Recently, speaking at a working session with the Education and Training sector on the preparation for the new 2026-2027 school year and the results of implementing Resolution 71-NQ/TW of the Politburo on breakthroughs in education and training development, General Secretary and President To Lam emphasized a very important orientation: Education and training innovation must strongly shift from the thinking of "education management" to "education development management".
Talking to Lao Dong Newspaper, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dinh Duc - who has held many leadership and management positions at Vietnam National University, Hanoi - said that this is a breakthrough direction for the entire education system.
Professor assesses, what is the biggest difference between these two approaches?
- In my opinion, the fundamental difference lies in the fact that: "education management" often leans towards controlling processes, procedures, staff, plans, and records; while "education development management" is constructive thinking, taking human quality, school development capacity and social efficiency as the center.
If "education management" answers the question: How to make the system operate in accordance with procedures and regulations, then "education development management" must answer a higher question: How to make each school better; each teacher is best promoted; each student develops their abilities, qualities, creativity and ability to adapt to the future best.
This is a very important message, a strong change in both thinking and action.
With general education, this requires schools not only to complete the curriculum, exams, and records, but also to build a humane, safe, and liberal educational environment; early detect students at risk of falling behind; reduce achievement disease; increase self-learning ability, critical thinking, digital ability, foreign languages, life skills, and adapt well to the requirements of the times.
With vocational education, development management means that training must be linked to the labor market, new technologies, and the needs of businesses and localities; not training according to inertia, not chasing after quantity, but must measure employment, vocational skills, productivity and adaptability of learners.
With higher education, the impact is even more particularly strong and profound. Universities must shift from an administrative model to a self-reliant, innovative model, associated with accountability. Universities are not only places to award degrees, but must be centers for training high-quality human resources, scientific research, innovation, creativity - knowledge transfer and development of high technologies, strategic technologies. If the country wants to develop quickly, sustainably, self-reliantly, and strongly, higher education must be strongly innovative, breakthrough and take a step ahead.
I believe that if this spirit is properly implemented, Resolution 71-NQ/TW will create a very fundamental reform, helping Vietnamese education move from operating under administrative orders to developing by vision, data, quality, autonomy, efficiency and responsibility.
According to Professor, what is the biggest barrier for educational institutions when switching to a development management model?
The biggest barrier, in my opinion, is not only lack of money, lack of facilities or lack of teachers, but the deepest is that thinking and governance institutions have not kept up with development requirements.
For many years, many educational institutions have been familiar with operating according to targets, procedures, asking - giving, and administrative reports. State functional agencies related to the management of educational activities also have a mindset of closely following procedures and regulations, and this sometimes hinders creativity and innovation for development.
With general education, the barrier is that principals and teachers are still bound by too many procedures, reports, and rigid regulations; the right to initiative is not commensurate with responsibility.
With higher education, the barrier is incomplete and unsynchronized autonomy. Autonomy cannot only be understood as financial autonomy, opening a major or self-deciding to increase tuition fees. Genuine university autonomy must include comprehensive autonomy in academia, organization, personnel, finance, international cooperation, scientific research, technology transfer; and must go hand in hand with quality accreditation, public disclosure of results and accountability.
Another barrier is the evaluation culture. If we still mainly evaluate schools based on the number of applications, superficial achievements, graduation rates, the number of topics, and the number of publications, without paying due attention to the real quality, real impact, real capacity of learners and the ability of schools to innovate and make real contributions to society, especially high and fast requirements in the new stage as it is now, it is very difficult to switch to development management.
Therefore, this transformation must start from innovating thinking, innovating institutions, innovating regulations, processes, policies; innovating measurement methods, innovating resource allocation and innovating trust in schools. The State plays a constructive, orienting, accrediting and ensuring fairness role; while schools must be granted autonomy in terms of area and substance to be creative, responsible and develop.
So what additional capacities does the current school management team need to be trained to meet the new requirements, Professor?
In my opinion, education managers in the new period cannot only be administrative operators but must become development managers, academic leaders, creators of the education environment, innovation environment and connectors of social resources.
First of all, it is necessary to foster strategic thinking capacity. High school principals, directors of vocational education institutions, and university principals must know how to build a vision for school development in 5 years, 10 years and beyond; know how to identify advantages, missions, quality goals, attract talents and resources for development, not just make plans and implement school year plans according to templates.
To have strategic thinking, the school leadership team not only has knowledge, ambitions, and vision, but also needs to have a process of practical experience, growing from practice, understanding practice, grasping the situation and development trends in the country and in the world.
Second is data-based governance capacity. Managers must know how to use data to identify and objectively assess teacher shortages, teacher quality; facilities and infrastructure status; classroom overload, learning quality, risk of dropping out of school; investment efficiency, human resource needs; level of satisfaction of learners and society. Data must serve governance decisions, not just reporting.
Third is quality management capacity and accountability. Schools must know how to self-assess, accredit, publicize quality, listen to feedback, and continuously improve. Educational quality cannot only lie on text, but must be reflected in the capacity, personality, health, skills, jobs and social contributions of learners.
Fourth is the ability to digitally transform and apply artificial intelligence. Management staff must understand technology deeply enough to organize teaching, management, evaluation, and support students and teachers more intelligently. Digital transformation is not digitizing records, but changing management methods and learning methods.
Fifth is connectivity capacity. High schools must be associated with families, communities, and localities. Vocational schools must be associated with businesses. Universities must be associated with research institutes, businesses, localities, and networks of domestic and foreign experts. In particular, universities must become innovation centers, places to form human resources for strategic industries such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, new materials, new energy, high-speed railways, biotechnology, and aerospace.
In addition, the management team of educational institutions must also have special capacity in deploying innovation activities, deploying research and development (R&D) in higher education, making worthy and effective contributions to the implementation of Resolution 57.
Finally, very important is the humane leadership capacity. Education is the cause of nurturing people. Management officials must know how to inspire, protect the dignity of teachers, arouse the aspiration to learn, build a disciplined but united, humane environment, attract talent, compete but healthy, modern but still retain the foundation of Vietnamese tradition and culture.
I believe that when the management team is trained in that direction, the transition from "education management" to "education development management" will no longer be a slogan, but become a real motivation for Vietnamese education to take off.
Thank you very much, Professor!
