Communist Review - Comprehensive education to develop Vietnamese people in “morals, knowledge, good health, aesthetic sense” has always been the throughout thought of Vietnam Party and State. In the new context of socio-economic development, in addition to the traditional factors, there are also many new educational ones. Therefore, it is necessary to explore and propose breakthrough solutions to mobilize all subjects for the comprehensive education associated with the new situation.

Educating Vietnamese people to develop comprehensively is the throughout ideology of President Ho Chi Minh and the consistent policy of the Communist Party of Vietnam

The comprehensive human education issue has been posed for a long time, reflected through the philosophy and ideology in our forefathers’ life. For example, children need to “learn to eat, learn to speak, learn to close, learn to open”; a person must attain such five constant virtues including “kindness, rectitude, decorum, wisdom, and sincerity”; women must cultivate four Feminine Virtues in “work, visage, words and virtues”... In general, traditionally, people need to be educated and develop personality harmoniously in order to live with affection and gratitude, to love and behave favorably with their loved ones, keep their prestige, have the ability to perform duties with a high sense of responsibility in all jobs.

President Ho Chi Minh, a prominent political activist, a great leader of the Vietnamese revolution, and also a great teacher and a great culturalist of the world, who established, laid the foundations and directed the construction of a new education, asserted that “the more society develops, the more work is, the more sophisticated machines are. If we refuse to study, we will be backward, if we are backward, we will reject ourselves”⁽¹⁾. Uncle Ho was extremely interested in building and developing the educational career, all for a lofty goal is for people, especially “an education that develops completely the available capacities” of students, combining family education with school education and social education.

Ho Chi Minh's thoughts on education are still valid in terms of both theory and practice. He used the Marxist theory of human nature to build new people, who carry the Marxist-Leninist worldview and outlook on life, and are imbued with Ho Chi Minh's socialist ideology and humanism. According to Uncle Ho, to become a new socialist man it is necessary to pay attention to both aspects. On the one side, it is the individuals’ endless attempt in the direction of voluntarily struggling with the backwards and the bad sides that exist as a side of natural human instinct, at the same time, studying and cultivating revolutionary morality which is considered as the mankind’s cultural quintessence. On the other side, it is people's active participation in social reform towards the building of socialism, and for Vietnam it is to carry out the national liberation revolution combined with the socialist revolution. Those two aspects are always linked together and “in order to have the socialism, first of all, there must be socialist people”. The thought on comprehensive human development has been expressed in a simple way in 5 things which Uncle Ho taught teenagers and children “love your Fatherland and your people; Study well, labor well; Be united, be disciplined; Keep the hygiene well; Be modest, honest and brave”. It is crystallized in the two concepts of “red” and “expert”, which have a close relationship with each other, of which “red” or morality is the root. He also determined that the method of building people is to set examples of good people and good deeds.

The basic contents of Ho Chi Minh ideology on building new socialist people, comprehensively developed people, are absorbed and consistently expressed in the views of the Communist Party of Vietnam on comprehensive human development education.

The 9^th National Party Congress of Vietnam confirmed: “Building Vietnamese people comprehensively developed in term of politics, ideology, wisdom, ethics, physicality, creative capacity, having a sense of community, compassion, tolerance, respecting gratitude, cultured lifestyle and harmonious relationships in the family, community and society. Culture has become a factor stimulating people to perfect personality, inherit the nation's revolutionary tradition, promote patriotism, self-reliance for self-improvement in building and defending the country”⁽²⁾.

The 10^th National Party Congress of Vietnam clearly stated: “Building and perfecting the values and personality of Vietnamese people, protecting and promoting the national cultural identity in the period of industrialization, modernization and international economic integration. Fostering cultural values for youths, pupils and students, especially the life ideal, lifestyle, intellectual capacity, ethics and bravery of Vietnamese people” ⁽³⁾.

The Platform on National construction in the transition period to socialism (supplemented, developed in 2011) of the Communist Party of Vietnam showed clearly the great orientation on education and training in Vietnam: “Education and training have the mission of improving people's knowledge, developing human resources, fostering talents, making an important contribution to the national development and building Vietnamese culture and people. Developing education and training associated with science and technology development is the top national policy; investing in education and training is the investment in development. Fundamentally and comprehensively renovating education and training according to the development needs of the society; improving quality according to the requirements of standardization, modernization, socialization, democratization and international integration, will effectively serve the cause of national construction and defense. Promoting the building of a learning society, creating opportunities and conditions for all citizens to have lifelong learning”⁽⁴⁾.

The 8^th plenary session of the 11^th Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam issued Resolution No 29-NQ/TW dated November 4, 2013 on “Radically and fundamentally innovating education and training to meet the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the socialist-oriented market economy and international integration” affirming: fundamentally and comprehensively renovating the education towards standardization, modernization, socialization, democratization and international integration. Quickly developing human resources, especially high-quality human resources, focusing on the fundamental and comprehensive renovation of the national education.

