On December 9, 2013, the 20th Anniversary Ceremony of Vietnam National University, Hanoi was solemnly held at Nguyen Van Dao Hall. Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong - General Secretary of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam - attended and gave important instructions on Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
On the side of VNU, there was comrade Phung Xuan Nha - Alternate member of the Party Central Committee, Party Secretary, President of VNU, together with generations of leaders, scientists, teachers, managers, students, postgraduates, and PhD students of VNU.
In his welcoming speech, Director Phung Xuan Nha expressed his deep gratitude to the leaders of the Party, State, Government, National Assembly, Ministries, Departments, Central Agencies, Hanoi, localities, domestic and foreign partners; to the late Professor Nguyen Van Dao - the first Director of VNU; former Directors: Professor Dao Trong Thi, Professor Mai Trong Nhuan and generations of leaders, staff and students of VNU for their great contributions to the cause of building and developing VNU over the past 20 years. The speech also reviewed important historical milestones, looked back at the difficulties and challenges that have been overcome, recognized the proud achievements... to reflect and draw profound lessons, thereby proposing new development directions for the future of VNU.
Born at a historic time - the early 90s of the last century, VNU was established with the expectation of being an advanced, multidisciplinary, multi-field, high-quality, high-level university model, creating a breakthrough and innovation for the Vietnamese education system. Thanks to inheriting the top academic tradition of the University of Indochina, Hanoi National University, together with extraordinary efforts, perseverance, constant creativity and the desire to conquer the peaks and move towards international standards, VNU has overcome the difficulties of the situation and of its own to gradually realize the set goals, establishing its position as the leading high-quality university center in the country and having an increasingly high reputation in the region and internationally.
In terms of macro management, the most outstanding impression is that VNU has successfully implemented a modern two-level university model that is unprecedented in Vietnam. Accordingly, VNU simultaneously performs three functions: macro management; coordinating and linking units and directly directing the implementation of major tasks that are interdisciplinary, inter-disciplinary and have far-reaching influence. VNU units are organized and operated according to an open and interconnected mechanism, linking, using common resources of the entire VNU and promoting the unit's specialized advantages. Currently, VNU has 28 affiliated units, with training and research fields ranging from natural sciences, technology to social sciences - humanities, economics, law, education, foreign languages and medicine.
To fulfill the mission of becoming a high-quality and high-level training and research center, VNU has focused on investing in development in the direction of a research university. The faculty and scientists of VNU are the strongest in the country with the proportion of staff holding PhD and PhD degrees accounting for 45%, the proportion of professors and associate professors reaching 18.5%. The scale of postgraduate/undergraduate training is currently approximately ½. The proportion of high-quality, talented and international standard training has reached nearly 20%. Quality assessment, especially assessment according to the standards of ASEAN and international university associations, has been applied.
Scientific research activities have also been constantly developing in both quantity and quality, especially technological development research has made great progress. Up to now, VNU has had hundreds of scientific and technological products applied in practice. The number of international articles in the ISI system of VNU has increased about 20 times, accounting for about 12% of the total number of ISI articles in the country. VNU has won 19 Ho Chi Minh Awards, 18 State Awards and dozens of prestigious scientific awards in the world. In 2012, VNU was ranked by an international university ranking organization in the top 250 (ie in the top 5%) of leading universities in Asia.
Also in 2012, the Law on Higher Education of Vietnam was passed, recognizing the multidisciplinary and multi-field university model with the criteria and characteristics that VNU has persistently strived to build. This is the affirmation and high appreciation of the Party, State, Government and society for the model and quality of training and scientific research of VNU, thereby contributing to affirming the nature of modern university education in Vietnam - that is, promoting the autonomy and self-responsibility of higher education institutions.
Director Phung Xuan Nha affirmed: in the 20-year journey of VNU, many lessons have been drawn and inherited, the most important of which are lessons on solidarity; on determination and perseverance with the development goal towards international integration; on the spirit of readiness to accept difficulties and challenges of a pioneer. Besides, VNU always affirms a high sense of responsibility to society, always cares about the human factor, is flexible with bold and breakthrough innovation policies suitable to practical circumstances.
The Director of VNU also emphasized: in the coming time, the strategic goal of VNU is to be in the top 200 universities in Asia by 2015, and to reach the top 100 advanced universities in Asia by 2020.
Speaking at the ceremony, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong sent warm congratulations to the staff, students, and trainees of VNU and expressed the joy of a former VNU student when returning to visit his old school.
The General Secretary assessed: “VNU is a large interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research and training center of our country, holding a particularly important position in the country's education system”. Over the past 20 years, VNU has made continuous efforts to gradually establish its leading and core role in the Vietnamese education system and has an increasingly high position in the region and internationally, worthy of the Gold Star Order and many noble awards bestowed by the Party and the State. Up to now, the organizational apparatus and staff with many faculties, research institutes and affiliated units have been adjusted, arranged, consolidated and developed into an organic entity with reasonable scale and effective operation.
The General Secretary also noted the limitations and difficulties that VNU is facing: the number of leading scientists is not large, the quality of the staff needs to be improved to meet the requirements of an advanced university, science and technology activities between groups of disciplines and units are not uniform; facilities and information and communication systems have not been invested in proportionately...
The General Secretary assigned the task: VNU must strive to be the core of the higher education system and research and development of science and technology, taking the lead in effectively implementing Resolution 8 of the 11th Central Committee on fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training and Resolution 6 of the 11th Central Committee on development of science and technology. VNU must successfully complete the task of being a pioneer in reaching the standards and advanced levels of knowledge and technology of the region and the world.
In the upcoming development stage, VNU needs to focus on implementing the following tasks: continue to perfect the VNU organizational model in a modern direction, in accordance with international standards and Vietnam's conditions; training work must pay special attention to developing qualities, vision, capacity, skills and increasing the employability of learners; build a number of high-quality training majors and majors, aiming to develop faculties, member universities and VNU to meet international standards; regarding research work, it is necessary to recognize and fully promote the role of VNU as a cradle of basic scientific research, a place to produce "main machines", train and provide basic scientific staff for the entire national education - training and science - technology system, with its own characteristics, requiring its own mechanisms and appropriate policies...
Regarding social sciences and humanities, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong suggested that VNU should soon study and propose to the Central Party Committee and the Government specific solutions, mechanisms and policies to improve the quality of training and research in social sciences and humanities in the university system nationwide. On the basis of developing basic sciences and social sciences and humanities, VNU should focus on developing interdisciplinary sciences and cutting-edge technologies that directly participate in effectively solving problems arising in the country's development practices.
To complete the above tasks, according to the General Secretary, VNU needs to pay special attention to building a democratic working environment, promoting innovation, creativity, and academic freedom; focusing on investing in and developing a team of cadres, civil servants, and public employees with sufficient moral qualities and professional capacity, meeting the requirements of development to become a research university, focusing on developing a team of leading and leading cadres.
General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong also expressed his belief in the future development of VNU: "I hope and believe that VNU will truly become a beautiful symbol of the spirit, intelligence, and cultural quintessence of Vietnam."
Also at the Ceremony, Director Phung Xuan Nha presented the Medal for the Development of VNU to General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong.
Author:Thanh Ha
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