Military Region 1’s Military School is tasked with training and retraining cadres, non-commissioned officers, technical employees, and commune-level military commanders to meet the requirements of building the Military Region’s armed forces; it also provides defence and security education for cadres of the 2nd group within the area and college students under the targets assigned by the Ministry of National Defence (MND). In spite of a lot of difficulties in facilities, equipment, human resources, and changes in learner quantities and categories, the School’s Party Committee and Board of Directors have adopted synchronised measures to encourage the entire School’s participation and especially promoted the role of the Defence and Security Education Centre in performing this important task. Since 2020, the School has provided defence and security education for over 1,000 cadres from the 2nd group and nearly 4,000 students. Those results have greatly contributed to building and consolidating political - spiritual potential, all-people national defence, and posture of all-people national defence associated with people’s security posture across the Military Region.
When performing defence and security education work, the School has drawn several lessons which could be seen as measures to raise the quality of defence and security education for target individuals.
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| A graduation ceremony for learners from the 2nd group held by the School in 2025 |
First of all, enhancing all-level party committees and commands’ leadership and direction over defence and security education. The School has grasped higher echelons’ resolutions and directives on defence and security education, particularly plans and guidance by Military Region 1’s Defence and Security Education Council, while directing its offices, faculties, and Defence and Security Education Centre to develop their own resolutions and action plans and considering this as one of its central political missions. At the same time, it has delegated specific areas to its Party Committee members and aligned the responsibility of cadres and party members with the results of defence and security education. In the process, it has intensified inspection and supervision work, opportunely settled weaknesses, promoted emulation movements, and multiplied typical examples in defence and security education. It has collaborated with provinces and its partner schools to organise conferences on exchanging experience and proposing solutions for the improved quality of defence and security education and the handling of difficulties in performing this work. As a result, the work of leadership, direction, and administration has always been carried out in a close, uniform, smooth way; many drawbacks in the previous courses and academic years have been settled opportunely. To meet the requirements of defence and security education for target individuals after the adoption of two-tier local government model and all-level party congresses, the School has developed and submitted plans to the Military Region’s Defence and Security Education Council, while making preparations for receiving learners.
Furthermore, the School has focused on building and training a corps of cadres and teachers of defence and security education to meet their task requirements. Based on the Project to build a contingent of teachers and educational managers within the Military to meet the requirements of a fundamental, comprehensive reform in education and training for the period of 2021 - 2030, the School has closely worked with the Military Region’s competent offices to well carry out the planning and training of its teachers, with importance attached to building a pool of teachers of defence and security education and managerial cadres within its Defence and Security Education Centre. It has organised teachers of defence and security education for cadres from the 2nd group into a specialised force consisting of members of its Board of Directors, leaders of its offices and faculties, and several teachers with deep knowledge and hands-on experience at regimental level or higher; at least two teachers have been assigned to each specialised topic. Besides, it has invited cadres and teachers from Thai Nguyen Provincial Public Security, National Defence Academy, Political Academy, Border Guard Academy, and Public Security Academy to deliver key, specialised topics on defence and security. Regarding defence and security education for students, it has selected young, dynamic teachers with good moral qualities, professional expertise, and skills in teaching and guiding students both theoretically and practically. It has attached significance to improving student management cadres’ experience and organisational skills to promote their role as the “second teacher” in this subject.
To enable its teachers and educational managers to meet the requirements of defence and security education, in recent years, the School has diversified forms of professional training, refresher courses, and deployment of its cadres to work at other units for hands-on experience. It has invited leaders of the Military Region’s Command and competent offices as well as provincial-level Public Security Departments and Military Commands to deliver topics in order to update its staff members on new knowledge and practical experience in terms of defence and security. It has regularly maintained Good Teacher of Defence and Security Education Contests at all levels as an important channel for the evaluation, classification, appointment, and training of its teachers. Moreover, it has collaborated with universities both inside and outside the Military to organise exchange programs for its teachers and cadres to study and exchange experience in defence and security education, creating a favourable condition for its staff members to self-study and improve their professional expertise and pedagogical methods. Thanks to those practical, effective measures, up to now, all teachers of defence and security education across the School have held a bachelor’s degree; 14% of them have possessed a master’s degree or higher; 12% of them have obtained practical experience in units. This is a core force for the School to keep maintaining and improving the quality of education and training in general, defence and security education in particular.
Due to the short duration, diverse content, and increasingly high requirements of defence and security education, the School has actively renewed teaching content and methods in accordance with each group of learners. Grounded on the MND’s Circular 172/2020/TT-BQP, dated 30 December 2020, on issuing defence and security education content and programs, it has designed a system of specialised topics and lectures in accordance with each group of learners and the Military Region’s particularities and defence - security tasks. It has focused on removing outdated content and updating new points relating to the Party’s lines and the State’s laws and policies on defence and security, the building of all-people national defence, people’s security, and defensive zones, the task of combining socio-economic development with defence and security consolidation, as well as experience in leading and directing military - defence work within localities. A part from content updates, it has stepped up a reform in teaching methods, adopting learner-centred approach, combining traditional teaching with modern teaching, aligning presentation with debate and interaction between teachers and learners to reduce one-way communication. Notably, it has worked with units and localities to organise field trips for cadres of the 2nd group to observe defensive zone exercises and models of socio-economic development combined with defence and security consolidation, thereby enabling them to link theory with practice. As for students, it has actively organised extracurricular activities, such as field trips to units to observe daily, weekly routines and training and combat readiness operations as well as visits to historical sites within the Military Region’s area, thus inspiring students in study and training, enabling students to grasp basic knowledge, understand and treasure the values of peace, and realise their responsibility for Fatherland construction and protection in the new situation.
In addition to those above-mentioned measures, the School has made investment in its facilities, modernised its equipment, and applied science and technology in defence and security education. This measure acts as the key to raising the quality of defence and security education. While properly, effectively employing its existing facilities and equipment, the School has mobilised all resources to upgrade its Defence and Security Education Centre, guaranteeing accommodation, training grounds, teaching halls, and modern teaching equipment, digitalising all training documents and textbooks on defence and security as a favourable condition for learners’ research and reference. It has directed its Defence and Security Education Centre and competent offices to proactively review and perfect regulations on information security, with a view to exploiting local area network, military transmission network, and the Internet and facilitating the application of information technology and artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching, learning, and research. Up to now, all teachers of the School have been given computers with Internet connections; all of them have taken part in “digital literacy” and AI training courses; all lesson plans and documents have been digitalised as the basis for improving the quality of education and training in general, defence and security education in particular.
Those recorded results provide an important incentive for Military Region 1’s Military School to keep renewing and further raising the quality of defence and security education for target individuals, contributing to building political - spiritual potential, assisting party committees, authorities, the armed forces, and the people within the Military Region in successfully fulfilling defence and security tasks and firmly protecting the Fatherland in the new situation.
Sr. Col. NGUYEN THE CHUYEN
Commandant of the School