National defence and security education for students at tertiary education institutions is a vital content, which contributes to training of high-quality human resources for national construction and defence. Therefore, the research and proposal of solutions to deal with limitations from execution of national defence and security education at tertiary education institutions are urgent matters today.

Over the past few years, national defence and security education has been constantly led and directed by the Party and State, thus gaining positive results. Importantly, quality and effectiveness of national defence and security education for students at tertiary education institutions are on the increase. Through national defence and security education, students who are part of the high-quality human resources in the future are equipped with basic knowledge about the Party’s guidelines and State’s policies and law on national defence and security; understand fundamental contents about building the all-people national defence, building the all-people defence posture in connection with the people’s security posture, building the people’s armed forces, and necessary military skills to meet requirements of national construction and defence. Nevertheless, facing rapid developments and new realistic demands, national defence and security education at tertiary education institutions has witnessed certain limitations. Some documents and implementation instructions issued by the State are no longer suitable for new situation. Programs and coursebooks of this subject fail to catch up with practical developments in some aspects.

To continue to promote quality of national defence and security education for students at tertiary education institutions first and foremost requires review and amendment of documents guiding the performance of this task to ensure their suitability to new circumstances. Over time, the Party, State, ministries, industries, forces, and functional agencies have promulgated many documents aimed to create a vital legal corridor for education and popularisation of national defence and security knowledge for various types of learners and the entire people in general, the students at tertiary education institutions in particular. However, after the implementation process and in the face of practical developments and demands, the document system, especially the by-law documents, has shown certain inappropriate contents and limitations, which need to be dealt with in order to create favourable conditions for effective delivery of this subject. In terms of tuition fees, for example, currently there are not any documents specifying tuition. They only stipulate tuition fees in each training major according to the Decree No. 86/2015/ND-CP, dated October 2nd, 2015, of the Government. Therefore, the tuition for national defence and security education is equal to that of other subjects in the same major. Meanwhile, according to regulations, all students studying this subject at tertiary education institutions have the same program, time span, and targets, such an amount of tuition is not proper and unfair, greatly affects learners’ feelings and responsibility, and has a direct influence on quality of the subject. Regarding training program, there are not any specific regulations on people who have completed this subject at the intermediate level then transfer to a university. Consequently, some tertiary education institutions must deliver the entire subject program for this type of learners as stipulated by tertiary qualification, resulting in wastefulness. To deal with this situation, the Standing Agency of the Central Council for National Defence and Security Education should cooperate closely with commissions, ministries, and branches concerned at the central level as well as functional agencies and forces on reviewing the system of guiding documents completely to timely identify inappropriate contents, which lays the basis for proposing amendments and improvements. Of note, importance should be attached to review at education institutions in general, the tertiary education institutions in particular, especially the centres for national defence and security education. Outcomes of the review should serve as foundation for proposing solutions and amendments of guiding documents regarding this crucial task, ensuring their suitability to new realities.

Second, drastic reform of contents and programs to guarantee national defence and security education’s suitability to practical developments and demands. This is a crucial solution to enhanced quality of national defence and security education for students in education institutions. Contents and programs themselves are the amount of knowledge need to be provided for learners. The knowledge should be constantly updated along realistic developments, thereby enabling learners to grasp new, imperative knowledge and providing a vital foundation for formulating and developing dignity according to goals and requirements of education and training. Reforming contents and programs of this subject is a pressing demand and must be carried out by means of many synchronous solutions, including updating the education program with necessary contents; regularly creating and improving materials to meet growing demands of reality as well as the research, teaching, and learning of people concerned. Currently, the coursebooks used at tertiary education institutions contain some outdated contents. Some were even published 10 years ago. Therefore, they have many contents that no longer match rapid changes of reality, especially the guidelines on national defence, security, national construction, and safeguarding of the Fatherland. The Ministry of Education and Training has promulgated Circular No. 05/2020/TT-BGĐT, dated March 18th, 2020 to regulate the training programs of national defence and security education at tertiary education institutions, but there have not been new coursebooks to replace the old ones. Functional bodies, especially the Ministry of Education and Training need to proactively cooperate and seriously study and roll out new types of coursebooks and materials in accordance with changes of the reality, considering this an immediate, urgent task. Of note, attention should be paid to update on the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and law regarding national defence and security; on the advances of modern military science and technology; and on new types of warfare. The students should be taught about hostile forces’ current strategy for conducting “peaceful evolution” and acts of subversion through many new subtle tricks, enabling them to comprehend and actively participate in the struggle, most notably in cyberspace. In the short term, to cope with this delay, tertiary education institutions need to request their faculties and lecturers to update lessons with new, imperative contents. Importance should be attached to evaluation and approval of lessons through seriously carrying out solution during the implementation process.

Third, it is necessary to enhance quality of lecturers to satisfy both short- and long-term demands. The quality of teachers is key to training quality. The national defence and security education is a highly unique subject with rigid principles. The knowledge often does not associate with students’ majors. Consequently, besides basic knowledge, the instructors need to possess sufficient professional knowledge and pedagogic skills suitable for this subject. This aims to arouse the interests of learners and deal with boilerplate learning or learning for the sake of the certificates regardless of how much knowledge and skills in this field learners can acquire. In fact, the corps of lecturers in national defence and security education at the tertiary education institutions are not only quantitively insufficient but qualitatively weak in some aspects. The military officers who are attached to the tertiary education institutions, in particular, have not been equipped with pedagogic skills, resulting in poor teaching methods. They often rigidly apply methods used for soldiers to students. To satisfy the demand of raising quality of the lecturers on a par with both short- and long-term requirements, first and foremost there is a need to have drastic, scientific, synchronous measures to successfully implement the Project on training lecturers in national defence and security as stipulated by the Decision No. 607/QD-TTg, dated April 24th, 2014 of the Prime Minister. The Ministry of Education and Training should map out satisfactory policies to attract pupils to this branch of pedagogy; resolve to cope with pupil shortage in the previous years; and regularly standardise output quality of pupils in accordance with practical changes. Additionally, it needs to give training courses in order to raise the quality of management cadres and lecturers in national defence and security education at the tertiary education institutions. Importance should be attached to provision of update information about the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and law on national defence, security, construction and protection of the Fatherland, advances of military science, technology, and art. In addition, the Standing Agency of the Central Council for National Defence and Security Education is to work closely with functional forces and tertiary education institutions to select attached officers with sufficient criteria, especially the pedagogic certificate; timely train lecturers who lack some criteria.

Increased quality of national defence and security education for students at tertiary education institutions is responsibility of many organisations and forces from the central to grassroots level as well as from the management cadres and instructors to learners. According to their functions and missions, each organisation, individual, and force should proactively put forth proper solutions and measures during the implementation process. Those will be the most effective, direct solutions, which contribute to increased quality of this vital task.

Senior Colonel DINH VAN LONG and Major LE MINH TUAN, Centre for National Defence and Security Education, University of Thai Nguyen