Promoting learning and promoting action

(Baonghean) - Vietnamese people have a tradition of valuing education. Therefore, promoting education is always a concern and a priority for society as a whole. Educational promotion activities take place within families, clans, villages, hamlets, and in political and social organizations, businesses, agencies, and units… It can be said that almost everywhere in the country there are organizations and activities encouraging learning in various forms. The purpose of promoting education is to build a learning society to raise the intellectual level of the people, equip them with more knowledge to apply in practice, improve the efficiency of labor, production, and business, increase income, improve living standards, and contribute to the socio-economic development of the entire community.

However, our educational promotion activities in recent times have shown signs of bias and one-sidedness, failing to encompass all activities aimed at serving the stated objectives. Most notably, these activities have focused primarily on motivating and encouraging children within families and clans to study hard for future career prospects. In short, the main focus has been on creating conditions and encouraging young people to strive for academic success and gain admission to universities.

Recognition and awards, whether from family, clan, or organizations, are almost exclusively reserved for this group. Below them, those with college degrees or vocational training receive little due attention and appreciation. This leads to feelings of discrimination for many, and is one of the fundamental reasons for the current surplus of bachelors and masters degree holders and shortage of highly skilled workers. While there is a high level of celebration and awards for academically successful individuals, there is a complete lack of recognition and encouragement for those who have self-taught themselves, legitimately enriching their families and contributing to society. It seems that our educational promotion activities are leaning towards supporting and encouraging young people to excel in their studies, achieve high academic results, and become successful individuals, while lacking a crucial element: encouraging everyone to regularly engage in self-learning to cultivate knowledge, enhance understanding, and apply it effectively to solving problems arising in daily life. This is heavily focused on promoting academic achievement but lacks the emphasis on promoting action. Therefore, a reassessment is needed to clearly understand the fundamental purpose of educational promotion activities. From there, we can reach a consensus on supporting, motivating, encouraging, honoring, and creating favorable conditions for all those who are eager to learn in order to improve their skills and understanding, thereby achieving new advancements in learning, work, and production. Everyone, especially community learning centers in communes, wards, and towns, needs to clearly understand this viewpoint to guide their activities appropriately, such as building and developing diverse and rich forms of learning to satisfy the learning needs of officials and all strata of the population. Along with this, it is necessary to encourage the people to actively study to improve their general knowledge and professional skills, thereby increasing production capacity, work quality, and quality of life. The development of the learning promotion movement should be linked to building a healthy educational environment, combining learning with practice, and with the movement to excel in economic activities, eradicate poverty, and build cultural life at the grassroots level.

In short, in the coming period, educational promotion activities must go hand in hand with promoting action in order to achieve the ultimate goal of building a learning society to improve the skills and knowledge of the people and revitalize the country.

Duy Huong