Directive No. 40/2004/CT-BGDĐT on strengthening socialist rule of law in the organization and operation of the education sector

DIRECTIVE

On strengthening socialist rule of law in organization and operation of the education sector

Strengthening socialist rule of law is an important requirement to enhance the effectiveness of state management, expand democracy, and promote the people's right to mastery. In recent years, especially after the Education Law was enacted, the education sector has made many efforts to strengthen socialist rule of law in its organization and activities, reflected in the focus on improving the quality of building legal documents; promoting, disseminating, and educating the law and organizing the implementation of the law in life; inspecting and handling violations of the law... The legal system organization of the Ministry and the cadre team working in legal affairs have gradually been improved.

However, compared with practical requirements, the legal work of the sector still has many limitations and inconsistencies. The legal regulatory document system on education is still lacking in synchronization, overlapping, and low effectiveness; the promotion, dissemination, and education of the law have not been fully paid attention to, resulting in low efficiency; inspections for law enforcement have not been carried out regularly; there are complex manifestations of law violations in education; a legal system organization has not yet been formed from the Ministry down to localities and educational institutions; the legal civil servant team is still thin. The main cause of these limitations is the insufficient understanding of the role of legal work in strengthening state management by law in the sector, leading to a lack of comprehensive measures to strengthen legal work.

The 1992 Constitution stipulates: "The State manages society by law, continuously strengthening socialist rule of law." On November 14, 2003, the Government issued Decree No. 135/2003/NĐ-CP on inspection and handling of legal regulatory documents; on December 9, 2003, the Central Committee of the Party issued Directive No. 32/CT-TW on enhancing the Party's leadership in the work of promoting, disseminating, and educating the law, raising the awareness of law compliance among cadres and the people; on May 18, 2004, the Government issued Decree No. 122/2004/NĐ-CP detailing the functions, tasks, powers, and legal system organization of Ministries, agencies at the level of ministries, government agencies, specialized agencies under provincial people's committees, and state-owned enterprises; on August 27, 2004, the Prime Minister issued Decision No. 933/QĐ-TTg approving the project to improve the quality of legal document construction work of the Government;

To strengthen socialist rule of law in the organization and operation of the education sector, the Minister of Education and Training requests the entire sector to implement the following tasks well:

1. Ensuring progress and improving the quality of building legal regulatory documents on education. First, focusing on completing the Draft Education Law (amended) and guiding documents implementing the Law. Actively preparing to build some specialized laws when assigned. Participation in law construction must comply with the provisions of the Law on Enacting Legal Regulatory Documents and reflect the actual development of education as well as related conditions. Strictly implement the regulations on preparing detailed implementing documents simultaneously with the issuance of the main document, ensuring the synchronization of the legal regulatory document system. The Legal Affairs Department will take the lead, together with relevant units, to develop long-term and annual plans for issuing legal regulatory documents suitable to the conditions of the Ministry, while perfecting the document construction process of the education sector to gradually complete the legal framework regulating social relations in education. The Cadre and Civil Servant Organization Department will work with the Legal Affairs Department to assess the current status of the cadre team working on legal construction to plan supplementation and training to meet job requirements. The Planning and Finance Department will balance the budget, prioritizing annual funding for legal construction work, coordinating with the Legal Affairs Department to allocate and monitor the use of funds for constructing legal documents on education and training. Heads of units responsible for drafting documents must directly direct this work to ensure progress and quality according to requirements. Heads of related units and units directly affected by the documents have the responsibility to organize comments on the draft documents to ensure that the issued documents accurately reflect the actual situation and comply with legal provisions.

2. Regularly reviewing the legal regulatory document system related to state management of education to handle or propose to competent state authorities to handle conflicting, overlapping, or outdated provisions. Departments, Bureaus, Office, and Inspectorate have the responsibility to review all documents drafted and issued by their own units and related documents. The Legal Affairs Department is responsible for organizing the review of all legal regulatory documents and documents containing legal regulatory provisions but not issued in the form of legal regulatory documents (such as circulars, bulletins, etc.) to promptly propose amendments and supplements to ensure synchronization and consistency in the legal document system.

3. Regularly conducting inspections and handling of legal regulatory documents according to the provisions of Decree No. 135/2003/NĐ-CP of the Government dated November 14, 2003 on inspection and handling of legal regulatory documents to make it a regular practice to identify illegal contents in documents to promptly suspend their implementation, amend, revoke, or abolish them; ensuring the constitutionality, legality, and consistency of the legal system on education; and at the same time proposing to the competent authority to determine the responsibility of the authority or person who issued the illegal document. The Legal Affairs Department is the focal point for coordinating with units to carry out self-inspection of legal regulatory documents issued by the Ministry and to strengthen inspections of legal regulatory documents issued by other Ministries, sectors, People's Councils, and People's Committees related to education.

3. Implement regular inspections and handling of regulatory legal documents in accordance with the provisions of Decree No. 135/2003/NĐ-CP dated November 14, 2003 of the Government on inspecting and handling regulatory legal documents to identify illegal contents within such documents, thereby promptly suspending their implementation, amending, revoking, or abolishing them; ensuring the constitutionality, legality, and consistency of the education legal system; and simultaneously recommending to the competent authority to determine the responsibility of the authority that issued the illegal document. The Legal Affairs Department shall be the coordinating unit to cooperate with relevant units in self-inspecting regulatory legal documents issued by the Ministry and strengthening inspections of regulatory legal documents issued by other ministries, sectors, people's councils, and people's committees related to education.

