Engineering Officer College is tasked with training engineering command and staff officers for the Vietnam People’s Army and several regional countries’ militaries. Over the years, fully aware of the importance of the Determined to Win Emulation Movement to education and training, imbued with Ho Chi Minh’s ideology on Patriotic Emulation, following the Party’s viewpoints and higher echelons’ directives, resolutions, and guidance on emulation - commendation work, the College’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have focused their leadership and direction on practically developing the Determined to Win Emulation Movement. Emulation drives have been continuously organised; regular emulation has been closely combined with intensive emulation; the Determined to Win Emulation Movement has been aligned with the study and following of Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and lifestyle and other movements and campaigned launched by sectors. Emulation has been directed towards the performance of the central political missions of each office, faculty, and cadet management unit as well as towards difficult tasks and weaknesses, with a view to creating spiritual motivations for every organisation and individual to promote their sense of responsibility and contribute to building an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong College. That has been clearly demonstrated as follows.

The College Party Organisation’s 25th Congress for 2025 - 2030 tenure

To turn the Determined to Win Emulation Movement into an incentive for building a strong College in terms of politics, ideology, organisation, and personnel, on a yearly basis, under the established goals and targets of emulation, the College has directed its offices, faculties, and cadet management units to well carry out political education programs, renew forms of direction, guidance, and testing in social sciences and humanities education, and align political education with law dissemination via diverse methods, so as to foster motivation and political steadfastness among cadres, teachers, and cadets in the emulation process. Besides, it has required its offices, faculties, and units to make a breakthrough in “enhancing the management of troops’ ideology and relationships”, opportunely address emerging ideological issues, promote cultural institutions, and well organise cultural, artistic, and sport activities to improve troops’ mental life.

To foster the effectiveness and efficiency of its organisations, the College has exercised its direction over a reform in their operational content and methods. For party organisations, due regard has been paid to raising the quality of their resolutions and administrative work, fulfilling plans on inspection and supervision, proactively detecting and preventing signs of violation. For mass organisations, great value has been attached to enhancing the emulation movement on “clever mass mobilisation” and “good mass mobilisation unit”, the Project on “Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union’s participation in environment protection and response to climate change in the period of 2019 - 2022” and other movements, such as “the College’s youth pin their faith on the Party”, “the College’s youth improve their morality and talent and remain pioneering, creative, and determined to win”, “the College’s women stay united and creative, successfully fulfil their tasks, build happy families, deserve to be Uncle Ho’s Soldiers”. The College Party Committee has focused its leadership on personnel work, selecting and including cadres with sufficient qualities and capabilities in its long-term personnel training and development plans. The planning and rotation of cadres have been conducted in a procedural, substantive, effective manner. Up to now, all cadres and teachers of the College have held bachelor’s degree or higher; most of the commanders of the College’s offices and faculties had occupied commanding positions within units across the Military; on a yearly basis, over 95% of the College’s cadres have successfully or excellent fulfilled their tasks.

Cadets' graduation exercise

The Determined to Win Emulation Movement has motivated cadres, teachers, and cadets of the College to renew and improve education, training, and science research. The College and its offices, faculties, and cadet management units have formulated and well implemented proper measures to turn the Determined to Win Emulation Movement into an incentive for realising the mottos, namely “aligning schools with units, connecting training halls with training grounds”, “teaching, learning, and testing with substance”, “exemplary teachers, dynamic learners”, “schools’ training quality is the combat readiness capacity of units”. They have also effectively adopted various models, such as “exemplary lecture, exemplary lecturing week”, “youth’s study week”, and “good training, good unity, strict discipline”. As a result, the College’s teaching - learning procedures have been seriously maintained, with increasingly high quality. Fully aware that teachers and educational managers play a decisive role in raising the quality of education and training, the College has seen these cadres’ improved capability as an important goal of emulation movements. The College Party Committee and all-level party committees have objectively assessed the task performance of teachers and educational managers as the basis for appointment and deployment for their further education and commanding positions within units across the Military, thereby motivating every cadre and teacher to improve their competence. In the past 5 years, 132 teachers of the College have been recognised as good teachers at grass-roots level; meanwhile, 55 teachers of the College have been given the title of good teacher at Ministry of National Defence level.

