RESOLUTION

ON THE DIRECTION AND POLICY OF SOCIALIZATION OF EDUCATIONAL, MEDICAL AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES
(ratified by the Government at its regular session in March 1997)

I. GENERAL PERSPECTIVE

To socialize educational, medical and cultural activities is to mobilize and organize the broad participation of the people and the whole society into the development of this work with a view to raising step by step the level of educational, medical and cultural enjoyment of the people and promoting their physical and spiritual development,

Socialization is to build up the sense of community responsibility of the people of various strata toward the building and improvement of a healthy economic and social environment favorable for educational, medical and cultural activities. In each locality this is the sense of community responsibility of the local Party organization, People�s Council, People’s Committee, State agencies, mass organizations, economic organizations, enterprises based in the locality and of each citizen.

Socialization and diversification of the forms of educational, medical and cultural activities are closely connected. Along with strengthening the State organizations it is necessary to widely develop the activities undertaken by the collectives or individuals within the framework of the policies of the Party and the laws of the State. Diversification is actually to broaden the opportunities for various strata of the people to take part of their own free will and on an equal footing in the above activities.

Socialization is to broaden the sources of investment, to exploit the potentials in human, material and financial resources in the society, to develop and effectively use the various resources of the people, create conditions for educational, medical and cultural activities to develop more quickly and with a higher quality. This is a long-term policy and guideline for the realization of the social policy of the Party and State, not a temporary measure to cope with the immediate situation caused by the shortage of State budget for these activities. Even when our people already have a high income and the State budget has become plentiful, socialization will still be necessary because education, healthcare and culture is a long term work of the people which will develop unceasingly together with the great resources of the entire people.

Socialization does not mean to lighten the responsibility of the State or alleviate the State budget; on the contrary, the State needs to constantly look for new revenues to increase budget expenditures for these activities and at the same time exercise good management to increase the efficiency of these expenditures.

Socialization of educational, medical and cultural activities is also an important solution to carry out the policy of social equity in the strategy of economic and social development of the Party and the State. Social equity is reflected not only in the sphere of enjoyment, i.e. the care for the people by the society and the State, but also in the contribution of each citizen to society according to the practical capability of each person and each locality.

The principles of readjustment and priority in the policy of social equity must be applied. It is absolutely necessary to give priority to those persons with meritorious contributions to the country, to assist financially the poor people and the poor localities, those with greater services and contributions to the country must be given better care by the society and the State.

Social equity in the mobilization of the resources of the people into cultural and social activities does not mean an egalitarian mobilization but to apply such form and level of mobilization that accord with the various strata of the population who have different practical conditions and different levels of income. Those persons beneficaries of the social policies of the Party and the State shall be exempted from or enjoy reduction of contributions.

Social equity shall also be achieved through the development of the tradition of mutual assistance, "the whole leaves protecting the torn ones", the rich helping the poor, the rich areas helping the poor areas. It also means to develop many funds through the voluntary contributions of the people for humanitarian purposes such as the fund for the promotion of learning, the charity fund... The State has to promulgate the regulation on the establishment and management of these funds with a view to developing the capability for management and supervision of the contributors and carrying out the regime of making public all revenues and expenditures.

Socialization in the fields of education, healthcare and culture with a correct concept of social equity is actually to carry out the socialist orientation according to the line of the Party.

II. SOCIALIZATION OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

1. The mobilization of the entire people into educational work consists of the following :

To create a wide and deep movement of learning in the whole society in different forms; to campaign among the population, first of all among those in the working age, to learn all their life in order to work better, generate higher incomes, have a better life and to turn our society into a learned society.

To motivate the entire people to care for the young generation, create a healthy educational environment, and closely coordinate education in the school with education in the family and education in the society; to heighten the sense of responsibility of the Party committees, People�s Councils, People’s Committees, mass organizations, enterprises... toward the educational cause.

To heighten the sense of responsibility and increase the participation of the entire people in education with a view to strengthening and increasing the effect of the educational system to serve well the learning of the people.

