The contingent of unit-level political cadres, who directly conduct party work and political work at grassroots units, plays an important role in contributing to building a strong army in politics. As a training centre of political officers for the entire army, the Political Officer School needs to carry out research and innovation to improve its education and training quality, meeting the requirements of the new situation.

Leader of the Political Officer School encourages its officer cadets

Over the past years, the Political Officer School (POS) has always closely followed the leadership and direction of the Central Army Commission, the Ministry of National Defence and the requirements of Army building, with a focus on Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW, dated November 4, 2013 of the Party Central Committee (11^th tenure) on fundamentally and comprehensively renovating education and training, meeting requirements of industrialisation and modernisation in the context of a socialist-oriented market economy and international integration; the Strategy for development of education and training in the Army in the 2011 – 2020 period; the directives of the Minister of National Defense, the Chairman of the General Political Department, the Chief of the General Staff on education and training in the Army. On that basis, the school promotes innovation and improves the quality of education and training, making an important contribution to building the contingent political officers for the entire Army. The task of Army building and Fatherland protection in the new situation is posing very high requirements, the Resolution of the 11^th Congress of Army Party Committee has defined that: to continue building the Army in a streamlined, lean and strong; in which, building the Army politically strong in accordance with the standards of “Uncle Ho's Soldier” is an important task, serving as a basis for realising the goal of building a modern Army. To contribute to realising that goal, POS training should be conducted with more scientific, relevant and practical solutions to improve the comprehensive quality of the unit-level political officers, meeting the practical requirements.

First of all, promote the renewal of contents, programs and methods of training political officers in the direction of reality-based, standardisation, and modernisation. Accordingly, the renewal of the content and program for training political officers, especially the specialised subjects, must be attached to the building of standards of quality, competence and style of grassroots political officers, focusing on criteria of political zeal, theoretical level, the ability to conduct party work and political work, and the style, ethics, lifestyle of political officers. There should be appropriate ratio between basic knowledge and specialised knowledge, theory and practice; duplication of content among subjects, educational levels and levels should be avoided. In particular, it is necessary to set the output standards as a basis for the adjustment and renewal of training content and programs to meet the requirements of building the contingent of political officers in each period.

As far as teaching method is concerned, in order to nurture positive cognitive activities of learners, student-centred approach, the school should base on each topic and subject to guide the appropriate application of teaching methods; pay attention to the organisation, direction, guidance and control of teachers to promote the active and creative role of learners and pedagogical activities of teachers so that learners can apply their knowledge into the implementation of party work and political work. In order to stimulate student’s independent and creative thinking to solve learning problems and handle practical situations, POS should focus on combining formal training with extra-curricular activities, building learning groups; renewing the organisation and method of internship for learners. Learner’s internship should be conducted in appropriate time and units, so that learners can promote their knowledge and accumulate practical experience. Moreover, POS needs to actively research and review of experience in conducting party work and political work at the unit, especially in the implementation of unexpected, difficult and dangerous tasks, handling situations, etc., to create materials for training, research and self-study of cadres and learners.

Second, building and fostering a contingent of educational administrators with high quality and reasonable quantity. The quality of the teaching staff is one of the deciding factors for the quality of training. In order to meet the high requirements of training unit-level political officers in the new situation, POS needs to attach special importance to building and developing a contingent of qualified educators and educational administrators in terms of knowledge, practical experience, “enthusiasm, capability, and intellect” to act as the core of innovation and enhancement of education and training. Promoting the achieved results, the school focuses on reviewing and making development plan for the contingent of staff and teachers; gradually standardise their education level, IT and foreign languages proficiency, pedagogical skills, practical experience and professional ethics according to the regulations of the Ministry of National Defence.

Finally, improve the quality of scientific research, link scientific research with education and training. Over the past years, POS scientific research has always been paid due attention, resulting in many valuable and practical research projects serving the education and training and the development of the school. However, there are not many in-depth research projects into the shortcomings and arising problems in training and practice of party work, political work at grassroots units, etc. To overcome this problem, POS needs to diversify the topic of research; renew scientific management; limit academic topics, improve the applicability to practice; direct scientific activities to directly serve the training and solve urgent requirements of party work and political work at grassroots, etc. Priority should be given to researches on the perfection of content, training programs, standardisation of the system of textbooks, materials, application of information technology, simulation technology, artificial intelligence in teaching, etc., and solving practical problems arising in the training of political officers at the unit level.

In addition to the above solutions, it is necessary to improve the quality of management, inspection, supervision and testing; renovate the evaluation of educational and training to ensure objectivity, and invest in modern teaching facilities such as: lecture halls, libraries, specialised classrooms, sports field, ... create favourable conditions to improve the quality of training, contributing to building a comprehensively strong, “exemplary and typical” Political Officer School, well completing the task of training political officers at unit-level, meeting the requirements and tasks of building the Army politically strong in the new situation.

Sr. Col., Doctor. NGUYEN VAN QUYEN and Maj., Doctor. DO NGOC HANH, Political Officer School