In 2005, the Faculty of Socialist Culture was transformed into the Institute of Culture and Development with lots of important functions and tasks. Now the Institute of Culture and Development has the task of carrying out teaching about the field of culture and development in training programs of the Academy; studying the issues relating to culture and development for training and fostering cadres, and contributing to the Party’s and State’s policy-planning process.

At the early time of establishment, there were only 3 lecturers and 1 administrative staff. To date, there is 19 people in the Institute, including 3 associate professors - doctors, 6 doctors, 9 masters  (6 of whom are doctoral candidates), and 1 bachelor. The Institute’s apparatus is composed of 3 professional departments which are the Department of Cultural Lines and Policies, Department of Culture and Aesthetics Theory, Department of the Vietnamese and World Culture; and the General Administration Department.

In the last 30 years, the Institute of Culture and Development has overcome many difficulties and challenges, excellently fulfilling the assigned tasks and contributing to the general development of the Academy.

The Institute has participated in training and enhancing cultural theory and the Party’s cultural lines for hundreds of thousands of students of the undergraduate and high-level courses of political theory. The Institute has also contributed to training middle and high-rank leaders and managers of sectors and localities. Through the activity of teaching cultural theory and the Party’s cultural lines, the Institute has contributed to raising high-rank cadres’ awareness of culture in the cause of strengthening and developing the country.

The postgraduate training of the Institute has been strongly developed. Previously, the Institute had only one major, but now it has two coded training majors of master and doctoral levels (these majors are training masters of Cultural study, and training doctors of Cultural study and Aesthetics). The Institute has trained 32 postgraduate students, 18 of whom had successfully achieved doctoral degrees (3 postgraduate students were from Laos), 19 full-time and part-time postgraduate classes of the major of Cultural study with 194 students, 145 of whom have graduated.

After graduation, students of the Institute have promoted well their role in their work positions and many of them have become key leaders of agencies, units and they are directly involved in the cause of building and developing national cultural guidelines and policies.

Besides, the Institute has also offered the courses of culture and development for master and doctoral programs of a number of majors, including Party building, Party history, Scientific socialism, Economic Management, Study on Ho Chi Minh, Journalism, Publishing, Ideological works, etc. The Institute has engaged in undergraduate and graduate training at the Hanoi Culture University, Hanoi Theatre and Cinematography University, Hanoi Pedagogical University, Military Culture and Arts University, etc.

In the past years, the Institute has made much effort to compile textbooks, special topics, and lectures for the training work of the Academy. In 1991 the Institute has compiled the lecture on Socialist culture as one of the educational materials of cultural theory and the Party’s and State’s lines on culture, literature and art. Further, the Institute has also compiled two sets of textbook on cultural theory and the Party’s lines on culture for postgraduate and specialized high-level programs of political theory.

Implementing the guidelines of renovating contents and training programs of the Academy, in the framework of the Project 1677, the Institute has participated in compiling lectures for the high-level political theory programs; has formed the program framework and compiled a detailed outline of special topics and textbooks for postgraduate programs of Cultural study. The programs have been introduced into training since the 2014-2015 schoolyear. Along with renovating contents and training programs, the Institute has also renovated teaching and learning methods, which is aimed at promoting proactive and positive role and self-discipline of students, focusing attention on carrying out extracurricular activities and research of realities for teachers and learners. 100% of lecturers of the Institute have joined in training courses of proactive teaching methods and have creatively applied into lecture systems.

The Institute has paid particular attention to scientific research. All lecturers and researchers of the Institute have thoroughly grasped: To teach well, there must carry out well scientific research; and to research well, there must link research to the training work and there must be the participation in practical activities. Along with implementation of the Scientific Strategy for 10 years (2006-2015) of the Academy, the Institute of Culture and Development has built the Plan for scientific research of the Institute for 10 years (2006-2015) which is close to the assigned functions and tasks. To date, the Institute has hosted 3 state-level research, has participated in 7 state-level research and 2 surveys of cultural policy, has implemented 20 ministerial-level, 7 provincial-level and 48 grassroots level research. Researchers of the Institute have also collaborated with many State-level research projects inside and outside the Academy; have joined in research projects of some localities (Hanoi, Dien Bien, Thai Nguyen, etc), and cooperated with a number of international organizations and foreign universities. Research of the Institute have been sticking to guidelines and policies of the Party and State on cultural development, sticking to realities of culture building and development, as well as to the requirement for raising quality of training and scientific research of the Academy.

