"Developing and improving the quality of lecturers and educational managers to meet the requirements of innovation in education and training" is one of the main tasks and solutions identified in Resolution No. 1657-NQ/QUTW, dated 20 December 2022 of the Central Military Commission. In line with that spirit, the Air Defence - Air Force Academy has been focusing on developing and improving the quality of lecturers and educational managers with drastic, synchronous and practical solutions.

The Air Defence - Air Force Academy is a centre for training and fostering high-quality undergraduate and postgraduate cadres. At the same time, it is a centre for military science research, international cooperation in specialised training in the fields of air defence, air force and electronic warfare of the Army.

To be worthy of that position, over the years, the Academy has always thoroughly grasped and strictly implemented the resolutions and directives of the Party, the Central Military Commission, the Ministry of National Defence and the Air Defence - Air Force Service on building up and developing the staff. The Academy has proposed several policies and breakthrough measures to build up and develop the team of lecturers and educational managers in the direction of standardisation, with reasonable quantity and structure, ensuring inheritance and transition between generations. The Academy’s lecturers and educational managers always have a strong political stance, good moral qualities, a sense of strict discipline, high qualifications, in-depth knowledge, comprehensive capacity, professional and scientific teaching and working methods. Those factors play a decisive role in improving the quality of education, training and scientific research.

Currently, the Academy is building itself to become a smart university of Industry 4.0, and a key university of the Army. This process places higher demands on lecturers and educational managers. Meanwhile, compared to the requirements, the number of cadres and lecturers with scientific titles and doctoral degrees is still low, the number of lecturers recognised as senior lecturers, leading experts, and excellent lecturers at all levels is still small; the foreign language proficiency of some cadres and lecturers does not meet the requirements of standardisation, etc. Therefore, thoroughly implementing Resolution No. 1657-NQ/QUTW of the Central Military Commission, the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Academy continue to focus on building and developing lecturers and educational managers in the direction of standardisation, with scientific, systematic, and synchronous contents and solutions.

Awarding outstanding individuals in the talented lecturers contest of 2024-2025 academic year

The decisive content and solution that the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Academy consider during the implementation is to strengthen the leadership and direction of Party committees and Party organisations in building and developing lecturers and educational managers. This is a basic solution to ensure that building and developing cadres and lecturers of the Academy is always in the right direction. Accordingly, the Party Committee, the Board of Directors of the Academy, Party committees and commanders at all levels continue to study, thoroughly grasp and strictly implement resolutions, directives and projects of the superiors and of the Academy on building and developing cadres and lecturers; directly Resolution No. 989-NQ/DU, dated 4 October 2023 of the Party Committee of the Academy on developing lecturers and educational managers for the period 2023 - 2030 and the following years. Based on the correct awareness that building and developing lecturers and educational managers is an important and regular task, a "key" step to effectively implement the viewpoints and goals of educational and training innovation that the Academy has identified, the Party Committee, Party organisations, and leading cadres at all levels concretise the contents, targets, and measures in resolutions, leadership conclusions, and develop specific implementation plans. Focus on building cadres and lecturers who meet the standards according to regulations on political qualities, ethics, lifestyle, sense of organisation and discipline, qualifications, capacity, methods, and working style; in which, focus on building lecturers and educational managers who have a doctorate in military science and meet the standards of associate professors and professors to open a training code for doctoral programmes in military science at the Academy. At each level, during the implementation process, it is necessary to determine a specific roadmap, ensuring that it is consistent with reality; review and assess the progress of the plan to develop lecturers and educational managers in conjunction with reviewing and assessing the results of completing the annual tasks; propose directions and solutions to build up staff and lecturers to meet the increasingly high requirements and tasks of education and training of the Academy.