The Party's views on building comprehensively developed people are deeply expressed in the Document of the 12^th National Party Congress, confirming: 1-Building comprehensively developed Vietnamese people must become the goal of the development strategy and one of the general national development tasks; 2-Combining the goal of cultural construction and development with the human building; 3-Affirming the human building issue is four of the six central tasks of the 12^th National Party Congress tenure; 4-Building comprehensively developed Vietnamese people is associated with the country's industrialization and modernization.

The Education Law 2019 regarding educational objectives also affirms: education aimed at developing Vietnamese people comprehensively in terms of morality, knowledge, culture, health, aesthetics and profession; having quality, capacity and sense of citizenship; having patriotism, national spirit, loyalty to the ideal of national independence and socialism; promoting the potential and creativity of each individual; improving people's intellectual standards, developing human resources, fostering talents to meet the requirements of the cause of national construction and defense, and the international integration.

Socio-economic context and the role of education in comprehensively developing Vietnamese people’s personality

When integrating internationally, although Vietnam has several advantages such as having a stable political system and Vietnamese people’s eagerness to contribute to the development of the country, it also faces many difficulties and challenges. As in some places, the ecological environment is polluted, the natural resources are increasingly depleted, the social security and public health have not been improved as expected, the gap between rich and poor increasingly widens, social vices and crimes are more complicated.

The world context has uncertainties and the competition between countries, peoples for development has become increasingly fierce. Meanwhile, social ethics in many places tends to decline, reflecting through normal behaviors. This shows that if the country wants to develop rapidly and sustainably on the path of socialism, there is nothing more than building the country based on the human development. Qualified and capable people must be the ones who use their own mind to build the country, leading Vietnam to develop in the trend of global integration.

Therefore, education is not only a national policy but also the political life of the nation. We can see the future of a country through appreciating its education. Therefore, over the years, the Vietnam Party and State have concretized the view “Education is the top national policy” with about 20% of annual budget spent on education, excluding social funds paid for educational services. The Party and State of Vietnam have also carried out many studies to build a set of criteria for Vietnamese people in the new period according to the 12^th National Party Congress’s Resolution:

- Building “comprehensively developed Vietnamese people towards the true, the good and the beautiful, imbued with the national spirit, humanity, democracy and science”, is considered as “a goal of the development strategy”, “on developing personality, morality, intelligence, creative capacity, physical body, soul, social responsibility, citizen obligations, sense of law compliance”⁽⁵⁾.

Although obtaining important development steps, the education of Vietnam still has many shortcomings and has not developed the learner’s capacity comprehensively. It can be said that, despite many efforts, the education seems to still focus mainly on “intellectual” development target and less concentrate on students' abilities, interests or talents. Many educational institutions attach great importance to exam results, so they only focus on a few exam subjects, disregard the education on morality, health and aesthetics - the key elements for forming students’ personality.

One of the main reasons is that Vietnam concentrate on teaching specialized knowledge, focusing on “trendy” and natural scientific subjects,... but not properly attaching importance to social- human subjects, such as civic education, ethics... Therefore, Vietnamese students’ awareness and labor skills in general are not good, many children study very well at school but do not know how to do housework by themselves (such as cooking, washing clothes, cleaning the house...). The education sector has not resolved well the relationship between increasing in quantity, scale and improving quality, and between literacy and human teaching. In other words, Vietnam do not really have a proper comprehensive human education.

Orientations and approaches to education for the Vietnamese people’s comprehensive development in the socialist-oriented market economy

By inheriting the views of President Ho Chi Minh and international lessons (Human Development Report, first published in 1990 in the United Nations Development Program: Concept and Measurement of Human Development⁽⁶⁾), it is possible to define a number of criteria of Vietnamese people in the current socialist-oriented market economy, including: 1-Good health (including physical, mental and social health); 2- Spirit of patriotism; 3-Good morality (including personal and professional ethics); 4- Good life skills; 5-Citizen obligations; 6-Quality of “Global citizens”. Besides that, it is also possible to define the orientations of comprehensively educating Vietnamese people on 5 aspects according to the orientation of the 12^th National Party Congress, including 1-Morality; 2-Personality; 3- Lifestyle; 4- Intellect; 5- Working capacity.

In the context of the globalization and the international integration, the stormy development of the Industrial Revolution 4.0 has profoundly changed the way of living and working in an interactive relationship. The constant change of social circumstances requires people to constantly update their skills, improve themselves to adapt to the new situation. Therefore, education must focus on developing the comprehensive capacity of individuals based on the application of breakthrough technologies. The tendency to personalize the studying issue related to teaching must be done to be suitable for learning needs, designed according to the specific hobbies and interests of each person; carried out by offering options from a variety of educational programs (from many different schools, subjects, skills and abilities), a lot of teaching approaches (direct, indirect, interactive, experimental or independent), learning experience (traditional form as in the classroom, non-traditional form as online or hybrid class) and learning support strategies (educational services available to support learners and accelerate the learning process). In terms of content, educational programs should help learners to form their creative and critical thinking capacities, communication and collaboration skills, self-study skills, digital and data knowledge, interdisciplinary knowledge to have ability of changing jobs. In terms of pedagogy, it is neccessary to create opportunities to build a learning “ecosystem” that allows personalization of learning in terms of time and place. Learners must be instructed to have capacity of self-studying and designing their own learning pathways based on personal goals through the flexible use of tools, such as a massive open online course (MOOC), virtual classrooms, laboratories and learning games, using a variety of forms such as blended learning, project-based teaching, scenario-based teaching and problem-solving-oriented teaching.