2. Some undertakings and measures to socialize educational and training activities:

a/ Besides consolidating the State-run schools to help them maintain their leading role and serve as the core, it is necessary to open many forms of education, develop the various types of non-State schools in order to create the opportunities for everyone to raise their standard and have access to new knowledge and scientific and technical advances in order to use them in their daily work and life; to use the mass media to develop the system of distance learning... To perfect the mechanisms for managing and evaluating the results and quality of education.

To encourage and create favorable conditions to develop various types of semi-State, people-funded and private schools in the cities, towns and townships and areas with favorable economic conditions.

The guiding rate (for guiding purpose, not obligatory) for the development of the semi-State, people-funded and private schools in the cities, towns and townships is as follows: the major part shall be pre-school establishments; 10-15% shall be primary schools; 25%, basic secondary schools; and 50%, general secondary schools.

To transfer the vocational secondary schools for restricted branches to the State corporations and companies for direct management, associating training with the using unit. Major companies which need quick development of the personnel are allowed to raise the attached schools to post-graduate schools, provided the corporations shall cover the expenditures themselves.

To gradually transform the State job-training schools into semi-State schools, to develop the people-funded and private job training centers, associating job training with the market and the enterprises.

To strengthen the existing people-funded universities, to allow the setting up of more people-funded universities in a number of localities which need them and which are capable of managing them.

To promulgate concrete policies to support the non-State schools likely to function well. For instance, the People�s Committees in the provinces and cities directly under the Central Government shall support and create conditions in land for the non-State schools to build their schooling facilities. The State agencies shall rent existing establishments and works for such schools to establish their schooling places; the people shall contribute shares to build such schools; the banks shall provide loans with preferential terms so that these schools can invest in building the classes, buy schooling and study equipment; or allow teachers at State-run schools and scientists at the institutes to take part in teaching at these non-State schools. When transferred to semi-State or people-funded or private schools, teachers of public schools shall continue to receive their social insurance benefits.

b/ To exploit and effectively use the social resources to develop education. Along with increasing and effectively using the State budget, it is necessary to improve the regime of school fees and mobilize the contributions of the students� parents and the production and business organizations.

The mobilization of the people�s contributions to education must be carefully considered and based on the living standard and capabilities of the population in each region and each locality with due attention to ensuring social equity, so as to formulate appropriate policies of school fees as well as policies of social allowances and lending for schooling purposes.

To readjust the tuitions at the general education schools in the cities, towns and townships and areas with high average incomes (above the average level in the whole country); to administer lower tuitions in the areas with low average income (below the average income in the whole country); to exempt tutions for the deep-lying and remote areas. To raise tuitions at the job training schools, vocational schools, colleges and universities.

The tuitions at the public schools together with the provisions from the budget must meet the spending needs and assure the reasonable salary of the teachers. An end must be put to the arbitrary collection of money from the students, including the fees for extra-hours teaching which run counter to morality and the pedagogic principles.

The Prime Minister shall lay down the framework of tuition, the mechanism of collection and the use of tuitions, and assigns to the People�s Committees of the provinces and cities directly under the Central Government and the deans of the universities the right to set concrete tuitions in each locality and each university. Aside from tuition, the schools are allowed to collect only two other payments: contribution to the building of the school, and the admission and examination fee. The Ministry of Education and Training shall give the general guidance and determine the competence to decide the amounts of these two payments.

c/ To rationally distribute the educational network according to the economic and geographic conditions, the needs and the capacity of development of each locality .

To clearly determine the responsibility and managerial competence of the local People�s Committee with regard to education and training in the locality, the autonomy and responsibility of the training schools under the central management.

d/ To raise the quality of educational activities, to handle well the relations between size, quality and effectiveness.

To issue the system of norms about educational and training activities. The plans for renovation of education and training must be weighed and examined carefully as to their social and financial impacts.

To raise the quality of text-books, improve the contents and the printing of text- books so that they may be used for many years.

