Dear all comrades,

Today, it is my pleasure to attend the 70th anniversary of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics’ glorious tradition, to meet and share the joy with the generations of the lecturers, cadres, civil servants, officials, and learners of the Academy. First of all, I would like to send my cordial greetings, kind regards, and best wishes to the representatives, distinguished guests, lecturers, and learners here as well as all the cadres and learners who are working and learning at the local academies across the country.

As far as we know, the Nguyen Ai Quoc Party School was established in Viet Bac Base 70 years ago to train cadres. President Ho Chi Minh paid a visit to the school in September 1949 and attended the second course opening ceremony. This was a meaningful historical event that became the traditional landmark of the school. His sacred instructions, “Learn to work, to be a man, and to become a cadre, learn to serve the union, class, people, nation, and mankind, and be industrious, thrifty, honest, righteous, public-spirited and selfless to achieve the goal”, have been the guideline for the works of training and fostering cadres in the revolutionary cause of the Party, and have been engraved and memorized by every cadre and Party member working and learning at the Party School.

Born and raised in the years that the whole country carried out the glorious resistance war against the invaders to liberate the nation and reunify the country, overcoming the difficulties, hardships, and sacrifices, the Central Party School has trained tens of thousands of cadres for the Party and State and made a worthy contribution to the revolutionary cause for national independence, freedom, and reunification, and the people’s happiness. We are respectful and grateful to commemorate the foregoers of the school, including the first outstanding students of President Ho Chi Minh and the teachers who died heroically in the resistance wars and national building, making the golden pages in the history of the Party School which is named after him.

Entering peacetime, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics made worthy contributions to the work of building and protecting the nation and renovating and developing the country, especially in cadre training of the Party, promoting scientific research, helping consolidate and protect the foundations of the Party’s ideology and theory, and providing the scientific basis for planning the lines and guidelines of the Party, policies, and law of the State in the new context.

Over the years, the Academy has made a lot of endeavors and efforts to renovate comprehensively and synchronously in working aspects such as gradually expanding the scale in the direction of focusing on full-time training; gradually reducing the in-service training; innovating and improving cadre training quality in accordance with the motto “Be fundamental, systematic, practical, and modern”; enhancing the study of theory, summarization of practice, and concentration on clarifying the new issues posed by practice; actively countering the wrong and hostile views; directly serving the addition and improvement to the teaching program, curriculum, and lectures; strengthening the works of system management and consolidation to the apparatus organization in the streamlined, efficient, effective direction; building the pool of high-leveled, strong-willed, and exemplary cadres and lecturers; and gradually building the modern and synchronous technical facilities.

Undergoing 70 years of construction, growth, development, and abidance by the direct leadership and instruction of the Politburo and Secretariat of the Party, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics has asserted its position and role as a national center for training of the leaders, managers, and cadres in charge of political theoretical science of the Party and State, as well as for theoretical scientific research of Marxism - Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, political science, leadership and management science. It has also been the motivation and model for the system of political schools in the country, making an important contribution to the works of thought, theory, political education, Party history, Party construction, and revolutionary morality within the Party and in society. We are proud of the precious tradition of Central Party School – the cradle for training cadres for the great revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation – always firm in politics, loyal to Marxism - Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought, with a goal of national independence and socialism, and the revolutionary line of the Party. The Academy continuously promotes a creative and innovative spirit in teaching and scientific research and the willingness to overcome all difficulties, hardships, and challenges to develop. The Academy has been making efforts to raise the good examples of the lecturers and learners of the senior Party School, who whole-heartedly serve the nation and people in accordance with the sacred instructions of President Ho Chi Minh.

To acknowledge those great endeavors, efforts, and achievements, the Party and State have awarded the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics with the noblest honours such as the Gold Star Order, the Order of Ho Chi Minh (twice), and the Labor Hero title. On behalf of the leaders of the Party and State, I warmly congratulate, praise, and thank you for your tremendous contributions and devotions over the past 70 years.

