Improving population quality to meet new human resource requirements

(Baonghean) - Over the past 55 years, under the leadership of the Party and the direction of the State, the population and family planning work of the whole country in general and Nghe An in particular has achieved very good successes.

People of Quy Hop district join the 2016 population campaign - Photo: My Ha

As of 2015, in the province, the average number of children of a woman of childbearing age has decreased to 2.56 (number of children); average life expectancy has increased to 73 years; population growth rate has decreased to 1%. Population work areas are being implemented in an increasingly comprehensive and comprehensive manner, the system of population work organization is gradually being consolidated and improved,... These results show that population and family planning work has become systematic, the scale is stable, and the quality of population has been gradually improved for the prosperity of the homeland and the country.

Nghe An is in the process of integrating with the international community, the whole country and other provinces, requiring human factors with quality in terms of physical, intellectual and spiritual aspects. This is also an urgent requirement of the current population and family planning work. Our goal is to focus on stabilizing the scale, soon reaching the replacement fertility rate, improving the quality of the population, contributing to building human resources to meet the cause of industrialization and modernization of the homeland.

In fact, the whole country has reached the replacement level of fertility since 2006 and has maintained it since then (the average number of children per woman of childbearing age is 2.1 children). Meanwhile, the population and family planning work of Nghe An is still facing many difficulties and challenges, affecting the socio-economic development, as well as making it difficult to achieve the goal of hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and improving the quality of human resources.

The province has a large population (ranked 4th in the country), and is among the top 10 provinces with the highest birth rates in the country. Although the results of the implementation of the targets of reducing births and the rate of third and higher births each year have decreased, they are still at a high level and still vary greatly between regions and districts in the province. The gender imbalance at birth has reached an alarming level (110 boys/100 girls, in 2015).

Low population quality limits human stature, physical strength, intelligence, and spirit. The rate of newborns with congenital defects and malnourished children is still high. The problem of early marriage and incestuous marriage leading to the decline of the race of some ethnic minorities is an existing risk affecting the quality of the race. The rate of untrained labor is high, the technical profession is low, and it does not meet the requirements of training high-quality human resources to serve the cause of industrialization and modernization of the homeland and country.

Along with the whole country, Nghe An has entered the "golden population" period. This is both an opportunity and a challenge for the Population and Family Planning program. If we know how to take advantage of this opportunity, solve the employment problem well, and make good use of human resources, we will enrich our homeland. Therefore, it is necessary to have a plan to proactively extend the time, take advantage of and promote the advantages of the "golden population" period to effectively serve the cause of industrialization and modernization and the sustainable development of the province.

The above situation shows that the issues raised for population and family planning work in Nghe An are also among the issues that the Party, State and National Assembly are very concerned about. The increase in birth rate and the rate of third and higher births is a risk to destroy the population achievements that have been achieved in recent years.

On the other hand, it will be more difficult to solve employment, increase income, education, housing, environmental pollution, people's health care, social evils... if this situation is not focused on solving and there are appropriate and timely policies, then the legal targets and population work goals in the following years will be very difficult to achieve. That will negatively impact socio-economic development and put our province at risk of falling further behind.

Facing the goal of stabilizing the scale, soon reaching the replacement level of fertility, improving the quality of the population, rapidly reducing the gender imbalance at birth, taking advantage of the "golden population" opportunity, training a next generation with enough physical, intellectual and spiritual strength to meet the requirements of building the homeland and the country, it requires more efforts from the Party Committee and authorities from the province to the localities, the joint efforts of sectors, unions, social organizations and especially the sense of responsibility of citizens for the development of the province and the country.

When population and family planning work is deeply ingrained in the sense of responsibility of each person and each family, leading to responsible reproductive behavior, then we can achieve the immediate goal of reducing births, gradually moving towards the long-term goal of stabilizing the replacement birth rate and improving population quality.

People of Quy Hop district with the 2016 population campaign. Photo: My Ha

To focus on solving the above problems, the priority goal must be to focus on reducing birth rate to shorten the time gap to reach replacement level birth rate, striving to catch up with the whole country. In the coming time, population and family planning work needs to focus on a number of key tasks and solutions as follows:

Firstly, continue to do a good job of advising Party committees and authorities to strengthen leadership and direction of population and family planning work.

Second, further strengthen propaganda and education on population and family planning with many rich and diverse forms, suitable to the needs, levels and awareness of all classes of people to convince society and people to accept and voluntarily implement the policy that each couple only has 1-2 children.

This is still an important solution and needs to be given top priority. It is necessary to promote the exemplary role of cadres and party members in implementing population policy; linking the implementation of population policy with the building of families, villages, hamlets, neighborhoods, residential areas, and cultural units.

Third, improve the quality of family planning service logistics, diversify contraceptive methods, aiming to fully, promptly, safely and conveniently provide quality family planning services to users. Continue to implement models and projects on population structure and quality improvement to ensure effectiveness and replication of the model.

Fourth, continue to consolidate and stabilize the organizational structure, improve the capacity and professional qualifications of the staff working in population and family planning from the provincial to grassroots levels to ensure they are strong enough to perform assigned tasks.

Fifth, implement Conclusion No. 119-KL-TW dated January 4, 2016 of the Central Party Secretariat "on continuing to implement Resolution No. 47-NQ/TW of the 9th Politburo on continuing to promote the implementation of population and family planning policies".

It is necessary to focus on promoting population policies that adapt to current population trends, contributing to promoting the province's socio-economic development rapidly and sustainably. The focus of population policy in the coming time is to shift from population and family planning to population and development.

Towards the 55th anniversary of the Traditional Day of Vietnam Population Work (December 26, 1961 - December 26, 2016); is an opportunity for us to continue to respond and show strong support for the Party and State's population and family planning policy, affirming our determination to achieve the goal of having a small family to raise well, each couple only having 1-2 children to stabilize the scale, soon reach the replacement fertility level, and improve population quality.

Every citizen needs to deeply realize that population and family planning work is a very important preparation step for the input of quality human resources - one of the main factors determining the rapid and sustainable development of the homeland and country.

LE MINH THONG-

Member of Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of Provincial People's Committee