Based on the established goals and targets of emulation, faculties of the College have proactively supplemented and completed curricula in a “standardised, modernised” way. Emphasis has been placed on renewing teaching forms and methods, encouraging cadets’ proactivity and creativity, combining the imparting of knowledge and experience with the improvement of practical skills and commanding style, turning the training process into a self-training process, and applying information technology, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence in teaching. Cadet management units of the College have grasped goals and targets of emulation, closely maintaining cadets’ self-study regulations, increasing extra-curricular activities to improve cadets’ hands-on skills and physical fitness. In addition, the College has linked the selection and assignment of science research tasks with the evaluation of its teaching staff and the development of its scientific potential. As a result, annual research projects, technical innovations, materials, and textbooks have been developed with high quality; many projects, pieces of software, and products have been accepted and applied in practice. Science research among cadets has been promoted via the “Creative Youth Award”, thereby bringing the College’s science research work to greater depth and substance.

The Determined to Win Emulation Movement has created motivations for regularity building and discipline management. Offices, faculties, and cadet management units have always aligned the content and goals of emulation with the development of “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong units and role models in terms of regularity building and discipline management. The motto “the entire College acts in accordance with military regulations” and the models, namely “good management, decent education, strict discipline” and “self-managed classes, self-disciplined cadets” have been effectively executed. Notably, the College has opportunely adjusted and supplemented regulations on regularity building; consequently, there has been a solid positive change in discipline management across training, education, and daily, weekly activities. Moreover, offices and units have grasped and strictly observed the State’s laws, the Military’s discipline, and the College’s regulations, well implementing action plans for “the year of discipline”, combining law propagation and education with discipline management, thus creating a huge positive transformation in law-abiding awareness among cadres, teachers, and cadets, ensuring the fulfilment of all targets set in annual and periodic emulation movements.

Delegation from the College during a visit to a Cambodian military unit at Moc Bai border gate

The Determined to Win Emulation Movement has greatly contributed to raising the quality of logistics and technical support. Over the years, the College has stepped up emulation movements, such as “the Military Logistics Sector follows Uncle Ho’s teachings”, “units excelling in catering and military ordnance management”, “building regular, green, clean, beautiful barracks”, and “five-good military medical units”, thus providing sufficient, diverse rations for troops, ensuring food safety, improving the living standards of cadres, teachers, and cadets; the rate of healthy troops has always been maintained at 99.5%. The College has also focused on upgrading specialised classrooms, laboratories, training grounds, workshops, and training equipment in a synchronised, modern manner under the “smart school” model. It has provided sufficient textbooks and materials for training, education, and science research as the basis for encouraging its cadres, teachers, and cadets to raise the quality of teaching, learning, and science research. At the same time, it has seriously executed the Campaign on “managing and exploiting weapons and technical equipment effectively, sustainably, safely, economically and ensuring traffic safety”, providing good-quality weapons and technical equipment for its missions, strictly complying with regulations on weapon management, inventory, inspection, maintenance, repair, and disposal, promptly repairing damaged vehicles and machinery, ensuring the absolute safety of its personnel and equipment. Besides, it has encouraged its technical cadres and employees to improve their professional expertise and skills. It has effectively applied pieces of software in technical management; due attention has been paid to promoting technical initiatives and innovations in repair, training, and other pieces of work.

It could be affirmed that the Determined to Win Emulation Movement has created strong spiritual motivations for cadres, teachers, and cadets to overcome all difficulties and build an “exemplarily, typically” comprehensively strong College, laying a solid foundation for raising the quality of education and training at the Engineering Officer College in recent years. Hence, the College will continue to bring into play this valuable lesson in the upcoming time.

Sr. Col. PHAM NGUYEN NGOC ANH, PhD

Director of the College’s Department of Politics