To quickly raise the quality of enrolment and training work of the teachers’ schools; pay attention to increasing the number of teachers for the schools in the mountain, deep-lying and remote areas.

d/ To effectively allocate and use the State budget for education and training in strict conformity with the guiding spirit of the Second Plenum of the Party Central Committee , 8th Tenure.

To priorize the concentrated use of the budget for these requirements: training and fostering the contingent of teachers and improve the salary policy with regard to teachers and managerial workers in the educational service; universalize primary and basic secondary education, for the spearhead branches and fostering talents; raise the educational and training quality.

To improve the method of allocating the educational budget and the mechanism of its management;

- Allocation of the budget for education and training in the localities must be based on the characteristics of each locality (need for educational development, geographic conditions, population density, economic capacity and capabilities of the population to contribute). The budget for training at the central level shall be allocated according to the branches and trades and the size of the enrolment of students.

- To reduce administrative spendings, reduce the number of meetings and spare money for the spendings in direct service of teaching and learning.

- To continue improving the system of scholarships and social allowances and training credits so as to ensure that the poor also have conditions to learn. To augment the scholarships for capable students and students of the disciplines which need to be encouraged.

- To develop learning promotion funds with voluntary contributions from the people and to which the State may partly contribute in order to help the poor continue their schooling.

- To provide for the obligation of the enterprises to contribute to the educational and training activities on the basis of their turnovers, the quantity and level of the skill of the work force in each enterprise. The voluntary contributions of the enterprises to the educational and training activities shall not be accounted for in the taxable incomes and profits. The Ministry of Finance shall prepare a draft so that the Government may issue a Decree on this question.

e/ To win the support and assistance of international organizations, to conduct cooperation in education with foreign countries in order to increase the resources for development of educational and training work.

To allow a number of foreign universities and other foreign educational organizations and Vietnamese residents abroad to open schools in Vietnam according to Vietnamese law.

To allow universities in the country to invite foreign teachers and teachers who are Vietnamese living abroad to come and teach in Vietnam.

To use part of the budget and foreign aid to send our teaching staff abroad for refresher courses, to send selected students abroad to learn in necessary branches and levels.

f/ To organize the close and regular cooperation between the State managerial agencies for education and training and the Fatherland Front and mass organizations in order to motivate the people to take part effectively in the educational cause.

III. SOCIALIZATION OF THE CARE AND PROTECTION OF THE PEOPLE�S HEALTH

1. To care for and protect health is the essential requirement of each citizen and the whole community. This is not a task of the health service alone but the responsibility of all Party organizations and the administration, mass organizations and social organizations. Therefore, to socialize the care and protection of the people�s health is necessary and conforms with the trend of the time.

Socialization of the care and protection of human health consists in mobilizing and organizing well the active and voluntary participation of everyone in their capacity of a community or an individual, in both activity and contribution; increasing the interbanch cooperation and strengthening the role of the medical service as the core .

Socialization includes the following activities: diversification of the forms of providing services in healthcare (the State, collective, people-funded, private...) of which the State medical service plays the key role. To allow many forces with professional knowledge and experiences to take part in the health care services under the management of the State aimed at providing ever more convenient medical services for the citizens and alleviating the financial pressure for the State. To encourage organizations and individuals inside and outside the country to set up charity consulting and therapeutic rooms. To broaden the healthcare services at home, private pharmacies, medicine stands and medicine chests at the village medical stations in service of community health.

To motivate the people to take part consciously in healthcare activities: the sanitation movement, the physical training and prophylactic movement, the movement to prevent epidemics, protect the environment, prevent and fight against social evils, build a civilized and healthy life, increase the use of the nation�s traditional medicine, raise medicinal plants and animals for medical purposes.

The population contribute to and pay part of the healthcare services through the system of hospital fees and take part in the voluntary health insurance.