Beside the obtained achievements, you should frankly admit the weaknesses and shortcomings and provide solutions thereto soon. Specifically, although a lot of effort has been put into renovating the program content and teaching method, the effort is just initial and slow compared with practical requirement. In the content and method of training, no smooth combination between learning to improve knowledge, leadership and management skills and revolutionary morality training has been made. There have not been many great works in scientific research to contribute to study theory and practical review of the Party. International cooperation effects in teaching and scientific research are still limited. There are not many top and prestigious lecturers, scientists, and experts and they do not yet keep pace with the tasks of a Central Party School, and there is a gap between the cadre generations. The technical facilities are insufficient and asynchronous, especially at the local academies, and they fail to meet the modern training requirements. The information technology infrastructure is not connected to the political schools in the country.

Dear comrades,

In his lifetime, President Ho Chi Minh asserted: “Cadres are the root of all works. Thus, cadre training is the root work of the Party”. Accordingly, over the past years, the Party has made a strong effort to enhance the Party building work and considered it a key mission, of which cadre work is the key of the key. The whole Party has carried out the work of building and rectifying the Party in accordance with the spirit of the 4th Resolutions of the 11th and 12th Tenures of the Party Central Committee, achieving important initial results, creating positive change and clear results, contributing to preventing and pushing back the decline in political thought, morality, lifestyle, manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” internally, and improving the leadership capacity and combativeness of the Party. The 7th Plenum of the Party Central Committee (12th Tenure) promulgated a specialized resolution on cadre work with the view that building the cadres, especially strategic ones, should be done regularly, cautiously, scientifically, closely, and effectively; investment in building the cadres is an investment in long-term and sustainable development.

To meet the new development requirements of the country, especially those for building the qualified cadres in morality, capacity, prestige, and on par with assigned tasks, the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics needs to base on its function and tasks to build a long-term development strategy, promoting the acquired achievements, overcoming the weaknesses and difficulties, and identifying the mission, vision, view, goal, core values, and development orientations of the Academy in the coming decades.

It should be deeply understood that the Academy is a Party School whose top priority is to train the leaders and managers who are really industrious, thrifty, honest, righteous, public-spirited and selfless, work-satisfactory,  absolutely loyal to the ideal of the Party and revolutionary cause, and devoted to serving the nation and people for the Party and political system. At the same time, the Academy is required to focus on studying; grasping Marxism - Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought; protecting, consolidating, and developing the ideological foundation of the Party; clarifying the issues of socialism and the path to socialism in Vietnam; strongly criticizing the wrongful views and distorting allegations of the hostile forces; and contributing to protect the Party, the State, the people and socialist regime.

On this occasion, I have something to further exchange and share with the cadres, lecturers, and learners of the Academy.

Firstly, the Academy should be determined to further renovate the cadre training and cultivation works, from the curriculum framework, methods of teaching and learning to enrolment, learner management, examination, inspection, and learning quality evaluation. The Academy must be determined to overcome the fear of learning, laziness in studying political theory, and learning to cope with and obtain a degree. The Academy needs to determine the subject for training to avoid pursuit of quantity and diversify the training programs to make them match with different groups of learners. It is important to continue focusing on improving the quality of the training programs, updating knowledge for the leadership and management titles in the practical direction, equipping the vision, strategic thinking, and working method, and associating with the settlement of the arising situations in reality with the locality, agency, unit, and country.

I highly appreciate the efforts of the Academy in coordinating with the involved agencies effectively, organizing the training class well, updating the knowledge for the members of the Party Central Committee, the classes for the key strategic cadres, as well as the classes to update the knowledge for the leaders and managers of the localities, agencies, and units over the past years. These are the extremely important works, and they should be done well in the coming period.

In cadre training, particular attention should be paid to education, improving the political mettle, ideological stand, and revolutionary morality, and training the learners’ standard behavior. To do this, it is necessary to improve the school’s requirements of rules and discipline. The Academy needs to implement a role as the national leading center in training and fostering the pool of Party building cadres and political theory lecturers for political and cadre schools, and universities in the country.

