In response to the impacts by the 4^th industrial revolution and the strategy for a fundamental and comprehensive reform in education and training by our Party and Military, the Naval Academy’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have been adopting drastic, synchronous measures for modernising the Academy and training high-calibre human resources for the Navy’s modernisation process.

Over the past 65 years of construction, combat, maturity, and development, the Naval Academy has succeeded in training tens of thousands of cadres and party members for the Vietnam People’s Navy. Those cadres and party members have played a core role in defending the national sovereignty over seas and islands and making the Navy increasingly strong, thereby greatly contributing to the victory of the war against the U.S., for national salvation. In the period of national construction and protection, the Naval Academy has kept improving the quality of education, training and scientific research to meet the task requirements in the new situation.

In recent years, to satisfy the high requirements set by the task of education and training and respond to the impacts by the 4^th industrial revolution, the Academy’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have seriously grasped and effectively executed resolutions and directives by the Party, the Central Military Commission, and the Ministry of National Defence on education and training. In this regard, emphasis has been placed on 11^th Party Central Committee’s Resolution 29-NQ/TW, dated November 4^th, 2013 on a fundamental and comprehensive reform in education and training, the Prime Minister’s Directive 16/CT-TTg, dated May 4^th, 2017 on improving the capacity to approach the 4^th industrial revolution, the Decision 889/QĐ-BQP, dated March 22^nd, 2018 by the Minister of National Defence on “approving the Action Plan of the system of military schools for the 4^th industrial revolution in the period of 2018-2020 and beyond” and guiding documents by the General Staff and the Department of Schools. As a result, there has been a positive change in the Academy’s education and training. Notably, the Academy has been applying information technology to education and training. It has drastically renewed its training content, programme, and method, while combining training within the Academy with units’ training and combat readiness to ensure that graduates from the Academy would be qualified to hold their first position. Significance has been attached to standardising basic and professional knowledge to maintain training connection with other academies and universities both inside and outside the Military. Due regard has been paid to improving knowledge of foreign languages, building a contingent of high-quality cadres and instructors, and strictly maintaining the Military’s discipline and the Academy’s regulations.

A practice session for the Academy’s cadets

However, theory and practice within the curriculum has witnessed an imbalance. The method of teaching and learning has failed to promote learners’ proactiveness and dynamism. There has been a dearth of top experts and instructors within the Academy. Training materials and documents have yet to satisfy the requirements. Against that backdrop, the Academy’s Party Committee and Board of Directors adopt measures synchronously and comprehensively for building a smart, standard, and exemplary school to meet the requirements set by the Navy’s modernisation process and contribute to defending the national sovereignty over seas and islands, with a focus on the following.

First, continuing to conduct the work of propagation to raise cadres, instructors, cadets, and soldiers’ awareness of the Academy’s renewal strategy. This measure will act as a determinant to rendering the Academy’s staff members fully aware of the position, significance, and necessity of shifting from traditional education towards modern education as the basis for building and developing the Academy sustainably and fulfilling the goals of training high-calibre human resources for the Navy and approaching the 4^th industrial revolution. In the process, party committees and commands of offices, faculties, and cadet management units should concentrate on drastically, comprehensively renewing the content, form, and method of propagation in accordance with their particularities and each group of troops. Emphasis should be placed on introducing higher echelons’ resolutions and directives on approaching the 4^th industrial revolution, the guidelines and road map for realising the goal of building a “smart Academy,” and the Academy’s development strategy. Grounded on those documents, it is important to develop and execute action plans scientifically, practically, and effectively with the highest responsibility and determination so as to make contributions to building a modern, standard, and exemplary Naval Academy.

