DECISION

APPROVING THE SCHEME ON QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF LAW DISSEMINATION AND EDUCATION AT SCHOOLS

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;
Pursuant to the Government's Resolution No. 61/2007/NQ-CP of December 7, 2007, on continued implementation of the IXth Party Central Committee Secretariat's Directive No. 32-CT/TW on the Party's increased leadership in law dissemination and education and raising law awareness of officers and people;
Pursuant to the Prime Minister's Decision No. 37/2008/QD-TTg of March 12, 2008, approving the program on law dissemination and education from 2008 to 2012;
At the proposal of the Minister of Education and Training,

DECIDES:

Article 1. To approve the Scheme on quality improvement of law dissemination and education at schools with the following principal contents:

1. Objectives

To raise the quality and effectiveness of law dissemination and education at schools. To create remarkable changes in awareness about and sense of respect for and law-abiding behaviors of teachers, education administrators and students, contributing to stabilizing the educational environment and improving the quality of comprehensive education.

2. Requirements

a/ To take over previous results of and experience in law dissemination and education, ensuring the continuity and systematicity of law dissemination and education.

b/ To select contents and forms of law dissemination and education suitable to target groups of different ages, trades and occupations and in different geographical areas along the line of associating theory with realities, learning with practice.

c/ To combine curricular with extra-curricular activities; to reasonably integrate and incorporate legal contents into Ethics and Citizen Education and some other subjects of general education; to ensure the transferability of knowledge between educational grades and training levels. To combine lecturing with outside-class educational activities.

d/ To combine law dissemination and education with ethics education and the response to emulation campaigns and movements in the education sector; to coordinate forces in charge of law dissemination and education within and outside the education sector.

3. Scheme implementation scope and duration

The Scheme shall be implemented at all educational grades and training levels of the national education system from 2009 to 2012.

4. Tasks

a/ To teach appropriate legal knowledge at all educational grades and training levels:

- For preschool education: To introduce some simple legal contents on traffic, family, environment, sanitation at public places and food hygiene and safety into games for preschool-age groups in order to prepare initial psychological sense of law for future first graders;

- For general education: To improve the quality of teaching and learning Ethics and Citizen Education subjects towards providing knowledge and drilling skills to perform basic civil rights and obligations and law-established rights and obligations associated with students' life and study. To attach importance to legal contents on traffic safety, environmental protection, food hygiene and safety and social evil prevention and control. To attach particular importance to education to raise students' sense of law compliance and lawful habits. Ethnics and Citizen Education curricula at the general education level must, to some extent, have a flexible design to enable appropriate adaptation in different geographical areas;

- For tertiary and professional secondary education: To teach basic legal knowledge for students of all disciplines at universities, colleges and professional secondary schools. To ensure that graduates of universities, colleges and professional secondary schools are equipped with basic legal theory so that they can continue studying specific law branches on their own:

- For vocational training: To continue implementing the Law subject program in vocational training schools, focusing on specific legal contents, particularly the laws on labor and contracts and regulations on particular trades and occupations;

- For continuing education: To select basic, necessary and relevant contents for continuing education programs and learners with law and citizen education being compulsory for programs under which diplomas of the national education system are granted.

b/ To effectively carry out extra-curricular and outside-class law education activities: To adopt various forms of extra-curricular and outside-class law dissemination and education activities to promptly supplement knowledge for curricular lectures; to update new legal knowledge and create trust in and affection of law for learners. These activities should be diversified, lively and appropriate to each group of learners and organized regularly or integrated into historical event celebrations, new year festivals and major campaigns of the education sector.

c/ To increase the number and improve the quality of teachers, lecturers and officers engaged in law dissemination and education:

- To sufficiently supplement lecturers and teachers who have been professionally or basically trained in law to teach law at universities, colleges, professional secondary schools and vocational schools;

- To sufficiently supplement professionally trained teachers to teach Citizen Education subject at upper secondary schools;

- To sufficiently supplement teachers who have been professionally or basically trained in law to teach Citizen Education subject at lower secondary schools;

