Professor Dang Hung Vo: There are many intellectuals but not many useful inventions.

Nowadays, we often talk about the 4.0 industrial revolution of the World Economic Forum. In fact, the quality of knowledge is the deciding factor, knowledge creates technology to assist people, not technology that determines development. Alvin Toffer - an American futurist said and predicted this nearly 30 years ago. He wrote a series of 3 books to explain the development process of human society, from an agricultural civilization motivated by manual labor, to an industrial civilization motivated by mechanical machines replacing manual labor, and then to an information civilization motivated by information machines supporting intellectual labor. Alvin Toffer also relied on the law of changing human labor associated with technology to predict the operating laws of the information society.

Silicon Valley is home to many famous technology companies. Source: wrenchinthegears.com

Alvin Toffer’s predictions made America rich in natural resources and decided to leave those resources behind and focus on stimulating the creativity of human thinking. Today, the whole world knows the technology “incubator” Silicon Valley in California, considered as a land to support all startup ideas.

Looking around the world, industrialized countries have entered the information age with many new billionaires emerging from very simple but effective startup ideas. Microsoft bought IBM's DOS operating system to switch to Windows; Google made people need it just by using an Internet search engine; Apple set a goal of making smartphones as a living part of humans; Amazon started from online book transactions between people who have but don't need and people who need but don't have... Industrial billionaires have given up the "upper hand" to information billionaires.

Since Doi Moi, our Party has affirmed that education - training and science - technology are key factors of development. The 2nd Conference of the Party Central Committee, 8th tenure issued a Resolution on "strategic orientation for education - training development in the period of industrialization and modernization and tasks until 2000". In 2000, looking back at the implementation of the important Resolution which was still considered "key", it can be assessed that not much has been achieved. Education - training was expanded in a formal way, the content did not change much, this situation can be summarized by the anti-idiom "quantity is important, not quality".

On November 4, 2013, at the 8th Conference of the 11th Party Central Committee, the Resolution on fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training was passed. The name of the Resolution is very concise but the words are very drastic, like the requirement to rebuild the country's education and training. Up to now, this Resolution has been implemented for nearly 10 years. However, somewhere, the disease of formality and the disease of achievement still remain. Schools, classrooms, learners, and teachers are everywhere. The training targets for PhDs, Masters, engineers, and doctors are set very high, much higher than the actual requirements. There are many intellectuals but not many useful inventions.

I studied and researched in Poland for 8 years and then returned to Vietnam at the end of 1988. At that time, I was also considering whether to return to work in Vietnam or work abroad, which would have better conditions for scientific research. I confided in several foreign teachers about my hesitation. Then there was a man who still considered me a friend who said frankly: "I also don't understand why Vietnamese people like to work abroad, so who should I leave my country to?". I didn't hesitate any longer, the next day I bought a plane ticket to return home...

Back home at that time, the Party had also decided on Doi Moi, a much more “open” mindset, but difficulties still appeared everywhere, not only was economic life still very poor but education and training were also difficult in a different way. Vietnam needed to shift from the mindset of training people to only study widely and deeply about words to the mindset of creating people who could be creative in their difficult circumstances. I sought to open up a training philosophy associated with technology to have intellectuals for the information age.

Illustration: Giaoduc.net.vn

I received the title of Professor by the State in 1992 for my scientific works. Since then, I have guided doctoral theses for many training institutions both domestically and internationally. Therefore, I know quite well the difference between the training methods in Vietnamese institutions and those in industrialized countries.

There are many institutions in our country, a doctoral thesis topic can be successfully defended in one district, then brought to another district and also be “successful”, there is nothing creative. I still think that these types of theses are no different from “cloning”. Just one successful thesis in one district, can be done the same in many other districts, is fine, has the ability to create more than 500 (number of districts nationwide) more doctors. It is sad to see!

In evaluating doctoral theses, I still wonder only one thing: what new things have been pointed out in this doctoral thesis. Even if it is easy, it will be difficult for many people, but they still have to find a way to do something new. But if we ask more deeply about how that new thing can help people, it will be even more difficult to explain.

In our country today, there is a great need for training of doctors, and in reality there are already many, but the truth and falsehood are mixed together, and it is difficult to know which way to go. In the past, people often had to "seek a teacher to learn from", some people searched for a long time but could not find a teacher, so they were disillusioned and considered it bad luck.

Paying attention to the first generation of children going to school, a pure childhood needs to learn from real life experiences, but forcing them to carry a thick, heavy bag of books to school, the words of which are mostly meaningless to children. The educational philosophy that there is too much knowledge in the world today, so they have to learn a lot to keep up, is not right. When will learning keep up with the development of life? What is needed is to teach children to find information on the internet so that they can filter it to get the right information and leave out the wrong information. Children also join the information age easily like that.

In fact, what children need right away is not knowledge that is too difficult to imagine. What children need first is morality in their own family and in society in general. Many times, for the sake of building laws as the foundation for a rule of law state, we forget that the core of human beings is morality, and deeply ingrained morality will become culture.

Talking about the shortcomings of education and training in our country today is probably endless. In fact, those with a lot of money send their children to study abroad at very high costs, but they are happy. They settle down there and then stay, leaving the country to those with less money to take care of. The problem of training high-quality human resources has no reasonable solution.

The 13th Party Congress has set a policy that Vietnam will become an industrialized country with high income by 2045. We have only more than 20 years to overcome the "middle income trap". As experienced by many industrialized countries near us, to do so, we must use high-quality human resources associated with high technology as a driving force.

The current quality of education and training is difficult to meet the task of "overcoming the trap", it is necessary to urgently monitor the implementation of Resolution 29-NQ/TW of the 6th Conference of the 11th Party Central Committee on fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training. The Ministry of Education and Training needs to be separated into independent Ministry of Education and Ministry of Training. Both are teaching and learning, but for adults who have "sunk and flowed" in life, it is completely different from innocent children just entering life. Writing up to this point, I secretly think that perhaps we should choose educational lands like Nghe - Tinh to open up Vietnam's Silicon Valley to support startups?