2. Some policies and measures to socialize medical activities:

a/ To diversify the forms of healthcare: to allow the establishment of semi-public, private, joint venture hospitals or wholly foreign invested hospitals , private or stock pharmaceutical joint ventures. To carry out well State management over private pharmacies, private consulting and therapeutic centers, including those of traditional medicine.

b/ To modify the regime of hospital fee collection at the public medical establishments to make it conform with the present economic and social situation and on the principle that hospital fees shall be calculated so that they shall cover nearly all the direct expenditures for the patients. But this must be carried out step by step so that it can be accepted by the people.

To modify the system of health insurance to make it conform with the hospital fees, to abolish discrimination in the medical treatment regime between the payers of hospital fees and the payers of health insurance. To diversify the contributions and determine the amount to be spent by the health insurance fund correspondingly with the level and time of insurance payment. To observe an appropriate regime of insurance payment and avoid the misuse of the health insurance cards. To raise the quality of medical consultation and treatment in order to draw broad masses of the population into the medical insurance system.

c/ To organize well medical consultation and treatment for the poor. The Government shall provide part of the fund while encouraging the Red Cross Society and the various charity organizations, mass organizations and economic organizations of the State and private citizens to contribute to the funds to help the poor get medical consultation and treatment, buy health insurance for the families with meritorious services to the country and for the poor.

d/ The various levels of the administration shall direct the implementation of the movement "Raising the quality of family sanitation facilities and the initiative in the prevention and fight against epidemics", to make the building of gardens of medicinal plants in the family into a wide movement at the grassroots.

e/ Raising the quality of the grassroots medical care , first of all to train enough nurses at the hamlets and villages, and midwives and assistant pharmacists at the communes; to adopt policies to encourage doctors, physicians and pharmacists to work at the village medical stations.

IV. SOCIALIZATION OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES

1. Socialization of cultural activities aims to involve the entire society and all economic sectors in creative activities to supply and popularize culture, creating conditions for cultural activities to develop powerfully and widely, gradually raising the level of cultural enjoyment of the people on the basis of strengthening the leadership of the Party and managerial work of the State in the cultural field.

2. Some policies and measures to socialize cultural activities:

a/ To rearrange the art units funded by the State budget along the direction: at the central level to concentrate on building representative art troupes (such as Tuong, Cheo, Cai Luong, circus, drama, traditional songs and dances, symphony orchestra, ballet , puppetry...). In the localities there needs only to maintain the most representative units of the traditional arts in the locality. To allow some art troupes of a family or private or collective character to operate in the framework of law and under the management of the State with regard to the contents and quality of art.

b/ In addition to the quotas assigned by the State, the schools of music, dance, stage art, cinematography, art crafts and fine art are allowed to broaden the training on the basis of contributions from the learners. The art troupes of the State are allowed to receive quotas assigned by the State in the form of self training at the units. To encourage the opening of people-funded schools in arts and artcraft.

c/ Apart from units of the State institutions, the other economic sectors are allowed to distribute films under State management. To allow the cultural institutions and film distributions and film showing institutions in joint ventures with the other economic sectors to invest in upgrading and transforming the material and technical bases of the cinemas and theatres.

d/ To broaden the network of distribution of cultural products with the participation of various economic sectors. To allow a number of printing houses of the State to carry out equitisation with the rate of stocks determined by the character of each important establishment. In order to abort advanced technology and modernize the printing industry and raise the quality of the printing products, to allow the printing houses to enter into joint ventures with investors inside and outside the country in a number of services such as printing, electronic layout, printing of packages, printing of labels...

e/ The State shall concentrate investment on building museums and preserving and improving historical and cultural relics of the national level and making research on, correcting, popularizing and preserving non material cultural values. The other relics shall be assigned to the population for protection and repair under the professional guidance of the Culture and Information Service. To allow the setting up of collection rooms by collectives or private citizens.

f/ To develop the system of Cultural Houses and Information Centers from the center to the provinces, cities and districts; to consolidate the Mobile Information Teams, to build Cultural Centers of a synthetic or inter-branch character such as Culture-Information, Education, Medicine and Sports at the population centers.

g/ To strengthen guidance for promoting the campaign to build a cultural way of life, build cultured families and villages associated with the fight to eliminate social evils and harmful customs and habits.