The Engineering College is an education and training centre for tertiary-level engineering officers of the Army. In the past few years, in order to promote the motto: “The training quality of schools decides the combat readiness capacity of units”, together with the policy on building and developing the “3 pillars”, the College Party Committee and Director Board have implemented many drastic leading and directive solutions, of which, building the contingent of lecturers has been considered a pivotal and decisive step. With their high endeavour and determination, lecturers of the School have shown the comprehensive development, having a sufficient quantity, suitable structure and high quality. Up to now, 100% lecturers have had university qualifications (with 10.11% of whom being doctors and 74.41% being masters) who have had good teaching methods, well meeting all standards of the teaching competency framework for lecturers in military academies and schools. Only in the 2021-2024 period, the School had 132 lecturers being awarded with the title of “good lecturers” at school level and 55 lecturers with Defence Ministry level. These results have made an important contribution to improving the quality of education and training of the College.

All-round check of the College conducted by the Engineering Corps

The success of the College in building the contingent of lecturers is attributed to many factors, including some breakthroughs in several stages which are basic and suitable with the features of the College.

For all schools, the contingent of lecturers has been considered a pivotal part deciding the quality of education and training. Their role has been even more important in the requirements of basic and comprehensive renovation of education and training, and building the Army in the new situation. With this understanding, the Political Department has advised the College’s Party Committee and Director Board to grasp and concretise all resolutions, decisions and directives on education and training, and building the contingent of lecturers, especially Resolution No. 463-NQ/ĐU, dated 30 March 2023 by the Engineering Corps’ Party Committee; Resolution No. 680-NQ/ĐU, dated 28 April 2023 by the College’s Party Committee on “Renovating the education and training to meet the task requirement of building the Army in the new situation” through conferences, further training for cadres and lecturers, teaching contests, etc. in order to create basic changes in awareness and responsibilities of all-party party committees, leaders and commanders for this important work; the combination between evaluation of cadres and evaluation of task completion according to their tasks and responsibilities has been conducted methodically, strictly and on principle, taking the results of teaching, scientific research, working efficiency and the trust of their colleagues and learners as the means to annually evaluate and classify lecturers. The inspection and monitoring the lecturers’ performance of tasks have been synchronously conducted in echelon, completely eradicating any passive expressions in self-study and self-research among lecturers. The quality and effectiveness in managing and maintaining the administrative and professional regulations of teaching activities for leaders and commanders of offices and faculties have achieved significant development in quality. Activities of scientific and methodological councils of faculties in their lesson approvals, observation, commentation and exemplary lessons have been carried out disciplinarily, effectively and stably. In the situation that the contingent of lecturers have been deficient in quantity; the rate of them reaching standards of knowledge, competence, real experience and scientific titles has been low and unstable; the level of foreign languages and IT of some lecturers has been inadequate (because of some of their sourcing and building stages not being properly concerned), the Political Department has coordinated with the Education Department to make research and proposals to the School’s Party Committee on building the contingent of lecturers being sufficient in quantity and suitable in structure according to the Project of “Building the contingent of lecturers and educational managers in the Army in the 2023-2030 period and the following years”. Accordingly, departments and faculties have checked the organisation and staff, built and arranged the lecturers in faculties combined with planning the contingent of cadres in the “standardised”, elite and compact way with suitable structure, repairing the redundancy in some parts but deficiency in others. Faculties have made a careful calculation on the next sources of lecturers as in the defined schedule, assuring the secure inheritance and development among generations and specific subjects. To increase lecturers to some faculties and divisions, the Political Department has advised the College’s Party Committee and Director Board to lead and direct all departments and faculties to proactively select candidates from many sources and directions firstly including the excellently-graduated cadets who have good capacity and pedagogical quality to stay in the school and develop. Concurrently, the College has proactively requested the seniors to select cadres who have graduated from schools and academies inside and outside the Army, and the ones who have real experience of commanding and managing from other units to become lecturers. Thanks to that, faculties have made basic adjustment and solidification, completely solved the bad structure of age and training capacity, assuring the continuous and stable development.

Conducting field drilling

Along with that, the Political Department has advised the College to pay attention to improving the knowledge and capacity for the contingent of lecturers. Hence, together with sending lecturers to be educated and trained domestically and overseas, the College has enhanced the training and further training for the lecturers to have comprehensive and professional knowledge by frequently maintaining and conducting the methodological days, exemplary lessons, lesson commentation and observation, lesson approvals, etc. For the training contents, the School has intensely improved the pedagogical skills, capacity of scientific thinking, creativity, combining theories with practice and teaching reality. Beside the basic knowledge, the School has required each lecturer to frequently update training contents and methods to be suitable with the development of new facilities and equipment in all engineering units and the whole army. In order to update the real knowledge and apply it into teaching, the College has enhanced the rotation of lecturers from battalions to brigades; and invited the senior engineering cadres to transfer their experience of engineering support in combats in order to diversify the training contents, at the same time, create favourable conditions for the lecturers to take part in specialised trainings, scientific research, competitions and contests held by the Defence Ministry and Engineering Corps, observe the training, combat readiness and exercises to learn and research the reality, contributing to improving their experience, knowledge and teaching competence. Especially, the School has built and implemented the “Regulations on coordinated implementation of education and training” with the Engineering Brigade 25 in 7^th Military Region, the Engineering Brigade 550 in 4^th Military Region and the Mobile Police Command in the Public Security Ministry to create conditions for lecturers and cadets of the School to directly join their activities. Together, the College has paid great attention to the political-spiritual education, management, training and building of political spirit, professional ethics, personality and lifestyle for the contingent of lecturers so that they can be modelling examples, “red and expert” cadres, who are able to meet the demands for the tasks of the College immediately and in the long run.

In order to actualise the aim of building the College towards the model of “The smart School, which approaches the 4^th Industrial Revolution”, the Political Department has proactively coordinated with the specialised offices to advise the College to well carry out the education, IT training and the improvement of the contingent of lecturers to meet the requirements of the digital transformation. Accordingly, the College has gradually upgraded the infrastructure, enhanced the comprehensive and synchronous digital transformation, focusing on digitalisation and building the database of textbooks, lessons, documents, scientific research results and the application of IT into teaching activities, at the same time, opened more training classes to improve the level of IT and foreign languages being suitable with the standardisation requirements of each title and the demands for building the School in the context of digital transformation. Together, the Schools has requested all lecturers to actively study and enhance the digitalisation of textbooks; renovate the teaching methods of approaching and transferring knowledge, and using the digital equipment to make cadets more interested in the lessons. This not only assists cadets in effectively developing their analysing and problem-solving skills, but also helps lecturers update and adjust their teaching methods, meeting the demands for acquiring knowledge by cadets. Up to now, the School has had over 250 cadres and lecturers gaining certificates of information technology. This contingent has compiled more than 200 documents with over 29,000 pages having been digitalised, 26 scientific research products applying the information technology which have been effectively put into use. In their teaching process, 100% lecturers have proficiently made use of the online teaching-learning aids, tools of making digitalised lessons, and new tech-based teaching methods, contributing to building the contingent of lecturers who have knowledge and capacity, fully meeting the education targets and requirements.

Together with the above solutions, the Engineering College has carried out the policy work to lecturers by fully implementing the regulations on supporting the postgraduate education; flexibly applying the policy on public houses; assuring the working and life conditions, etc. The College has enhanced the emulation, commendation, created motivation for self-research and training to improve the professional knowledge and pedagogical skills and build the strong contingent of lecturers, making contribution to improving the quality of education and training.

Senior Colonel, Dr. PHAM NGUYEN NGOC ANH, Head of Political Department