- To train in relevant legal knowledge for kindergarten, primary and continuing education teachers;

- To develop law rapporteurs of the education sector from central to grassroots level; to assign enthusiastic and responsible officers with legal qualifications to take charge of law dissemination and education in education administration agencies and educational institutions.

d/ To supplement documents and equipment for law dissemination and education at schools:

- To supplement teaching and learning reference materials; theme-based law materials; outlines on law propagation, law questions-answers, general law books, law newspapers and magazines, books on systematic legal knowledge and other materials for law dissemination and education; to maintain and develop law bookcases at educational institutions;

- To make lists of and manufacture sets of model law-teaching aids appropriate to each educational grade for effective and uniform use in the education sector. To attach importance to using electronic and information technology media and visual aids in teaching and learning Law and Citizen Education subjects.

e/ To build legal research, training and consultancy establishments:

- To build legal research, training and consultancy establishments under Hanoi Law University, Ho Chi Minh City Law University, Da Nang University and the Law Faculty of the National University of Hanoi;

- To build legal consultancy centers under the Government's Decree No. 77/2008/ND-CP of July 16, 2008, on legal consultancy at eligible educational institutions.

5. Solutions

a/ To thoroughly grasp guiding documents and regulations on law dissemination and education, to continue the dissemination of the Party Central Committee Secretariat's Directive No. 32-CT/TW of December 9, 2003, on the Party's increased leadership in law dissemination and education and raising the sense of law observance of cadres and people; the Party Central Committee Secretariat's Conclusion Notice No. 74-TB/TW of May 11, 2007, on continued implementation of Directive No. 32-CT/TW; the Government's Resolution No. 61/2007/NQ-CP of December 7, 2007, on continued implementation of Directive No. 32-CT/TW; the Prime Minister's Decision No. 37/2008/QD-TTg of March 12, 2008, approving the program on law dissemination and education from 2008 to 2012, and other related documents and materials on law dissemination and education at schools.

b/ To supplement and complete legal documents on law dissemination and education in the education sector:

- To elaborate and issue regulations on general law subject curricula for non-law universities and colleges; documents revising and supplementing the Citizen Education curricula; and documents on legal training programs for lecturers and teachers;

- To promulgate a number of legal documents on law dissemination and education coordination, rapporteurs, and regimes and policies at schools.

c/ To review, formulate and improve programs, training manuals and textbooks on law education:

- To review and improve the Ethics and Citizen Education curricula;

- To elaborate curricula for law subjects

For tertiary education: To develop a uniform general law curriculum for universities and colleges to introduce basic and general legal knowledge into training programs of all training disciplines from the 2009-2010 academic year. To study and introduce appropriate legal training into specific disciplines.

For vocational training programs: To review law education programs at vocational training levels for supplementation, completion and uniform implementation from the 2009-2010 academic year.

To continue improving the law training program and programs to train citizen education lecturers and teachers at collegial and university levels at teachers colleges and teacher and education administrator training institutions.

For continuing education: To study, guide and introduce basic, simplified, practical and appropriate legal contents for training at continuing educational institutions.

- Training manuals: To compile general law training manuals for uniform use in non-law tertiary and professional educational institutions;

- Textbooks: To review and modify contents of textbooks of the Citizen Education subject appropriate to learners of different ages and in different geographical areas. To study and supplement integrated legal contents to textbooks of other related subjects.

d/ To evaluate, increase the number and improve the quality of, teachers, lecturers, rapporteurs and officers engaged in law dissemination and education:

- To evaluate teachers, lecturers, rapporteurs and officers engaged in law dissemination and education in education administration agencies and educational institutions so as to adopt plans to train them and increase their number and quality to meet the increasing requirements of law dissemination and education;

- To train and retrain to improve the quality of law lecturers and teachers:

To expand training of Citizen Education teachers, prioritizing training of those for lower secondary schools.

To sufficiently add law lecturers and teachers in tertiary and professional educational institutions; Citizen Education teachers in general education institutions through recruiting professional trainers in combination with providing basic legal training for lecturers and teachers of social sciences and humanities who will teach Law and Citizen Education.

