Thoroughly grasping all resolutions, directives and guidelines on the defence and security education, in recent years, the Military School of Military Region 2 has implemented this work with many solutions which were creative and suitable with the reality, creating a comprehensive change in the form and method of implementation and in quality, which has been recognised and highly appreciated by the Military Region and localities.

In the 2020-2025 period, the School conducted the defence and security education for over 1,800 level-2 cadres and nearly 15,700 students learning in universities and colleges with 100% being passed, and 90% of whom being rated good and excellent, which has made important contribution to consolidating and improving the awareness and responsibility of leading cadres of all localities and young generations for the tasks of defence, security and defending the Fatherland; practically making the spiritual potential and the all-people national defence, the all-people national defence posture combined with the people’s security posture in the localities stronger and stronger. Although the achieved results are limited, they are very encouraging, which has shown the big effort and strong determination of the School through many synchronous and effective solutions, notably several ones as follows:

Firstly, the School has strengthened the leadership and direction of the party committees and commands at all levels, brought into play the advisory roles of the specialised offices in the implementation. Based on the directives and guidelines from the seniors, directly the Military Region’s Defence and Security education Council, the Party Committee and the School Board have directed all offices, faculties and units to concretise into the goals and requirements in their regular and specialised resolutions closely to the tasks and reality, focusing on renovating and improving the quality of staff work and management of training; enhancing the training and the standardisation of lecturers, the ones who are teaching the level-2 cadres in particular; proactively applying the IT, simulation technology, digital transformation, and innovating the teaching-learning methods in a modern way; improving the quality of textbook and document compilation, materials, and training grounds, etc. To achieve the high effectiveness, the School has regularly made a close coordination with the provincial authorities, with all colleges and universities in the region to steadily hold the quantity and characteristics of learners, then build plans of education, training and consultation for the Military Region to direct the implementation, creating the best conditions for the learners, at the same time, strengthened the frames of managing cadres, lecturers and supporters; repaired the living places and increased the teaching aids; made and approved the lesson plans, etc. suitably with each types of learners. In the process of implementation, the School has applied decentralisation and authorisation mechanisms assigned detailed tasks and responsibility for each party committee member and commanders of offices and units, avoiding possible overlaps or blames; enhanced the inspection and reexamination, timely discovered and learned from experience, completely corrected any shortcomings, assuring all courses to be correctly conducted with the highest quality.

Training of military skills for students

Given the annual increasing number of learners with various backgrounds and knowledge, to successfully accomplish the tasks, the School has paid attention to the preparation regarding the managing cadres, lecturers and training grounds. Accordingly, before each training course, the School has directed all offices and units to check, evaluate and select the right cadres who are standardised and qualified enough to be the managing cadres and lecturers of the courses. Especially, for level–2 cadres who have been basically trained, have an advanced theoretical knowledge and experience in leading and directing real activities in their offices and localities, the School has required all lecturers to be selected from the heads of sections who have university degree and over, rich teaching experience and good teaching methods. Together, the School has proactively invited leaders of all services, branches and departments, and leaders of the provincial police in the region to give specialised and focused lessons. To improve the quality of lecturers, the School has paid attention to diversifying the forms and methods of all training and refresher courses; together with promoting the activities of methodology, approval of lesson plans, demonstrated lessons, etc.; enhancing the examination and lesson observance to learn from experience. The School has also directed the continuity of the contest of all-level good teachers of defence and security education, through which, to create the motivation and pressure for all lecturers to improve their comprehensive skills, knowledge and competence. In addition, the School has intensely selected cadres to attend training in the military academies and schools or to get experience in all units of the Military Region; encouraged cadres and lecturers to self-study and self-research to improve their speciality, apply advanced teaching methods and tools, etc. with such solutions, presently, 100% lecturers of the School have suitable university degrees and over, 33% of whom are masters, who could be able to be in charge of 100% sessions of the training programme for all learners. This is considered the important foundation for the School to highly improve the quality of defence and security education in the forthcoming time.

