Dong Thap, which is a province in the Southwest border of the country, sharing a border of over 50km with Cambodia, and having 02 international border gates (Dinh Ba, Thuong Phuoc), 05 extra gates (Thong Binh, Binh Phu, A Don, Moc Ra and Ba Nguyen), etc., has an important position in economy, defence, security and foreign relations in the Mekong River Delta. In recent years, the Province has seen comprehensive developments in terms of economy, culture, society, defence and security; its people’s living standards have been clearly improved. Despite many achievements in all fields, in the Province, there existed a lot of unstable factors including the sabotage of the hostile forces, the appearance and activities of heresies, the complicated situations of crimes, especially the illegal entrance and exit, the transportation of smuggled and forbidden goods, the operations of casinos and cockfight arenas from the opposite borders, etc. In such a situation, the Province has paid attention to implementing several solutions for leading and directing the socio-economic development connected with strengthening the defence and security, focusing on improving the effectiveness of the training and education of defence and security in order to build the strong political-spiritual foundation and “people’s hearts and minds posture”.

The bi-annual meeting of Dong Thap Provincial Military Party of the first half of 2024

Clearly understanding the importance of the defence and security education, and that the responsibility of the party committees, governments, departments, agencies and unions is a crucial factor deciding the quality and effectiveness of this work, the Provincial Military Command – the permanent organ of the Council for Defence and Security Education has proactively advised the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee to instruct and grasp the seniors’ resolutions and directions, and concretise them into the systems of legal documents to make the unanimous leadership, direction and implementation. Owing to well doing the education, grasp and study for the key leaders, the party committees and governments at all levels from the Province to communes, wards and towns, their awareness and responsibility have been much improved, mobilising the participation of the entire political system, and the effectiveness of the state management of the defence and security education has been enhanced. The Province has directed its subordinate party committees at all levels to strictly consider the results of defence and security education as one of the performance indexes in evaluating the leadership and management capacity of the leading cadres at all levels, the annual emulation and commendation of services, agencies, departments and localities, hence, creating clear in-quality changes in the awareness, responsibility and actions of both organisations and individuals on the defence and security education.

Strengthening and improving the capacity and effectiveness of the all-level Council for defence and security education have been highly appreciated by the Province, and considered as a frequent and important solution for putting this work into order and right orbit, with high quality and practical effectiveness. Accordingly, the Province has drastically directed the implementation of Decision No. 517/QĐ-TTg, dated 01 April 2021 by the Prime Minister on establishing the Council for defence and security education, and performing the functions, tasks and authorities of the Council for defence and security education at all levels. In the past few years, the Provincial councils for defence and security education and those of 100% districts and communes have been established and consolidated with right structure and composition, appropriate regulations and working discipline. However, in some areas, due to different reasons, the working effectiveness of the Council still remained inadequate and limited, even some fields have not met the task requirements. Facing this reality, the Provincial Military Command has proactively advised the Provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee with many solutions for leading, directing, inspecting and guiding in order to overcome problems and improve the effectiveness of the Council at all levels. The Province has paid attention to researching, analysing and finding the causes of these limitations and weaknesses so as to draw lessons for improving the working regulations suitably to each period. The Province has required all party committees and governments to assign detailed tasks, fields and areas of responsibility to each member at all levels, which is considered as a foundation for coordination in inspection, direction, advising, proposing and well performing the function of state management over the defence and security education. In the working process, the Province has directed the Council to strengthen the inspection and review so as to timely learn from experience, overcome the shortcomings and limitations in the leadership, direction, implementation, praise and multiple the outstanding individuals, good and creative methods, putting this important work into discipline and order with high quality and effectiveness.

Conducting defence and security training for group-3 subjects

To improve the training quality of defence and security knowledge for all learners, and based on Decree No. 139/2020/NĐ-CP, dated 27 November 2020 by the Government, the directions and instructions from the Council for defence and security education of the 9th Military Region, the Provincial Military Command has closely coordinated with services, departments, agencies and the district Council for defence and security education to make surveys and classify the learners, which is the basis to build plans and programmes, helping the Provincial People’s Committee to make plans for further training more properly, focusing on key areas of defence and security, or the areas with religious and ethnic minority inhabitants, making this work more intensive and stable. Only in 2023 and the first 9 months in 2024, together with sending group-1 and group-2 cadres to the training courses held by the seniors, the Province checked, built plans and held defence and security courses for 3,198 group-3, group-4 cadres and party members, and 61 religious dignitaries with good results. Cadres and party members, after being trained, have highly improved their awareness of the defence and security tasks, brought into play their roles and responsibility, and effectively taken part in doing the task of building and strengthening the all-people national defence, the “people’s hearts and minds posture” combined with the people’s security posture, maintaining the political security, social order and safety in all localities. 

Presently, the Province has 49 education and training institutions with a total of 400 – 500 thousand students per year. This is a large force which plays as the future owners of the country. Besides their strength and positiveness, they are prone to negative effects of social evils, side effects of the market economy, social networks, the temptation and stimulation of hostile forces. Therefore, the Province has put a special concern on the defence and security education for this type of learners. To improve the quality of the subject of defence and security education in schools, the Provincial Military Command has closely coordinated with the Department of Education and Training to effectively implement the Joint Circular No. 123/2015/TTLT-BQP-BGD&ĐT-BLĐTB&XH, dated 05 November 2015 by the Ministry of National Defence, Ministry of Education and Training, and Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs. Especially, the Medical College of Dong Thap has combined with the Centre for defence and security education in Can Tho University to conduct the teaching of this subject. For other schools, especially high schools, the Province has required them to strictly follow the programmes and textbooks of the defence and security education according to regulations of the Ministry of Education and Training. All high schools have proactively given lessons and divided the programme evenly in a school year. In giving lessons, they frequently upgrade the contents, cover rightly and sufficiently all subjects as scheduled, examine and actually evaluate the results; combine between transmitting knowledge with organising extracurricular activities, visiting defence and military buildings, historical relics, etc., thereby helping pupils and students improve their awareness of the Party’s guidelines, policies and the State’s law on the national defence, security; the subversive plots and tricks of hostile forces, then fostering their right learning motives.

To propagandise and disseminate the defence and security knowledge to the entire people, the Provincial Military Command has coordinated with Department of Propaganda and Training, and Service of Information and Communication to make advice and direct the organs of press and communication in the Province, districts, towns and cities to maintain the specialised pages, columns and articles which are suitable with subjects and areas, especially regions with religious and ethnic minority people. The contents of these programmes focus on clarifying the Party’s viewpoints and guidelines on safeguarding the Fatherland in the new situation, policies on minorities and religions; revolutionary traditions of localities; plots and tricks of hostile forces, etc., through which, to improve the awareness and responsibility of each citizen for the task of building and safeguarding the Fatherland; and actively taking part in maintaining the political security and social order and safety in the localities.

Well implementing the above solutions and continuously improving the quality of lecturers, reporters and propagandists, in the past few years, the defence and security education of Dong Thap Province has gained both intensive and extensive developments, which has practically contributed to improving the awareness and responsibility of cadres, party members and people for the task of defence and security, safeguarding the Fatherland, creating the high agreement, trust and unity in the leadership and management of the party committees and governments so that Dong Thap could achieve the all-round, quick and sustainable development, well accomplishing the target of becoming a province with fair level of development by 2030, being one of the centres of agricultural production in the Mekong River Delta, meeting the task requirement of building and safeguarding the Fatherland.

Senior Colonel NGUYEN HUU CUONG, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Commander of the Provincial Military Command, Permanent Vice Chairman of the Council for defence and security education