The requirements of the educational modernization and internationalization associated with the goals of training the “global citizens” set out the responsibility of every learner to be proactive with themselves and with society. Global citizens are people who have the ability to act cooperatively and responsibly, to creatively solve common problems of the community, and to contribute to making the localities, the country and the world better and stably developing; who can communicate and adapt in different cultural, multicultural environments; respect human rights and diversity; respect and promote the cultural values of the nation, as well as consciously learn the cultural quintessence of other nations.

The viewpoints on training the comprehensive citizens towards global citizens are now reflected in the target of innovating curriculum, textbooks, general education “to comprehensively develop Vietnamese people in terms of morals, knowledge, health, and aesthetic sense” towards “global citizens””⁽⁷⁾ and concretized into the main qualities of patriotism, compassion, diligence, honesty, responsibility. They are to comprehensively develop competencies including common competencies such as autonomy and self-learning capacity, communication and cooperation capacity, problem solving and creativity capacity and specific competencies such as linguistic capacity, calculating capacity, scientific capacity, technological capacity, computational ability, aesthetic capacity, physical ability.

It can be said that, in the current context of globalization and extensive international integration, fully developed Vietnamese people must have cultural standards, Vietnamese national cultural identity and the ability to absorb the cultural quintessence of humanity, expressed through the qualities of global citizens. The Vietnamese people developed comprehensively in terms of morals, knowledge, health, and aesthetic sense must: Have ardent patriotism from the love of motherland, people and fine national traditional values, and have a kindness shown through the love and respect for people not only within families, schools, nation, but also the world. They also have an ideal of life, a sense of responsibility, a ceaselessly- striving will, a simple lifestyle for the community, actions in the manners of industry, thrift, integrity, uprightness, public-spiritedness and selflessness. It is necessary to build an education for people with adequate physical and mental health to promote their intellect, maximize their own creative labor potential, and have the capacity to self-study for a lifetime.

In addition to determining the comprehensive human criteria suitable for the socialist-oriented market economy, Vietnam need to implement some basic solutions to create an environment for comprehensive human education as follows:

- Firstly, it is necessary to accurately analyze the current state of comprehensive human education from interdisciplinary and individualized approaches to clearly see the human-centered education to propose integrated solutions.

- Secondly, it must be to clearly define the functions of educational institutions and subjects, especially non-traditional subjects, new media, movies, video games, virtual reality (VR), extended reality (XR), internet of things (IoT),... There should be studies to concretize these things in the Government's Decree guiding the implementation of the Education Law 2019 to avoid overlapping or “white areas”.

- Thirdly, it is necessary to better specify the roles and responsibilities of families and other organizations engaged in comprehensive human education activities, in line with the socialist-oriented market economy, at the same time, the regulations must be propagated, disseminated and guided to implement. Emphatically, the responsibility of the comprehensive human education should be the duty of the ecosystem that surrounds the child.

- Fourthly, a learning and civilized society should be built with the values of the true, the good and the beautiful; capable of criticizing and condemning actions contrary to social ethical standards and educating people comprehensively. It is necessary to build this model with “openness”, in the other words, teaching models and activities that were originally just “family-centered” and “school-based” now need to follow “society-based” approaches. Therefore, the task of the school is to build an “open”, “critical” schooling environment, a training program oriented to developing capacity based on experience; and learner-centered educational method using comprehensive evaluation approach through appropriate tools in comprehensive citizenship assessment.

The assessment does not just stop at evaluating the learner's learning performance (process evaluation and overall evaluation), but also needs to evaluate the program itself, puts the program in a practical context in order to evaluate, monitor, promptly adjust, improve, and maintain the global citizen education in an appropriate and effective way./.

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(1) Ho Chi Minh: Complete Works, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011, Vol. 12, p. 333

(2) Document of the 9^th National Party Congress, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2003, p. 114

(3) Document of the 10^th National Party Congress, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2006, p. 106

(4) Document of the 11^th National Party Congress, National Political Publishing House, Hanoi, 2011, p. 77

(5) Resolution No.33-NQ/TW dated June 9, 2014 of the 9th Plenum of the Party Central Committee, 11th Tenure on “Building and developing Vietnamese culture and people meeting the demand for national sustainable development”

(6) Human Development Report 1990: “Concept and Measurement of Human Development”, UNDP, 1990

(7) Decision No. 404/QD-TTg dated March 27, 2015 of the Prime Minister, on “Approving the Scheme on the innovation of general education’s programs and textbooks”

This article was published in the Communist Review No. 952 (October 2020)