Secondly, more effort and resources should be paid to scientific research work and actively hand over the research results to serve the works of teaching, communication, political education and policy consultation. The process of renovation, integration, and development in the country today has posed a lot of new issues which need examination and solution. The scholars of the Academy should emphasize the works of practical review to generalize and raise them to the level of theory. Only by doing so can the scientific research activity of the Academy make a contribution to the work of training cadres, consolidating and protecting the ideological foundation of the Party, countering hostile views and wrongful allegations, and conveying knowledge from real life to the lectures.

Currently, the Party Central Committee is working on the draft documents to be submitted to the 13th Congress of the Party with the desire to acquire comments and thoughts of the whole Party and people, especially scholars. With a number of gifted, devoted, and responsible lecturers and scholars, the Academy must have a positive and effective contribution to preparing the content of these extremely significant documents.

Thirdly, to implement well the two central tasks of cadre training and scientific research, attention should be paid to building and developing the Academy comprehensively. Personnel work is still the first priority. It is important to focus on building a pool of lecturers, scholars, and managers with talent, mettle, firm political stand, pure moral quality, and fundamental and specialized training in theory, teaching method, and practical knowledge. To overcome the gap between the lecturer generations, the Academy should provide a long-term strategy to train young cadres, attract high-quality human resources, and use talents. Particularly, as the Central Party School, you should have clear awareness of the example setting requirements for taking care of Party-building work and making the Party committee of the Academy a really exemplary, united, pure, strong one with a high leadership capacity and combativeness. The Academy needs to take the lead in fighting against decline in political ideology, morality, lifestyle, and internal manifestations of “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. The inspection and supervision works over the Party organizations, cadres, and Party members should be promoted so that no violations and negative things can happen in the Academy’s operation.

The Academy must strive to become a modern school imbued with your own identity and readiness for integration. The Party and State always pay due attention to, and make worthy investments in the Academy to modernize its technical facility and information technology infrastructure so that it deserves to be a leading national center for training and cultivating cadres, deploying modern training models and an effective contacting point for the systems of political schools, as well as cadre training schools. It is essential to keep the cultural standards of a Party School; at the same time, the Academy must focus on expanding and improving the quality and effect of its international cooperation to selectively acquire the achievements and experience of the world in training high-level human resources, and in scientific research, especially political science, leadership science, and advanced management.

Fourthly, for the learners, the more honor and pride you have because of learning at the top Party school, the more aware of your responsibilities and tasks you should be. This is a great opportunity for you to improve your level and working capacity, train in political mettle, and cultivate a revolutionary ideal. You need to learn seriously with passion and high responsibility, implement the motto of associating theory with practice and learning and practicing simultaneously, enhance the process of self-learning and self-research, and actively forge your critical thinking, methodology, and the approach to solve the practical issues. Particularly, you had better have the awareness of discipline, abide school regulations, and practice an exemplary, humble, simple, amiable conduct and lifestyle to deserve being the students of the Party School named after our great President Ho Chi Minh.

Dear comrades,

After 70 years of construction, development, and growth, with the glorious tradition and a great number of highly specialized and devoted lecturers and scholars, it is my belief that the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics will successfully fulfill all the assigned tasks, implement the Resolution of the 12th Congress of the Party well together with the whole Party, army, and people, make contributions to the cause of building and protecting our socialist nation, and deserve the trust of the Party, State, and people.

On this occasion, I also praise and thank for the help and coordination of the departments, ministries, unions at central level, Party committees, and governments at local level, and the international partners of the Academy. I hope that you will further cooperate and create more conditions to help the Academy fulfill its noble mission and great responsibility and develop further in the coming period.

Once again, I wish the lecturers, cadres, civil servants, officials, and learners of the Academy, distinguished guests, and other comrades good health, happiness in life, and success in work.

May the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics gain new achievements and deserve to be an Academy named after, founded, and instructed by President Ho Chi Minh himself.

Thank you very much!