4. Strengthen the dissemination and education of laws among cadres, teachers, workers, employees, and students in accordance with the spirit of Directive No. 32/CT-TW dated December 9, 2003 of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam and Decision No. 13/2003/QĐ-TTg dated January 17, 2003 of the Prime Minister. Emphasize standardizing the content, programs, materials, and textbooks for teaching mandatory legal courses, as well as organizing extracurricular legal education activities through various rich forms. Dissemination and education of laws are tasks of the entire sector and must be carried out regularly, continuously, practically, effectively, and appropriately to the conditions of each institution. From now until the end of 2007, the Institute of Strategy and Education Programs will cooperate with the Legal Department and related units to research and improve the curriculum for teaching laws at non-law schools. The Student Affairs Department will cooperate with the Legal Department to develop extracurricular legal education programs for students. The Primary Education Department, Secondary Education Department, Vocational Education Department, Higher Education and Postgraduate Education Department will cooperate with relevant units and individuals to ensure the quality of textbook compilation and revision containing legal content. The Educational Publishing House will prioritize printing and distributing textbooks and materials on legal education to serve the dissemination and education of laws in the education sector, ensuring sufficient teaching and learning materials for teachers, lecturers, students, and trainees.

5. Enhance monitoring, urging, inspecting the implementation of laws, and summarizing practical experiences in enforcing laws. Timely identify violations of laws for handling within jurisdiction and making recommendations for handling to ensure that legal provisions are implemented in practice. Continue to implement well the movement "Democracy, Discipline, Affection, Responsibility" initiated by the Ministry of Education and Training and the Vietnam Teachers' Union.

The Inspectorate will cooperate with the Legal Department and related units to organize inspections and audits, and handle pressing issues of concern to society such as fraud in issuing and using certificates and diplomas; cheating in examinations; excessive private tutoring: poor quality in non-formal higher education training...

Directors of provincial education and training departments, heads of agencies, units, and schools in the education sector (collectively referred to as units) must regularly organize inspections and strictly handle violations of laws, social evils, and other negative phenomena in educational activities according to the provisions of the law.

6. Heads of units must consider strengthening legal affairs as a top priority task and directly lead legal work in their units. Strengthening legal affairs must be reflected in long-term plans and annual plans appropriate to the functions and responsibilities of each unit. The content of the plan must reflect the above tasks and the conditions to ensure human resources and funding to effectively implement the task of strengthening legal affairs.

All legal documents on education and related laws must be promptly disseminated by the heads of units to all members of the unit and must be strictly organized for implementation. Each cadre, teacher, worker, employee, and student must uphold the spirit of living, working, and studying according to the law.

Units must annually review and summarize the situation of implementing laws in their units and promptly reflect any difficulties to the superior management agency for handling or supplementing and amending documents to be appropriate.

7. Universities, academies, institutes, colleges, and vocational high schools (collectively referred to as schools) under the Ministry and affiliated enterprises need to study establishing legal affairs organizations or arranging staff to perform legal affairs work suitable to the conditions of their units. Staff performing legal affairs work must have a bachelor's degree in law or a specialized bachelor's degree with legal knowledge, ensuring good advice and consultation on laws for the head of the unit. Legal affairs organizations or staff performing legal affairs work in schools and enterprises have the responsibility to assist the university council, board of directors, principals, and directors of schools and enterprises in fulfilling tasks as stipulated in Article 6 of Decree No. 122/2004/NĐ-CP dated May 18, 2004 of the Government.

The Cadre Organization Department and the Legal Department will guide schools and enterprises under the Ministry to establish legal affairs organizations or arrange staff to perform legal affairs work, while coordinating with related departments to regularly supplement and enhance the qualifications of teachers and lecturers teaching law and civic education to ensure adequate quantity and quality.

8. Provincial education and training departments will cooperate with provincial personnel departments and justice departments to advise provincial people's committees to consider establishing legal affairs organizations under the provincial department or arranging legal affairs officials according to Article 9 of Decree No. 122/2004/NĐ-CP of the Government and Circular Joint No. 21/2004/TTLT-BGD&ĐT-BNV of the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Personnel guiding the functions, tasks, powers, and organizational structure of the specialized agency assisting the provincial people's committee in managing state administration in education and training at the local level; directing education and training offices to arrange staff and organize the implementation of legal affairs work according to regulations.

9. The Legal Department is responsible for coordinating with units assisting the Minister to check and urge the implementation of this Directive; periodically reviewing and summarizing the situation to report to the Minister of Education and Training and the Minister of Justice as prescribed.

The Legal Department has the responsibility to organize training and guidance on professional skills for legal affairs organizations and staff performing legal affairs work in the education sector.

This Directive is disseminated to all educational management agencies, educational institutions, cadres, teachers, workers, employees, and students throughout the sector for implementation./.

                                                                  MINISTER

(Signed)


Nguyen Minh Hien