Prime Minister chairs meeting of National Committee for Education and Training Innovation

Also attending the meeting were Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, Vice Chairman of the Committee; former Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan, Chairwoman of the Vietnam Association for Promoting Education; Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Kim Son; Minister of Science and Technology Huynh Thanh Dat; Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc; Minister, Chairman of the Ethnic Committee Hau A Lenh; Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee for Culture and Education Nguyen Dac Vinh; leaders of ministries, branches and agencies.

This is an important meeting to continue institutionalizing and concretizing the Party's policies and guidelines on preschool education; developing preschool education for children under 5 years old with quality suitable to the conditions of each locality and educational institution, helping children develop physically, emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically, forming the first elements of personality, laying the foundation for the formation and development of core values ​​of Vietnamese people.

In his opening speech, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that after 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 29 dated November 4, 2013 of the Politburo "On fundamental and comprehensive innovation of education and training, meeting the requirements of industrialization and modernization in the context of a socialist-oriented market economy and international integration", education and training have made strong developments and achieved many important achievements, contributing to improving people's knowledge, developing human resources, nurturing talents; making important contributions to the country's development process.

In particular, preschool education has made important developments in terms of scale and quality of care, nurturing and education of children. The whole country has completed universal preschool education for 5-year-old children. The network of preschool schools and classes is constantly being consolidated, expanded and diversified in types. The rate of mobilizing children in nurseries and kindergartens aged 3-4 and 4-5 years old has increased every year. Conditions to ensure the quality of preschool education have gradually been standardized and invested in development towards standardization and modernization.

Besides the achieved results, education and training in general, and preschool education in particular, still have shortcomings and limitations that need to be promptly overcome; there are still difficulties and challenges ahead that require great efforts to overcome.

The Prime Minister emphasized that preschool education plays a particularly important role in the national education system, in the strategy for human resource development and human development in Vietnam. Preschool education is the level of education for the youngest age in the process of human development. Building and developing people must be laid the foundation from the early years of life.

On the other hand, our Party and State have identified education and training together with science and technology as the top national policy; developing high-quality human resources as one of three strategic breakthroughs; building and protecting the country based on three pillars (building socialist democracy, socialist rule of law state, developing a socialist-oriented market economy), with the consistent viewpoint: People are the center, subject, goal, resource, and driving force of development; not sacrificing progress and social justice to pursue mere growth; the most valuable capital, the decisive factor is people.

Therefore, preschool education needs to continue to implement the roadmap of fundamental innovation, towards universalizing preschool education for preschool children from 3-5 years old, preparing the foundation for children to develop comprehensively and be ready for lifelong learning, contributing to the development of high-quality human resources from an early age and from a distance.

Recently, the Central Committee issued Resolution No. 42 dated November 24, 2023 on continuing to innovate and improve the quality of social policies to meet the requirements of national construction and protection in the new period; continuing to affirm the Party's views on social policies, including education policies to serve human development; setting the goal by 2030 to "Complete universal preschool education for preschool children from 3 to 5 years old...".

In that spirit, the Prime Minister requested the members of the Committee and delegates attending the meeting to express their opinions and discuss thoroughly in a frank, open and constructive spirit; comprehensively assess preschool education in the past time: Achievements; shortcomings, limitations and causes; draw lessons from experience to determine directions, tasks and practical, accurate and correct solutions to realize the Party's policies and guidelines on innovation and development of preschool education in the coming period.