Attending the special ceremony were Deputy Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Van Phuc, Vice President of the Central Vietnam Association for Promoting Education Truong Thi Hien, Chairwoman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council Nguyen Thi Le and Vice Chairman of the municipal City People's Committee Duong Anh Duc.
Speaking at the ceremony to receive the recognition certificate, Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Le emphasized that Ho Chi Minh City becoming an official member of UNESCO's Global Learning Cities Network is a great honor.
According to the Chairwoman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Council, the ceremony was held in recognition of the southern largest city’s outstanding efforts to make lifelong learning a reality for all at the local level and the world's recognition of policies, commitments, and efforts of Vietnam in general and Ho Chi Minh City in particular in ensuring quality and comprehensive education, promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all people, contributing to improving the status of the country’s education.
Accordingly, the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has implemented the project ‘Smart Education and Lifelong Learning in Ho Chi Minh City for the period 2021-2030’ with the promulgation of many programs and plans to raise party members’, civil servants’ and city dwellers’ awareness of the meaning and importance of promoting learning, promoting talents, and building a learning society in the city.
Therefore, Ms. Le said becoming a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities is an opportunity for all people and the city government to continue to put forward development action programs to make Ho Chi Minh City a place where all people, regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of country can continue to learn. Moreover, becoming a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities will pave the way for creating an open learning environment where each citizen can develop the skills and knowledge needed to adapt and thrive in the digital world, said Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Le.
Address the ceremony, Chief Representative Jonathan Wallace Baker of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Vietnam, said that UNESCO highly appreciates Ho Chi Minh City's implementation of action programs to promote a culture of learning, contributing to the achievements of the goals for quality education which benefit all citizens.
UNESCO's representative said that Ho Chi Minh City has many favorable conditions to apply innovative methods and has a lot of potential in terms of ideas and creativity. Among them, one of the city's recent initiatives is the development and approval of a set of criteria for happy schools that is highly appreciated. The happy school model will be the focus of educational reform, placing happiness as a key factor in improving learning quality.
In the happiness of receiving the certificate of membership of the Global Learning Cities Network, Vice Chairman Duong Anh Duc launched the Action Program to build ‘A UNESCO Global Learning City from 2024 to 2030’ in Ho Chi Minh City.
According to the program, the city continues to effectively deploy learning-related activities, while promoting the participation of the entire state machinery in supporting and mobilizing resources to promote lifelong learning opportunities.
At the same time, the city continues to create fundamental changes in building a learning city and learning society, ensuring that by 2030 all citizens have equal opportunities to access the open education system with many training models, methods, and levels, contributing to the promotion of human resource development, especially high-quality human resources to meet international integration requirements.
Moreover, the Vice Chairman added that the city will develop mechanisms and policies to support and promote activities to build a learning city and lifelong learning as well as mobilize financial resources and coordination of organizations and individuals in promoting lifelong learning and building a learning city and learning society. The city will strive to complete the goals of the Project ‘Building a Learning Society between 2021 and 2030’.
To create stronger changes in building a learning city, improving people's knowledge, training human resources, fostering talents, and ensuring all people are equal in learning, Vice Chairman Duong Anh Duc requested the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City and other departments and organizations to effectively implement the Party and State's guidelines and policies on education, training promotion, talent attraction.
Besides, according to Vice Chairman Duong Anh Duc, the city will increase the application of information technology and digital transformation in implementing the construction of a learning city, develop a management software and report on the results of implementing criteria and indicators in UNESCO's Learning City Criteria Set.
Currently, 64 cities from 35 countries join the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities.