The scientific research carried out by the Institute have effectively served the work of training and fostering the contingent of leaders and managers of the system of the Academy in the field of culture; have contributed to summarize and clarify some theoretical issues regarding building and developing an advanced culture imbued with national identity in Vietnam during the renovation period. Many research projects of the Institute have been published by the National Political Publishing house, the Academy’s Political Theory Publishing house; lots of articles of cadres of the Institute have been published in the Political Theory Journal, and Review of Culture, Literature and Art, etc.

Besides, the Institute has also organized numerous scientific workshops and seminars with high theoretical and practical significance, of which there were international seminars organized by the Institute in collaboration with the Swinburne university of Technology, University of Queensland (Australia), Institute of Social Sciences research of Yunnan (China), The Asia Foundation (South Korea), etc.

The Institute of Culture and Development has actively involved in building, deploying and implementing large programs and schemes of the Party and State in the field of culture. In 2011, the Institute implemented the Scheme for implementing Resolution No.23 of the Politburo (10th tenure) to include the programs for teaching literature and art into the system of the Academy and political schools in the whole country, and organized courses for enhancing literature and art knowledge for the contingent of leaders and managers of literature and art from the central to local levels. In 2013 and 2014, the Institute had coordinated with the Central Commission of Communication and Education and the research institutions inside and outside the Academy to deploy the research and summary of theory and practice of 30 years of renovation; had deployed the research and summary of theory and practice of 15 years of implementation of the  Resolution of the 5th Plenum of CPV Central Committee (8th tenure); had participated in proposing opinions to building the Documents of the 9th Plenum of CPV Central Committee (11th tenure) regarding building and developing Vietnamese culture and people to meet the requirements for sustainable development of the country.

Other works of the Institute such as administrative work, information and documentation work, news - bulletin work have become more orderly and efficient. The publication of “Information on Culture and Development” has been punctually issued by periods and could ensure quality. Importance has been attached to the works of cadres and organization, the Party building, the building of political associations, and culture building in public offices. The contingent of cadres, lecturers, researchers of the Institute has always been united and they are building and making the collective be a strong unit and ready to share and help each other to advance forwards.

Recognizing the merits of the Institute for the past 30 years, the Party and State have awarded many lofty honors to the Institute: the Third-Class Labor Medal (1999), the Second-Class Labor Medal (2004), the First-Class Labor Medal (2009) and the Third-Class Independence Medal (2014). Many cadres and lecturers were granted the Labor Medals and awarded the titles of The People’s Teacher, The Teacher of Merit, the Model Person in the Nationwide Emulation Campaigns. The collective and many individuals of the Institute have received Certificates of Merit, Papers of Merit from the President of the Academy. This is fruit of the efforts of generations of cadres, lecturers and of leaders of the Institute in the past 30 years. At the same time, this fact reflects the regular leadership, guidance and attention of the Party committee, the Leader board of the Academy. It also reflects the collaboration and support of other units in the Academy.

In addition to these achievements, the Institute of Culture and Development has also faced many difficulties and challenges, for example, young lecturers, who are currently pursuing postgraduate education, still lack practical knowledge and teaching experience. The circulation of a number of the key managers and researchers has caused staff-related deficiency, which directly affects the quality of teaching and scientific research of the Institute.

The Resolution of the 9th Plenum of CPV Central Committee (11th tenure) has set the goal “To build culture and the Vietnamese people that are comprehensively developed, are turned toward the genuine, the good and the beautiful, and are imbued with the national spirit, humanity, democracy and science”. The Resolution also says: “Culture really becomes a solid spiritual foundation of society and is an important endogenous force to ensure the sustainable development and firm protection of the Fatherland for the targets of wealthy people, strong country, democracy, justice, civilization”(1). In order to contribute to implementing well this goal and to satisfy the requirements for strongly renovating the Academy in the new period, the Institute of Culture and Development focuses on fulfilling well the following basic tasks:

Increasing leadership of the Party Committee and management of the Leaders Board of the Institute; raising responsibility of the heads of units in implementing the tasks; building and making units be comprehensively developed.

Focusing on renovation of working styles and manners; promoting work mobility; building collective consciousness of every cadre and public servant and official. Increasing initiative and responsibility of functional parts, especially of the boards of specialized majors to improve quality of the contingent of cadres; turning focus of activities of the Institute towards the task to improve quality of teaching and scientific research.

Strengthening cooperative relations with the units inside and outside the Academy to efficiently develop the training and scientific research; constantly caring for the spiritual and material living of cadres, public servants and officials.

Promoting the achievements and experiences of the past 30 years, all cadres, lecturers and researchers of the Institute of Culture and Development are determined to strive to fulfill excellently all tasks; they are determined to build and make the Institute be transparent and strong and would make worthy contribution to the training and scientific research work of the Academy.

Dr. Nguyen Toan Thang

Institute of Culture and Development,

Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics