Challenges for Vietnam in 2013 VietNamNet Bridge - 2013 is a year to decide the trust of the market and the world on institutional reform in Vietnam. Lieutenant General Nguyen Quoc Thuoc, former Commander of Military Region 4, Vice President and Secretary General of the Vietnam Veterans Association, former deputy of the 9th, 10th and 11th National Assembly: in 2013, there will be many challenges for the country related to the leadership of the Party. Inside the country, the economy has not yet overcome the recession and crisis; outside the country, there are forces trying to expand, threatening the sovereignty of our country, specifically the East Sea issue. Facing with these challenges, the Party has to be in unanimity and close to the people. If within the Party and in the Party's relations have problems with the people, outside impact will come very quickly. The Soviet Union collapsed due to internal party recession and people lost faith in the Party.  Changing the anti-corruption model is positive, avoiding the situation that an agency acts both as a player and a referee. Change is right! But whether the Party is able to organize a real powerful machine to monitor corruption, it is another issue. Amendment of the Constitution is also the big issue of 2013. To enhance supervision of leadership and management of the country, the amended Constitution must ensure that all rights belong to the people, under the leadership of the Party. On the basis of Article 4 on the Party’s leadership, it is needed to strengthen the supervisory role of the people. The role of the Fatherland Front, in my opinion, should be pushed further. In a one-party state, the role of independent organizations is very important.  The amended Land Law in 2013 in a country with 80% of the population are farmers must ensure the interests of the majority of people.  Reclaiming people’s land for industrial development must benefit the one whose land is revoked, not with only several hundred million dong of compensation, but the interest created from the revoked land.  An agricultural country looking towards to industrialization must ensure that farmers benefit from that development. Land belongs to the entire people but at present the ownership and profits from the land belong to interest groups. If it is not handled well, the relationship between government and people will not direct towards the socialist orientation. 2013: Challenge of trust Dr. Nguyen Minh Phong, from the Hanoi Economic-Social Development Research Institute: 2012 is a year that the whole world and Vietnam will continue to refer it as one of the darkest mark in recent decades. And this will continue at least in the first half of 2013. Hopefully the second half of 2013 will have better signs. Difficulties will be associated with the decline in the market, along with technical barriers to limit imports in the world market. Difficulties will be also associated with public debt and private debt, corporate debt and government debt, domestic debt and foreign debt.  Debt is one of the global chronic diseases, hanging over the head of every government, every business. It does not exclude any country, even developed countries such as the United States, as well as the banks with several hundred years of history. Economic crisis can create social instability, social unrest and political instability, which requires the government to change faster, to take responsible for the mistake. 2013 is a year to decide the trust of the market and the world on institutional reform in Vietnam. If the vote of confidence of 49 positions elected by the National Assembly in May 2013 is unsuccessful, it is sure that trust will emerge as one of the biggest difficulties for economic recovery and development of Vietnam. Education: thinking change Professor Vu Duc Vuong, Director of the General Education Program, Hoa Sen University, HCM City: About Vietnamese education, I think my comment cannot be more profound than the statement of Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on December 14: "The economy now lacks both well-educated people and well-trained workers... In 2011, Vietnam has 250 college and post-graduate students per 10,000 people compared to 374/10,000 of Thailand in 2005, South Korea 674, Japan 316, France 359, England 380, Australia 504, Hungary 432, Chile 407…" It is a regret that Vietnam lost a rare opportunity, since the country’s unification, to improve education for our children to catch up with the world. The PM has made it clear that our country lost 37 years after the war, and now our education has seriously lagged behind the world. Also in 37 years, from 1868 to 1905, the Meiji dynasty brought Japan from a backward country that is no different from Vietnam and China in the nineteenth century--into a strong country that could defeat the Russian Navy and then becomes a superpower on par with Europe and America, both economically and militarily. The Vietnamese education system must be fixed at many points: improving policy, teacher position; restructuring the general education system; terminating the achievement disease; changing the textbook system, etc. And an important point is corruption. However, this is not enough. Unlike the field of technology, construction or agriculture... the basis of education is thinking.  For more than 2,000 years, we have completely mimicked the bookish learning way from China, which has ruined all creativity, independent thinking and the culture of gender equality of the ancient Vietnamese.  Meanwhile, only in the last five centuries, the Western have invented a lot of new things in all sectors and based on these, they have dominated almost all over the world. Hoang Huong - Lan Anh - My Hoa