Directive No. 03/2000/CT-TTg on Promoting Cultural, Recreational, and Entertainment Activities for Children.

DIRECTIVE

ON STRENGTHENING CULTURAL, RECREATIONAL, AND ENTERTAINMENT ACTIVITIES FOR CHILDREN

After nearly ten years of implementing the Law on Protection, Care, and Education for Children, the Law on Universal Primary Education, and the National Action Program for Children from 1991 to 2000, the cause of protecting, caring for, and educating children has made significant progress in terms of awareness, organization, and implementation results. However, many localities, especially those in mountainous, remote, and particularly difficult areas, still lack facilities and equipment to organize cultural, recreational, and entertainment activities for children; the content and forms of these activities are monotonous, less attractive, and not fully meeting the requirements. On the market, some cultural products and children's toys that have negative impacts on the education of personality, health, and social order and safety continue to circulate. This situation partly stems from economic difficulties but also from insufficient attention from relevant sectors, levels, mass organizations, schools, families, and society towards children's cultural, recreational, and entertainment activities.

To better implement the Law on Protection, Care, and Education for Children, the Education Law, and achieve success in the Government's Action Program to implement Resolution No. 5 of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam at its Eighth Plenum, aimed at strengthening education and moral, intellectual, health, and aesthetic development, forming personalities, and continuously improving the fine qualities of Vietnamese children, the Prime Minister issues the following directive:

1- Ministry of Culture and Information:

a) Lead and coordinate with relevant agencies and People's Committees at all levels to develop overall planning and support policies for cultural facilities and recreational and entertainment venues for children to submit to the Prime Minister; promote training for grassroots cultural cadres; guide the content of cultural and information activities serving children across all regions, especially at the grassroots level, in accordance with the Party's guidelines and state laws.

b) Strengthen management and inspection of business activities related to cultural products and services to prevent the sale of products and services that negatively impact children's character and health.

2- Ministry of Education and Training:

a) In collaboration with relevant ministries and sectors, direct research institutes and affiliated universities to study and transfer technology for producing children's toys suitable for their psychology and physiology, ensuring educational goals, preserving traditional and national cultural identity.

b) Lead and coordinate with the Ministry of Culture and Information to organize teacher training and capacity building in aesthetics education for children.

3- Ministry of Industry leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to study policies and direct the development of the toy manufacturing industry, issuing standards for children's toys appropriate for each age group's educational needs.

4- Ministry of Trade leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors to strictly enforce state regulations regarding the management of certain cultural products and children's toys as stipulated in Decree No. 11/1999/NĐ-CP dated March 3, 1999, concerning prohibited goods and services, restricted trade goods and services, and conditional trade goods and services.

5- Ministry of Justice leads and coordinates with the Vietnam Children's Protection and Care Committee and relevant agencies to strengthen legal education, dissemination, and promotion related to the protection, care, and education of children.

6- Sports Committee leads and coordinates with relevant ministries and sectors, mass organizations, and social organizations to promote physical education and sports among youth and adolescents and to train young sports talents.

7- Provincial People's Committees:

a) Develop plans for the development of cultural, recreational, and sports activity zones linked to residential areas and schools within the local development plan;

b) Mobilize all resources and promote socialization to invest in building new or upgrading existing cultural, recreational, and sports facilities for children in localities, prioritizing mountainous, remote, and particularly difficult areas and ethnic minority regions;

c) Implement preferential land use policies according to the law to build children's palaces, recreational parks, and sports facilities for children;

d) Lead and coordinate with the Vietnam Fatherland Front and social organizations to diversify cultural, recreational, and entertainment activities for children in the "All-Voluntary Movement for Building a Cultural Life."

8- Request the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Central Committee to direct and guide recreational and entertainment activities in children's palaces; organize forces responsible for recreational and entertainment activities for children at the grassroots level;

9- Encourage units from all economic sectors, social organizations, and individuals to invest in building cultural, recreational, and sports facilities for children according to the preferential policies of the Party and the State.

10- Mass media outlets should allocate appropriate time and suitable formats for programs serving children; emphasize the promotion of exemplary models and advanced examples in activities for the protection, care, and education of children; promote beneficial forms of recreation, entertainment, cultural products, and toys that contribute to the intellectual, moral, and aesthetic development of children.

11- The Vietnam Children's Protection and Care Committee leads and coordinates with the Ministry of Culture and Information and the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Central Committee to monitor and inspect the implementation of this Directive, reporting annually to the Prime Minister on the results.

Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, Heads of agencies under the Government, Chairmen of provincial and municipal People's Committees directly under the central government are responsible for enforcing this Directive.