, the work of defence-security education for students performed by high schools, vocational schools, and colleges in the district’s area has greatly contributed to fulfilling the target of comprehensive education, equipping students with necessary military knowledge and skills, building up their personality, collective lifestyle, discipline, and love for their hometown and country, and raising their awareness and responsibility towards military service and Homeland defence.
To meet the requirements set by the Homeland construction and protection, particularly the task of building the postures of “people’s hearts and minds” and all-people national defence associated with the posture of people’s security, the district has stepped up the work of propagating and disseminating defence-security knowledge to all people. Yearly, the district directs the Military Command to cooperate with the Culture and Information Office and relevant agencies in developing the plan for defence-security education and propagation via mass media. Moreover, it has brought into play the effectiveness of grass-roots level radio system in propagating and disseminating defence-security knowledge and local military activities. In 2018, 8 pieces of news and articles on local military-defence activities were published by Central and Provincial newspapers and television stations while 203 pieces of news and articles were broadcast via the internal radio system. Those pieces of news and articles focused on disseminating the Party and State’s guidelines on the Homeland defence and the all-people national defence building; unmasking the hostile forces’ plots and artifices in the area; propagating the district’s armed forces’ defence-security activities. While enhancing the work of propagation and dissemination via mass media, the district has directed sectors and unions to include defence-security knowledge propagation and dissemination in the armed forces’ activities, such as military call-up, payment of entitlements for the militia and self-defence and reserve forces, cultural, sport programs, traditional festivals, public meetings, and grass-roots level cultural institutions’ operations in accordance with the condition of localities and communities. At the same time, sectors and unions have been required to well organize the “gratitude” movement and help the people with economic development, hunger eradication and poverty reduction, thereby achieving a consensus between authorities and the people over the implementation of the Party and State’s guidelines and policies.
By taking various measures synchronously, Thuan Thanh district has gained outstanding achievements in defence-security education which have been highly appreciated by the Provincial Defence and Security Education Council. Those achievements provide an important basis for raising all people’s awareness and responsibility towards the military-defence task, maintaining political security, boosting the district’s socio-economic, cultural development in the area, meeting the requirements for the Homeland construction and protection.
Nguyen Xuan Duong, Standing Member of the District’s Party Committee
Permanent Deputy Chairman of the District’s People’s Committee
Chairman of the District’s Defence and Security Education Council