Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense: Taking training quality and job creation as the number 1 priority

Diversity in training

Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense, formerly the Employment Promotion Center - Military Region 4, was established on December 6, 1993. Six years after its operation, the school merged with the Automobile and Motorcycle Club under the Military Region Technical Department.

Excavator operation class for students of Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense. Photo: QP4 School

This is an important premise for the unit to be upgraded to a Vocational School (2002), a Vocational Secondary School (2007). With rapid development in both scale and training quality, on May 4, 2011, the school was issued Decision No. 534/QD-LDTBXH by the Minister of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs to establish Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense. This is an important turning point, a premise for Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense to be honored to become one of 45 schools that the Government has focused on investing in to become a high-quality vocational school.

Since its establishment, the most important political task of Vocational College No. 4 has been to provide vocational training and create jobs for demobilized soldiers, police officers, and people's children according to social needs.

Deeply aware of the mission, the school's Board of Directors always considers and proposes many solutions to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The main goal is to train quality students, meeting the needs of human resources and the trend of regional and international integration.

To carry out the above tasks, in recent years, the school has focused on innovating enrollment work, innovating training programs, diversifying training types, ensuring synchronous facilities, managing and evaluating students' learning and training results, affirming prestige, and developing training scale.

The school has built and completed 12 college programs; 12 intermediate programs and 7 vocational elementary programs; ensuring modular teaching and vertical and horizontal connectivity; increasing practical training time to 70% of total training time; closely following the needs of businesses and international integration.

Vocational training at Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense. Photo: Document

Training quality is also affirmed by the vocational training curriculum built by the school according to international and ASEAN standards and updated to suit production practices, closely following the human resource needs of businesses and international integration in the era of the 4.0 industrial revolution.

In particular, among the training professions, the school has 2 professions that approach world technology: Automotive Technology, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineering; 4 professions that approach regional technology: Welding, Industrial Electricity, Construction Machine Operation, Nursing; Pharmacy has reached the national level.

Major General Ha Tan Tien - Deputy Commander of the Military Region visits a practical class at the school. Photo: Thanh Tinh

Along with that, the school has expanded training for all other subjects according to demand. The school is honored to be the first school in Nghe An province to be selected by the Provincial People's Committee to pilot successful streaming (combining cultural studies and vocational training), on that basis for the Provincial People's Committee to implement Decision No. 3010/QD-UBND.VX on approving "Streamlining, career guidance, vocational training for students after secondary school".

With outstanding efforts, in recent years, although the vocational school system has always struggled with enrollment, at Vocational College No. 4, the number of students and demobilized soldiers studying the following year is always higher than the previous year.

In the past 5 years alone, the school has trained over 65,000 students, of which 60% are retired soldiers, exceeding 23.8% of the target set by the Party Congress Resolution for the term.

Notably, by choosing the "enterprise training model as a breakthrough" and implementing the motto "Training quality is the top choice, job creation is the number one priority", the school's training is always associated with the rights of learners, associated with solving the problem of employment for those after graduation.

Therefore, currently more than 90% of technical students have jobs and stable incomes after graduation, and are increasingly appreciated by businesses for their awareness and professional style.

Leaders of the General Department of Vocational Education - Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs visited the school's booth at the Job Consulting Day. Photo: Thanh Tinh

For many years, the school has also had close connections with many businesses and corporations such as: Lilama Vietnam Machinery Installation Corporation, Song Da 5 Corporation, CTGT4 Corporation, Canon Vietnam Co., Ltd. to find jobs for students. In addition, the unit also cooperates with universities and colleges in Korea, Japan, and the Federal Republic of Germany to both train and supply labor to foreign markets...

Dedicated, focused on the interests of learners

Identifying that improving the quality of the teaching staff is a decisive factor in the training task, in recent years, Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense has regularly paid attention to, cared for, and standardized the staff and lecturers according to the requirements of the criteria for a high-quality vocational school.

Practical teaching session of teacher Nguyen Van Hai - Faculty of Electronics and Refrigeration, a teacher who has won many awards at the competition for excellent teachers. Photo: Duc Anh

Currently, 100% of the school's teachers meet the required standards, the number with postgraduate degrees has increased by 20% compared to 2015. In the past 5 years, 2 teachers have been awarded the title of Excellent Teacher by the State; 16 lecturers have been recognized as Excellent Teachers by the Ministry of National Defense.

For many consecutive years, the school's teachers have participated in teaching competitions at all levels and nationwide, always leading the vocational education schools of the province and the Army. The measure of training quality is that students participating in vocational competitions at all levels and nationwide have achieved excellent results, ranking in the leading group of vocational schools in the Army and the Central region.

Major General Nguyen Duc Hoa - Deputy Political Commissar of Military Region 4 inspects teaching equipment at Vocational College No. 4 in Thanh Hoa. Photo: PV

The school has also done a good job of coordinating and attracting resources to invest in developing facilities and teaching equipment such as the source from the National Vocational Training Capacity Enhancement Project; the Austrian ODA7 Project worth 3.2 million Euros. In particular, at this time, the Thanh Hoa branch project located in Quang Thanh ward, Thanh Hoa city has just been completed and is preparing to be put into use. The entire project is built on a total area of ​​5 hectares with a total investment in equipment and construction of 135 billion VND.

Previously, Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense - Thanh Hoa Branch was the only unit in Thanh Hoa province providing on-site vocational training for demobilized soldiers. In addition, the school also provided training for demobilized police officers, secondary and high school students; poor and near-poor households, ethnic minorities, and mountainous areas...

Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense, Thanh Hoa campus has just been completed and put into use. Photo: PV

With the expansion and upgrading of facilities, Thanh Hoa branch continues to diversify training types, expand the scope of training scale, apply science and technology to training management. At the same time, it is expected to expand the training professions from 11 to 15 in the coming years.

Talking about the process of more than 25 years of construction and growth ofVocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense, Colonel, Meritorious Teacher Nguyen Truong Son - Party Secretary, Principal of the school also affirmed: Today's success is the result of a process of perseverance and tireless efforts of generations of leaders and teachers of the school. The achievements have also contributed to strengthening trust, reputation, brand and creating motivation for the school to continue to successfully complete the task of training human resources for socio-economic development and following the integration trend.

With outstanding and comprehensive achievements, Vocational College No. 4 - Ministry of National Defense has been awarded many noble titles and awards; Second-class Labor Medal; The Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Nghe An Provincial People's Committee, Military Region 4 Command have awarded many Emulation Flags and Certificates of Merit. In particular, on October 17, 2018, the School was honored to receive the President's decision to award the First-class Labor Medal.