Friday, September 28, 2018, 06:49 (GMT+7)
Hong Duc University provides defence and security education for students

Thoroughly grasping the Party’s viewpoints on providing defence and security education for all people, over the past 15 years of construction and development, the Centre for Defence and Security Education under Hong Duc University has strived to fulfill the assigned task and greatly contributed to transmitting knowledge of defence and security to the young generations. In recent years, the Centre’s task has had developments in both content and scale terms. In addition to providing defence and security education for the University’s students, the Centre has been responsible for organizing training courses on defence and security for about 10,000 students/year from 12 other universities and colleges in the area of Thanh Hoa province under the Joint Circular 123/2015/TT-BQP-BGDĐT-BLĐTBXH, dated November 5th 2015, by the Ministries of National Defence, Education and Training, and Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs. This is an extremely challenging task as the Centre’s facilities have yet to meet the essential demands for students’ daily life during their courses. Moreover, its organizational structure has yet to be perfected. It also faces a dearth of cadres and teachers while the quality of its staff, to some extent, has yet to meet the task requirements. It is one of few centres for defence and security education that don’t have any cadre and teacher who are seconded officers.

Students practise shooting

Against that backdrop, to fulfil the assigned task, the Centre has focused on political, ideological education and enhanced the work of disseminating and grasping directives and legal documents on defence and security education. Accordingly, it has rendered cadres and teachers fully aware of the role and importance of defence and security education as well as the role of students in Homeland protection while raising their awareness and responsibility and building up their political stuff and strong determination to overcome difficulties and perform the task. Besides, the Centre has consolidated its organizational structure, enhanced the leadership capability and combativeness of party organizations, put store by preparing, training and building the teaching staff both qualitatively and quantitatively, and considered this as a determinant to its task performance. To this end, over the past years, it has advised the University’s Party Committee and Board on preparing human resources from the University’s faculties and recruiting discharged military officers and graduates in defence and security education. Furthermore, the Centre has stepped up the planning work to train and enhance teaching capability and method, thereby gradually standardizing its contingent of cadres and teachers. Accordingly, while planning and maintaining the balance in forces and creating favourable conditions for several cadres and teachers to take turns studying defence and security education or attending postgraduate courses in universities, the Centre has also dispatched cadres and teachers to attend training courses on contents and teaching method of the defence and security education subject held by the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Education and Training. At the same time, it has maintained the order for on-the-spot training at all levels by observing and analyzing lectures, exchanging professional experience, and assigning experienced cadres and teachers to help the young ones. It should be noted that significance has been attached to promoting the role of cadres and teachers who are discharged officers in helping the others with the method to train military subjects as well as knowledge about and experience in military operations. Moreover, due attention has been paid to improving cadres and teachers’ teaching skills, observance of discipline and military manners and to directing subject groups to step up scientific research in order to enhance their capability comprehensively. The Centre has carried out scientific topics of great value which have been directly applied to teaching and settling difficulties in realities of defence and security education and highly appreciated by the University’s Council for Science. Adopting measures synchronously, up to now, the Centre has had sufficient number of cadres and teachers. 100% of its teachers hold bachelor degree, 2 teachers hold doctorate, and 4 teachers are master’s degree.

To effectively provide defence and security education for students under the spirit of the Resolution of the University Party Congress for the 2015-2020 tenure, the Centre has attached significance to renewing teaching contents and methods; directing subject groups to regularly include new points in the military and defence strategy and the Homeland protection task in the new situation in the lectures; flexibly employing teaching methods in accordance with each group of learners in each course. Over the past time, subject groups have adhered to the curriculum, carefully studied characteristics of students and their majors to prepare lesson plans and lectures. Consideration has been given to attaching the contents of the lecture to national history and tradition education and majors of students of the University and others. Besides, the Centre has incorporated the defence and security situation into lectures to provide information for students, orientate their ideology and build their political awareness about the country’s major issues. At the same time, it has directed subject groups to actively renew the teaching method, employ information technology and modern equipment, bring into play specialized classrooms, and combine transmission of theory with practice. To improve the quality of lectures, teachers of the Centre have all made electronic lesson plans and used pictures, photos and films to illustrate the military, defence and security operations. During class, teachers have actively raised the issues to encourage discussion and debate between teachers and students. Teaching and learning “without aids” and one-way transmission of knowledge have basically been eliminated. Most of the periods in class have been done by the learner-centred approach and information technology.

A defence sports competition intended for students

Due regard has been paid to inspection and assessment of learning results on a close, strict, objective, practical basis, which has become an important element to raise students’ awareness of learning. The Centre has built a bank of computer-based multiple choice questions and organized practice exams for military subjects. As a result, it could correctly, objectively evaluate students’ knowledge. Students’ results of defence and security subject in the Centre have witnessed steady progresses. Between 2007 and 2010, rate of credit was only 8.3%. However, in recent courses, the rate of credit and distinction has been nearly 40%. Students’ awareness and responsibility towards the military, defence and Homeland protection missions have been considerably raised.

To synchronously renew the teaching and learning method and improve the training quality, the Centre has actively mobilized resources of all types to invest in building facilities and acquiring modern teaching equipment. At the same time, it has counselled the University to allocate budget for investing in lecture halls and specialized classrooms and acquiring teaching aids, such as projector, shooting practice machine MBT-03, large-screen TV and over 1.200 course books and reference books. It has also actively cooperated with competent offices in ensuring the sufficient number of level-5 guns as training weapons and encouraged the movement to promote initiatives and innovate teaching aids and models among cadres and teachers. With the current system of classrooms and training grounds, the Centre is able to provide training courses for 5,000 students/year while its teaching equipment and aids satisfy 80% of the standards set by the Ministry of Education and Training. In the coming time, it will continue to advise the University on recommending Thanh Hoa Provincial People’s Committee to allocate budget for investing in the second phase of the construction of the Centre to improve its task performance. 

In addition to equipping students with basic military knowledge and skills, defence and security education aims to make them acquainted with the military environment. As its facilities could not meet students’ demands for accommodation, the Centre has employed measures to facilitate students’ access to military environment to forge their self-awareness and sense of discipline. On a yearly basis, following the plan co-developed by the University and the others, the Centre has proactively grasped groups of students in each course to make preparations. After receiving students, it has formed classes, appointed class leaderships, developed student profiles, disseminated and introduced the targets and requirements of the course as well as its regulations to students. To keep a close watch on and closely manage students, in the very beginning of the course, it has assigned teachers in charge of classes to both teach and manage students. At the same time, it has directed cadres to stringently maintain the order for uniform, studying hours, entrance and exit, and roll-call as the basis for inspecting students’ attendance. Moreover, the Centre has required cadres and teachers to heighten the pioneering role and set examples in words and action for students to follow while directing subject groups to develop plans for extra curriculum, military sports, and particularly outdoor practice to help students get familiar with the military environment.

With the measures mentioned above, the Centre for Defence and Security Education under Hong Duc University has always overcome difficulties to successfully fulfil the assigned task. Consequently, it has not only improved the awareness and knowledge of defence and security for tens of thousands of students, but translated the Law on Defence and Security Education into life, thereby creating the strength to consolidate national defence and safeguard the Homeland.

Nguyen Ngoc Quy MA

Deputy Director of the Centre for Defence and Security Education, Hong Duc University

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