Actively innovating and improving the quality of planning, creating sources, selecting, training and fostering lecturers and educational managers is an important solution, a step to concretise the leadership resolutions of all levels on building cadres and lecturers, which is focused on leadership and direction by the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Academy. Agencies, faculties and units proactively select, nurture and create sources for training, planning and using lecturers and educational managers according to the standardised criteria and development orientation of the Academy, as well as of each agency, faculty and unit. Focus on building a plan for command and management cadres at all levels for the 2025 - 2030 term with increasingly high quality, reasonable quantity and structure, taking the lower-level planning as the basis for the higher-level planning, ensuring connectivity and feasibility; resolutely not planning cadres that lack the prescribed criteria. During the implementation process, it is necessary to be public, democratic, maintain solidarity, inheritance and development; link planning with comments, assessments, training, fostering, rotation, arrangement and use of cadres. Every year, proactively review the source of cadres in the planning to train, foster and rotate in the units; pay attention to creating conditions for cadres to strive and complete their tasks well; regularly replace cadres with limited capacity, low prestige, and violations, without waiting for the end of their term, appointment period or retirement age.

Along with that, proactively create sources, train and foster lecturers and educational managers according to standardised criteria. Agencies, faculties and units develop and implement the framework of teaching capacity for lecturers and the framework of university management capacity for educational managers. On that basis, actively innovate and diversify the content and forms of training and fostering according to each specific majors: missiles, radar, anti-aircraft artillery, air force, etc., take basic, long-term, formal training according to advanced training programmes as the main focus; closely combine training at university with on-the-job training and self-study. In particular, attach importance to training to improve political qualities, sense of organisation and discipline, sense of responsibility, professional ethics; at the same time, train to improve academic qualifications, foreign languages, information technology, digital transformation; train and foster according to positions; train and foster to improve professional capacity, expertise, capacity in programme development, modern teaching methods, etc. for staff and lecturers. Regularly maintain and improve the quality and effectiveness of the following forms: model teaching, excellent lecturer competition, excellent subject heads, good managers, etc. Require lecturers and educational managers with doctoral degrees to strengthen scientific research, compile appropriate documents to be recognised for scientific titles. By the end of 2030, over 95% of lecturers and educational managers meet the prescribed standards, over 25% of lecturers have doctoral degrees, over 75% of lecturers undertake command and management positions of units suitable to the training goals and requirements of each subject, from 20% - 30% are capable of working in an international environment.

In order to continuously improve the quality of the cadres and lecturers, the Party Committee and the Board of Directors of the Academy continue to lead and direct the implementation of good management, comments, assessments, mobilisation, appointment and rotation of the teaching staff and educational management staff. Party committees and commanders, especially heads of agencies, faculties and units, need to promote responsibility in managing, commenting and evaluating staff and lecturers, ensuring substance, comprehensiveness, impartiality and objectivity, in conjunction with appointment, arrangement, planning, training, fostering in personnel work. Party committees at all levels must regularly review, grasp and closely manage the situation of all aspects of the staff and lecturers, focusing on management and grasping their ideological stance, statements, ethics, lifestyle, etc. Closely combine the work of managing, commenting and evaluating cadres and lecturers with the management, evaluation and classification of the Party members, taking the results of task performance, training and cultivating political qualities, ethics and lifestyle as the main measure for evaluation. Based on the planning, capacity, qualifications and results of performing tasks, the Academy considers and proposes the transfer, appointment and use of appropriate cadres and lecturers; at the same time, implement well the rotation plan, actual positions, conduct surveys, evaluate quality, collect feedbacks, etc. for cadres and lecturers according to regulations. Along with that, effectively implement digital transformation in management work, gradually modernise and build an interconnected database of cadres and lecturers in the Academy and with training institutions in the Army. Proactively take preventive measures, not allowing hostile and reactionary forces to infiltrate and entice; timely detect and resolutely handle cadres and lecturers who show signs of degradation in political ideology, ethics and lifestyle, “self-evolution”, “self-transformation”. Along with that, the Academy proactively coordinates closely with academies and universities inside and outside the Army to train and standardise cadres and lecturers. Regularly promote the active and proactive role of lecturers and educational managers in self-study and training; create favourable conditions for them to access and effectively exploit facilities, weapons, equipment and technical means for teaching; at the same time, well implement policies and regimes, further improve the material and spiritual life of cadres and their families. Advise and propose specific mechanisms and policies to attract scientists, leading experts, leaders and commanders of agencies and units inside and outside the Army to participate in the education, training and scientific research activities of the Academy, contributing to building the Air Defence - Air Force Academy as "revolutionary, regular, standardised and modern", constantly improving the quality of training, meeting the requirements of building and fighting of the Army in the new period.

Major General TRAN TRONG TUYEN, Political Commissar of the Academy