Second, drastically, comprehensively renewing and standardising the training programme, content, form, and method in accordance with units’ training and combat readiness. The Academy is attaching great value to shifting from its own existing curriculum to a curriculum based on units’ demands. Thus, competent offices should focus on contracting knowledge of fundamental sciences, increasing and supplementing professional knowledge as the basis for cadets’ research and application after graduation from the Academy. To that end, the Academy will continue to renew the method of teaching and learning in order to promote learners’ dynamism, proactiveness, and creativity, while equipping learners with political, military, legal, economic, and cultural knowledge and providing moral, military, diplomatic, and specialised education for them.

Moreover, it will completely remove the method of passive learning and require instructors to raise issues and organise debates for learners during their lectures. Meanwhile, in addition to delivering lectures and improving their knowledge and skills, instructors within the Academy must become experts in giving instructions and directions to learners. They must encourage and inspire leaner’s’ creativity and transform the training process into a self-training one. More importantly, significance should be attached to building up learners’ independent thinking and creativity and developing their professional skills in exercising leadership and command, dealing with real situations, and using information technology and foreign languages in their daily life and work. Learners’ method of learning must be shift from passivity to proactiveness. They must improve their critical thinking, update themselves on new knowledge, and make their learning an indispensable demand under the motto of “studying at any moment and anywhere.”

Third, standardising a contingent of instructors and managerial cadres to meet the requirements set by the training of human resources for the Navy’s modernisation process. Instructors and managerial cadres act as the main force and play a decisive role in improving the quality of education, training, and research and realising the goal of building a smart, standard, exemplary Academy. Hence, the Academy continues to execute the Project on developing a pool of instructors with the sufficient quantity and standardised quality in line with the personnel planning. To that end, importance should be attached to enhancing cadres and instructors’ knowledge of information technology and foreign languages as the prerequisite and the key to the knowledge world. Grounded on higher echelons’ documents and directives, the Academy continues to study and concretise the system of documents and regulations on the levels of information technology and foreign language proficiency among cadres and instructors, while making and implementing a plan on standardising their job titles. In the upcoming time, the Academy will proactively cooperate with offices, units, and educational institutions both inside and outside the Military in organising refresher courses on foreign languages and information technology in accordance with its demands for the use of cadres. Additionally, it will adjust its plans, road map, mechanisms, and policies for allocating budget for training its cadres, improving their knowledge and academic rank, and attracting top experts and cadres with deep knowledge and hands-on experiences from offices and units within the Navy and the Military to the Academy. As for managerial cadres, the Academy will attach importance to professionalising their method of management and making them capable of mastering information technology equipment and devices and applying new technological achievements in the process of managing education and scientific research.

Fourth, closely combining training and education with scientific research and fostering international cooperation in the training of human resources. Under the guidelines on a fundamental and comprehensive reform in education and training as well as on international integration and military diplomacy by the Party and the Military, the Academy will closely combine training and scientific research with international cooperation in order to promote the synergy in its training task. While exploiting and mastering state-of-the-art weapons and technical equipment, optimising the work of training and exercise, and properly applying technologies to teaching and learning, the Academy will direct its instructors to keep standardising and modernising training documents and curriculum, including technical and tactical features of new weapons and equipment in the curriculum, and developing the Navy’s art of war. Besides, they will be required to raise the quality of scientific researches and projects, with emphasis placed on urgent theoretical and practical issues on building and developing the Navy. The Academy continues to promote cooperation in training with other countries in the region and the world, with priority given to the ones which have developed naval science so as to exchange information and experiences and apply advanced scientific achievements in enhancing the Academy’s quality of training. It will formulate mechanisms for encouraging its cadres and instructors to undertake scientific researches and write international scientific articles to raise the prestige and status of the Academy, the Navy, and the Military as well as create a favourable condition for cooperation in training.

Moreover, the Academy will make more investments in technological and technical facilities and equipment so as to satisfy the criteria for a smart school, effectively serve the purpose of management, teaching, learning, and scientific research, train high-calibre human resources, meet the requirements set by the Navy’s modernisation process, and make contributions to defending the national sovereignty over seas and islands.

Rear Admiral CHU NGOC SANG, Commissar of the Naval Academy