To train in standard knowledge and training methods for untrained lecturers and teachers of Law and Citizen Education to raise their professional qualification and skills. To regularly train in updated legal knowledge and training methods for teachers and lecturers.

To organize competitions for Citizen Education teachers in educational institutions, districts and provinces and nationwide.

- To study and supplement regimes and policies to support lecturers and teachers of Law and Citizen Education and officers engaged in law dissemination and education, and law rapporteurs.

e/ To list and supplement documentary materials and equipment for law dissemination and education:

- Materials: To make a list of basic documents for law dissemination and education at schools. To increasingly develop and distribute documents on general law dissemination and education; reference documents for law teaching and learning; specific, practical and attractive instructions on law application with diversified contents and forms. To adopt mechanisms to reduce prices of or provide free essential law materials for those in deep-lying and remote areas and those in areas meeting with exceptionally difficult economic conditions;

- Equipment: To make a list of and manufacture sets of model basic equipment for Law and Citizen Education teaching. To study and develop sets of aids for Law and Citizen Education teaching and learning.

f/ To develop uniform programs on and improve the quality of law dissemination and education in extra-curricular activities: To develop extra-curriculum programs on law dissemination and education, concentrating on such forms as theme reporting, law quizzes, incorporation of legal contents into cultural activities and art performances, dissemination in the mass media, distribution of documents and leaflets. To attach importance to encouraging students' participation in political and social practice and scientific research into real legal matters.

g/ To organize competitions of, and scientific research into, law dissemination and education for students: To organize Citizen Education competitions for students at general education institutions; to annually organize the Law Olympiad contests for students at tertiary, collegial and professional secondary institutions and national law Olympiad contests.

To carry out scientific research into law dissemination and education to provide theoretical grounds for the renewal and improvement of this work.

h/ To select educational institutions of different educational grades and training levels for pilot law dissemination and education. Such selection must reflect the diversity of educational grades, disciplines, training levels and geographical areas nationwide.

i/ To support difficulty-hit areas: To provide materials, equipment, law bookcases and train teachers, officers and rapporteurs for a number of education administration agencies and educational institutions in deep-lying and remote areas and those meeting with exceptionally economic difficulties, creating conditions for improving the quality of, and narrowing the gap between geographical areas in, law dissemination and education.

j/ To coordinate concerned agencies and organizations in and promote the socialization of law dissemination and education

To increase coordination between the education sector and the justice sector, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and agencies and organizations from central to grassroots level to improve the quality of law dissemination and education at schools.

To promote the socialization of law dissemination and education activities, to increasingly involve economic organizations, international organizations and organizations and individuals in law dissemination and education activities at schools.

6. Funds

- Funds for the Scheme implementation shall be allocated from the state budget according to the current decentralization mechanism and from other mobilized and financial sources. Annual cost estimates shall be detailed under the State Budget Law based on the Scheme approved by the Prime Minister.

- Central state budget funds for the Scheme implementation are estimated at VND 37.6 billion. The Ministry of Education and Training shall annually detail cost estimates for central state budget funds and submit them to the Ministry of Finance.

Funds for the Scheme implementation in localities shall be allocated from local budgets. Provincial-level People's Committees shall, based on the Scheme's activities in their localities, annually make cost estimates and submit them to provincial-level People's Councils for approval.

7. Organization of implementation

a/ The Minister of Education and Training shall set up a steering committee for the Scheme, which is composed of representatives of the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Public Security, the Central Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and some concerned agencies and units with the leader of the Ministry of Education and Training as its head.

The steering committee shall coordinate agencies and units in elaborating plans and implementing the Scheme, examining, regularly reviewing and reporting on annual implementation results to the Prime Minister.

