>>> 14th NA Standing Committee convenes ninth meeting
This is the first time a Q&A session has taken place during a meeting of the NASC. The session is broadcast live on radio and TV channels nationwide for voters and local people to follow.
Speaking at the opening session, NA Chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, said this is the first Q&A session during the 14th NA tenures of the two ministers, adding that the NASC has selected groups of issues, which still witnessed limited State management that drew public concern for timely and effective solution to raise questions for the two ministers to clarify.
Accordingly, in the morning session, Minister Dao Ngoc Dung of the Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), answered questions related to solutions to speed up the review and settlement of policies towards people with contribution to the national revolutionary cause; State management over vocational training; the transition and, management of drug detoxification centres across the country; and job creation for young people, especially rural youngsters and demobilised soldiers and police officers.
Meanwhile, in the afternoon, Truong Minh Tuan, Minister of Information and Communications, shed light on issues related to information security management; the handling of individuals and organisations that commit acts of misrepresenting information on e-papers, causing confusion among the public and damages to the economy, honour and dignity of other individuals and organisations; and the censorship of advertising programmes and content on the mass media.
NA Chairwoman Ngan asked the ministers to present solutions, roadmap, and targets to achieve the set goals for voters and local people across the nation to monitor and assess the quality of the NA’s Q&A session. For inter-agency related issues, ministers and heads of sectors would join in with the two ministers to clarify the issues, she added.
After the opening speech of NA Chairwoman, Ngan, implementation of policies regarding people with meritorious services to the revolution was the content with NA deputies raising questions for Minister Dung.
According to him, there are over 9 million people nationwide (nearly 10% of the population) with 11 groups of people with contributions to the revolutionary. Of which, over 1.4 million with meritorious services and their relatives are receiving monthly allowances. The Minister acknowledged that over the past time, policies for people with meritorious services have been fully and accurately implemented to ensure actual benefit to beneficiaries in accordance with current policies.
Results from a review from 2014-2015 showed that there are still about 28,500 self-declared people who have not benefited from the policies because they do not have relevant papers and documents to set up their files. There are also cases that have been documented, but are not eligible for policy settlement (deaths, injuries not falling under the cases of martyrs and war invalids as prescribed) and those who have been examined, but without sufficient injuries to be confirmed as wounded soldiers (21% or more).
He raised 13 problems and shortcomings in the implementation of policy for people with meritorious services to the revolution and said that the biggest difficulty now is the verification of those cases faces difficulties due to lack of documents as evidence.
The minister said that the MoLISA identifies, resolving the above shortcoming was a top political task and should be urgently implemented in the time to come to ensure correct identification of policy beneficiaries.
Saying that Vietnam’s human resource quality is still poor, NA Deputy, Nguyen Lam Thanh, (from Lang Son Province) asked for renovation solutions from the MoLISA to achieve the set objectives regarding human resource development by 2020 in the 12th National Party Congress Resolution.
Minister Dung said implementing the Law on Vocational Education, from the beginning of 2017, the ministry has reviewed and updated all institutional issues, while submitting to the Government and coordinating with relevant ministries to promulgate 37 different types of documents in this field.
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Minister of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, Dao Ngoc Dung, answers questions at the Q&A session, on the morning of April 18. (Credit: quochoi.vn)
To achieve the set goals, the ministry has proposed 10 basic groups of solutions, which will be developed under the Comprehensively Renovating and Improving the Quality of Vocational Education Project. Along with that, the MoLISA has stepped up standardised and strengthened investment for facilities and equipment for vocational education.
Among the groups mentioned above, Minister Dung said that the ministry has chosen solutions to focus on, namely strengthening the autonomy of vocational education institutions, increasing the involvement of enterprises in professional education activities, and creating close links between enterprises and employers and between training institutions and workers.
Functional forces will develop a number of models of cooperation with enterprises in the field of vocational education under developed countries’ standards, such as a dual training model from Germany, while enhancing corporate social responsibility in training and assessment of learners' results and building national professional standards applying in the field of vocational education in approaching the standards of ASEAN and some developed countries on equipment, teacher, administrator and accreditation standards.
Regarding drug rehabilitation, according to the minister, it is necessary to continue to raise awareness of drug crimes and the serious consequences of drugs to mobilise the cooperation from both the political system and the people on reducing supply, demand, and the harm of drugs.
At the same time, the legal and policy system needs to be improved, especially the Law on Drug Prevention and Control and the Law on the Handling of Administrative Violations, in line with providing adequate funding for the fight against drug addiction and drug detoxification and ensuring access to support services for drug addicts.
Other activities such as enhancing propaganda and replication of good examples on drug detoxification, improving new approach to drug addicted treatment, expanding the network of counselling and treatment for voluntary drug replication in the community, and developing specific drug treatment for each drug addict would also contribute to a coordinated implementation of mitigation measures to reduce harmful effects of drugs to the society, helping the drug addicts to integrate into the community, Minister Dung affirmed.
Speaking at the end of the morning session, NA Standing Deputy Chairwoman, Tong Thi Phong, stated that the NASC highly respected the seriousness and responsible coordination of Minister Dung in answering relevant questions, recognising his political will and promises in resolving the shortcomings and limitations in the coming time.
NA Deputy Chairwoman Phong reminded that Minister Dung should pay attention to the groups of issues NA deputies raised concerns about, including solutions to accelerate the review and settlement to support policies for people with meritorious services, State management over vocational training, the transition and management of detoxification centres, and job creation for young people, especially rural youngsters and demobilised soldiers and policemen.
The NA official requested concerned agencies to step up their interest in coordinating to implement the Prime Minister's directions, while improving social policy implementation to promote and create consensus in the society. The NA deputies and NA agencies should continue to strengthen monitoring over implementation of policies that Minister Dung reported at the session, she added.
The afternoon session continued with Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan taking the stage.