Concurrently, the School has directed the Centre of defence and security education to make a good coordination and cooperation in conducting the plan of further training and education of the defence and security knowledge, and provide proper living conditions for all learners. Meanwhile, the School has proactively mobilised all fund sources to build, upgrade and repair the lecture halls and specialised rooms, the ones installed with the simulation systems in particular, systems of training grounds for defence and security education; strongly promoted the movement of researching and applying the technological science into compiling textbooks and training documents. The School has enhanced the education to improve the cadets’ responsibility, strictly maintained the regulations on managing weapons and equipment, the ones used by students in particular, in order to avoid any damage or downgrades due to individual irresponsibility.

To meet the higher requirements of the defence and security education, the School has required all faculties to actively apply modern teaching methods, bring into play the learners’ proactivity and initiative. Accordingly, together with applying the IT, especially the simulation technology, and digital lesson plans into training to increase the visuality, reality and suitability for learners, the School has required the contingent of lecturers to flexibly use all the active teaching methods such as problem-solving method, task-based or communicative learning, etc., instruct learners’ self-research, organise seminars and workshops to classify each problem raised in the lesson, maximising the learners’ activeness and creativity, the level-2 cadres in particular. Besides, the School has taken cadets to visit, learn and research military exercises of defence zones, models of defence and economy combination, national defence projects, military units, etc., through which, to help them reinforce their knowledge, accumulate experience and apply theories into the real implementation of the local military and defence tasks under their own responsibility. For students, the School has intensely combined between the direct presentation of the digital lessons and the Q&A methods, increasing the interaction among learners, and making the lectures easy to understand and remember. In practising the military skills, the School has closely combined between the analysis and demonstration of actions, increased the drill in groups and classes; well brought into play the role as “second teachers” of managing cadres from platoons and over in their keeping and correcting practice, timely correcting each movement; connected the learning to the strict maintenance of daily and weekly routines, and the training of discipline and organisational awareness, etc. in order to help students to really approach and adapt to the military environment, gradually establishing their regular lifestyle. At the same time, the School has promoted cultural exchanges, performances, exercises and sports among schools during the course in order to both improve students’ health and create a friendly and unified learning and training environment; increased the time for extra-curricula activities such as visiting military units, museums, revolutionary places, etc. to educate the traditions, and inspire the national pride and patriotism for students.

Together with the above contents, the School has actively reformed and diversified the test and evaluation formats. All offices and specialised faculties have thoroughly applied the technological science and digital transformation into the management of tests and evaluation; enhanced the renovation and diversification of test formats, re-examination and evaluation, prevented the negativities in testing, timely and strictly punished any violations of education and training rules; continued to build and complete the test bank, select test and examination papers randomly; combined the examination with the writing of summary reports, highlighting the application of learned theories into reality, the attachment of the trained theories to the positions in the offices, units and working areas that they are holding. At the same time, the School has surveyed the real quality of learners after training; received feedbacks from all units, localities, colleges and universities in the region to make review of its task performance, and timely resolve any limitations and shortcomings in the following courses.

At present, the task of protecting the Fatherland has seen new development, the implementation of the 2-level local government model has raised new issues for the defence and security work; after the party congresses and elections of people’s councils in all localities, there is a large number of cadres (including the level-2 cadres) who need to be trained with defence and security knowledge. Thoroughly understanding this and the assigned tasks, from the achieved results and experience, the Party Committee and Board of the School have continuously advocated the staff work and coordination, focused on leading and directing the building of cadres and lecturers, well prepared all sources for education of defence and security knowledge for new learners. At the same time, the School Board has focused on researching and updated the educational contents, training new defence and security issues; readily proposed to the Military Region new specialised subjects which are suitable with the model of 2 - level local governments to effectively implement such important work, contributing to building the firmly spiritual potentials, creating the foundation for the local defence and security in the locality to meet the requirements and tasks of building and safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation.

Senior Colonel DUONG ANH TUAN, The School Principal