Hanoi (VNA) – Capacity building for teachersis crucial to educational reforms, said Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc at themeeting of the National Committee for Education Reforms and the NationalCouncil of Education and Human Resources Development from 2016 – 2020 on May29.

It was the first time PM Phuc, also President of theNational Committee for Education Reforms and the National Council of Educationand Human Resources Development from 2016 – 2020, chaired a meeting of thiskind.

The meeting aimed to seek measures to translate ResolutionNo.29-NQ/TW dated November 4, 2013 on fundamental and comprehensive innovationin education, serving industrialization and modernization in theSocialist-oriented market economy into reality during the country’s internationalintegration and the era of Industry 4.0.

The meeting focused discussion on reforms of theteacher training and allocation, renovation of textbooks, and improvement ofthe effectiveness of institutional autonomy of higher education in Vietnam. Themeeting also saw many proposals to reform the accreditation procedures ofprofessor and associate professor titles and to improve the quality ofVietnamese professors and associate professors.

PM Phuc spoke highly of all proposals at the meeting,saying the ultimate goal of the socio-economic development is to better servepeople, particularly in education and training.

He agreed with the proposals to promote the application of technology ineducation and noted that the elimination of technological illiteracy isfundamental to developing E-government, smart cities and global citizens.

He also appreciated the ideas of lifelong learning,especially for old adults, to prevent stagnancy and uncreative and close-mindedthinking at work.

He stressed on the importance of capacity building forteachers which is the key to the country’s educational reforms, asking for therestructuring of pedagogical institutions with the focus on the quality of teachersand benefits for them. He wanted the teachers to receive better training and befacilitated to absorb new ways of thinking.

The PM also requested the universities to furtherfoster students’ start-up businesses, saying it is important to increase theVietnamese’s productivity.

He required stricter accreditation of professors andassociate professors and improvement of the quality of the candidates andjudges to ensure transparency in line with international standards.

Regarding the university autonomy, the top leader saidwhen the institutional autonomy is applied; the universities are only governedby the Ministry of Education and Training in terms of planning, examination, educationquality and inspection. He asked for increase in the number of universitiespiloting autonomy instead of only three or four universities at the present toget feedback and scale up the model in the future.

He endorsed ideas of university autonomy in academiccurriculums, organization and finance and emphasised that financial autonomydoes not mean that the government will not invest in higher educationinstitutions.-VNA