Mr. Thomas Eckert, Regional Security Officer, the Embassy of the United States of America in Vietnam,

Dr. Wayne McIntosh, Associate Dean of College of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Maryland,

Major General Nguyen Van Hanh, Deputy Chief Judge of People’s Supreme Court of Vietnam, Chief Judge of the Central Military Court,

Mr. Tran Trung Vinh, Deputy Head of 165 Project Office, Central Organization Committee of Communist Party of Vietnam,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

On behalf of the Ministry of Public Security of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to attend the Graduation Ceremony of the second cohort of the joint master’s degree in justice leadership between the People’s Police Academy and University of Maryland today, I would like to present the respectful greeting to distinguished guests and congratulate the students for your graduation.

Distinguished guests,

Talking about tertiary education, Ho Chi Minh President said that “at Bachelor training level, we need to combine the scientific theory with practice, try to learn the scientific and advanced theory of other countries then combine with the reality of our country to make a practical contribution to the Nation Development”. His thoughts on education and training has been still valuable for us in training Vietnamese generations and given direction for the comprehensive education and training innovation in the period of industrialization, modernization and international integration currently.

The People’s Police Academy which was established in 1968 is under Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam, and belongs to the national university education system. It's the largest training institution of Police Force. The main duties of the Academy is conducting bachelor training program, master training program and doctor training program; organizing advanced training for police commanders and implementing international cooperation in police training Through its training and education, the People’s Police Academy has provided high quality human resource serving for criminal combating and prevention of Public Security force of Vietnam and Police forces of other countries.

Implement the policies and guidelines of the Communist Party, the State and the Ministry of Public Security on strengthening the international cooperation on education and training, the Academy has become the leading institution of Police Training Institutions in promoting the international cooperation. The Academy has trained for 5,200 cadets for People’s Public Security force, Police Force of Laos and Cambodia at all training types. Currently, the Academy has officially become the member of International Association of Police Academies (INTERPA); has developed the cooperation relationship with nearly 20 police training institutions and police agencies of other countries in region and in the world.

Since 2011, with the approvals of the leaders of Ministry of Public Security, Central Organization Committee of Communist Party and Ministry of Education and Training, the People’s Police Academy has collaborated with University of Maryland, the United States of America to organize 2 cohorts of joint master’s degree in justice leadership. The Cohort was conducted in 18 months including 12 months of studying in Vietnam, 05 months of preparing for final presentation in Vietnam and nearly 01 month of presenting final reports in the United States of America. The Degree is granted by University of Maryland. The first cohort had 38 students, started from April 2011 to October 2012. The second cohort has 30 students, started from April 2015. The students have completed all the courses, final presentation and will graduate today.

The joint training program between the People’s Police Academy, Ministry of Public Security and University of Maryland, the United States of America is new, useful and highly effective in improving the knowledge and experiences for the officers who are the students of the program. Through researching and studying, the students have gained a lot of advanced knowledge about criminal justice of Vietnam and of the world. They have also studied lots of leadership and management skills to apply into their work. The American partner has also appreciated and considered this program is a priority program among their international collaboration programs.

In the Graduation ceremony today, I acknowledge and appreciate the People’s Police Academy has proactively cooperated with University of Maryland, the United States to organize the 2 cohorts. I would like to express the sincere thanks to the lecturers and staffs of University of Maryland for your closely cooperation with the People’s Police Academy in successfully organizing, managing and coordinating the program.

On behalf of the Ministry of Public Security of Vietnam, I appreciate and congratulate the good relationship between the two institutions, congratulate the students for successful cohort.

Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the context of globalization and international integration currently, there are a lot of advantages, however, we have also faced with a lot of challenges. According to Friedman, the American famous economist: Accompany with globalization, there are the flow of investment, flow of immigration, flow of crimes and flow of pollution, etc. flowing into developing countries, including Vietnam. The situation of transnational crimes, cybercrimes, money laundering, human trafficking, weapon trafficking, drug crime have been complicated. The fourth revolution in science and technology has taken placed with the large scale and high speech integrated many areas, characterized by robot technology, cybernetics affecting the socio-economic, defense and security of each country.

The mentioned situation makes the requirement of enhancing the capacity for law enforcement force, enhancing the effectiveness of criminal combating and prevention. To achieve that, international cooperation in education and training is an accurate approach to acquire scientific knowledge and skills of learning and scientific research of the prestige training institutions in the world. In coming time, to more improve the effectiveness of international integration in education and training of Ministry of Public Security in general and of the People’s Police Academy in particular in order to provide high quality human resource for law enforcement implementation and criminal combating and prevention, I request the People’s Police Academy to focus on some following duties:

(1) Continue to basically and comprehensively renovate the international cooperation in education and training to study the experience, technology of the partners to develop the Academy; present the detail methods to improve the quality and renovate the teaching and learning methods.

Research and propose the standard criteria which is suitable with the characteristics of the Academy and the reality of criminal combating and prevention of Vietnam.

To study and formulate the criteria standards of product quality education in line with the specific characteristics of education, training and practice of the School of the work set out in the fight against crime. The requirement is set to train police officers on operational stability, good at foreign languages, information technology skills to use tools to support adaptation to the characteristics of the crime situation and the conditions other particular in Vietnam. The requirement is to prepare the police officers with good professional knowledge, good English, good computer skills, good skills in using the modern equipment fitting with the situation and context of Vietnam.

(2) The People's Police Academy proactively cooperates with Police Forces of related units and local police stations to evaluate to see the lesson learn when implementing the joint education programs; Cooperates with functional units of Ministry of Public Security and 165 Project, University of Maryland to propose the Leaders of Ministry of Public Security to implement the next cohorts to provide high quality human resource serving for the law enforcement implementation and protect the security and social order of the Nation.

The Academy needs to do the survey to evaluate the quality after training by evaluate the working capacity of the graduated students at their agencies and units then impale the program for higher effectiveness.

(3) To the students, after graduating this program, with your knowledge, you have to continuously study and creatively apply your knowledge into your work, contributing to the criminal combatting and prevention and social order maintenance of the Country.

On behalf of the Ministry of Public Security, I would like to express the sincere thanks to the Central Organization Committee, 165 Project Office, Ministry of Education and Training for your supports to the People’s Police Academy in international cooperation in education and training in recent years and do hope that will continue receive your supports in the future.

Once again, I would like to send the best wishes to distinguished guests, teachers and students, wish you make more contribution and achievement in teaching, learning and scientific researching. Wish the cooperation relationship between the People’s Police Academy of Vietnam and University of Maryland, Unite States will become more developed.

Thank you!

(*) The title of the article was set by the Editorial Board of PPA’s Web Portal