Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (second, left) greets delegates to the ceremony marking the new academic year at the Vietnam National University of Agriculture in Hanoi on September 30 (Photo: VNA)

|  

VNUA Director Nguyen Thi Lan said for over 60 years, the university has continually developed in terms of size, quantity and quality. At present, it has nearly 1,400 staff members and more than 30,000 students, about 500 of them are from other countries.

It has been recognised as a training centre of high-quality human resources and an advanced research centre for agricultural science-technology, economy and policies, and rural development of Vietnam.

She added that graduates of the VNUA has become an important force contributing to the major achievements in agriculture and rural development during the wartime in the past and the cause of reforms, industrialisation, modernisation and international integration of the country at present.

VNUA Director Lan noted the VNUA has taken the lead in reforming the training targets, content and methods so as to create high-quality human resources able to meet requirements of the actual agricultural development and new-style rural area building while encouraging students’ entrepreneurship and innovation. It has also conducted many valuable scientific studies to help Vietnamese agriculture to reach the regional level.

Congratulating the VNUA on its successes over the last six decades, General Secretary Trong expressed his hope that the school will work harder to soon become a leading research university in the field of agriculture.

The VNUA should step up scientific-technological activities to boost training and serve agricultural production and society. Its researches should be oriented towards prosperous agriculture, wealthy farmers and civilised rural areas. They also need to help with agricultural restructuring and developing smart agriculture that integrates into the world, adapts to climate change, improves products’ added value and contributes to sustainable development, he noted.

He also requested stronger connectivity between universities and the localities they are situated in, adding that schools should have training and scientific-technological activities serving local development while authorities also need to support universities located in their areas.

The Party leader asked the VNUA to continue efforts to become an exemplary agriculture university, adapt to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and meet the human resources training demand in the new context.

At the VNUA, General Secretary Trong planted a tree in the campus and visited a hall displaying hi-tech agricultural products of the university.