The steering committee head shall set up a secretariat for the Scheme and adopt working rules of the steering committee and secretariat.

b/ The Ministry of Education and Training, which is the standing body of the Scheme, shall:

- Direct and organize the review and improvement of curricula, training manuals and textbooks for general, tertiary, collegial and professional secondary education;

- Direct and organize the training and retraining of Law and Citizen Education teachers and law officers and rapporteurs of the education sector;

- Compile documents for law dissemination and education and develop sets of model equipment for law teaching at schools;

- Set up a section on law dissemination and education at schools on the website of the Ministry and guide its use in the education sector;

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in, elaborating legal documents to meet requirements of law dissemination and education at schools;

- Direct education administration agencies and educational institutions under its management in organizing law dissemination and education according to the contents and plan of the Scheme; coordinate with the Ministry of Finance in formulating plans to use funds for the Scheme implementation at the central level;

- Act as the standing body of the steering committee for the Scheme.

c/ The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs shall:

- Direct and organize the review and improvement of curricula and training manuals of law for vocational training levels;

- Direct and organize the training and retraining of law teachers in vocational establishments:

- Direct and organize the implementation of the Scheme's contents related to its functions and tasks.

d/ The Ministry of Justice shall:

- Coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs in improving curricula, training manuals, textbooks and materials and training law lecturers, teachers and rapporteurs for law dissemination and education at schools;

- Direct agencies and units of the justice sector in coordinating with the education sector in law dissemination and education at schools;

- Direct the integration of this Scheme's contents into the Scheme on consolidation and improvement of the quality of human resources for law dissemination and education to meet requirements of national renewal and development.

e/ The Ministry of Finance shall:

- Allocate annual budgets under the State Budget Law to ministries, branches and localities for the effective implementation of the Scheme;

- Coordinate with the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Home Affairs in studying and promulgating regimes to support teachers and lecturers of Law and Citizen Education;

- Guide ministries, ministerial-level agencies, government-attached agencies and provinces and centrally run cities in using annually allocated regular budgets and other lawful financial sources for the implementation of the Scheme and other schemes under the Government's program on law dissemination and education in the 2008-2012 period.

f/ The Ministry of Home Affairs shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinaie with the Ministry of Education and Training, the Ministry of Labor. War Invalids and Social Affairs and concerned ministries and branches in, promulgating documents on regimes to support teachers and lecturers of Law and Citizen Education.

g/ The Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Public Security and ministries and branches directly managing educational institutions of the national education system shall:

- Plan and organize the implementation of the Scheme together the program on law dissemination and education in the 2008-2012 period promulgated together with the Prime Minister's Decision No. 37/2008/QD-TTg:

- Ensure funds for the Scheme implementation under the State Budget Law and the Ministry of Finance's guidance:

- Proactively examine and annually review the Scheme implementation for reporting to the Scheme steering committee for summing up and reporting to the Prime Minister.

h/ Provincial-level People's Committees shall:

- Plan and organize the implementation of the Scheme in their localities in combination with the program on law dissemination and education in the 2008-2012 period promulgated together with the Prime Minister's Decision No. 37/2008/ QD-TTg;

- Direct provincial-level Education and Training Departments and Labor. War Invalids and Social Affairs Departments, agencies and units under their management in implementing the Scheme and programs, increasing the number and improving the qualifications of, and implementing policies for, law teachers at schools under regulations;

- Direct teachers schools and teacher and education administrator training institutions under their management in expanding training of Law and Citizen Education teachers to meet local demands;

- Direct local agencies and organizations in coordinating in implementing law dissemination and education programs at schools;

- Ensure funds for the Scheme implemen­tation under the State Budget Law and the Ministry of Finance's guidance.

i/ Tasks of teachers schools and teacher and education administrator training institutions

- To add the code of Citizen Education teacher training for institutions lacking this code;

- To increase the capacity and expand the training scale of departments and faculties for training teachers of Law and Citizen Education to meet teaching and learning requirements for these subjects;

- To coordinate in retraining in professional expertise and skills and teaching skills for teachers of Law and Citizen Education.

Article 2. This Decision takes effect on the date of its signing.

Article 3. The Minister of Education and Training shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with concerned ministries and branches in, implementing this Scheme.

Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies and chairpersons of provincial-level People's Committees shall implement this Decision.-