Q: This year’s World Radio Day is themed “Radio – A path to knowledge”. What do you think about Vietnam’s broadcasters helping people access knowledge through education?

A: Your question comes at very good moment because Vietnam is moving forward with developing the learning society and framework has been recently approved for that. There is a steering committee which involves many ministries working together. The goal of the learning society is that everybody has access to learning opportunity everywhere and at all time. It sounds like a difficult thing to do but it is not that difficult. There are many countries that we are using as references who have been able to move forward. We are using references for example Singapore, South Korea, Japan and we are doing to see which of there areas that they have been developing are interesting for Vietnam that we can adopt them and also create their own exercise of Vietnam. But very important role for the process is the media, mechanism for communication.  Because we always think of education as we have to go to school and course. Basically education is carried out at schools. But a lot of education is carried out at home and parents need to learn more in order to educate their children. Education is starting in much earlier age of life right now so that we have early program that parents can be more aware. We are talking about life-learning which means learning from all aspects of your life. So to do this, people need to learn new things. Then we need programs in different sectors that we want them to be aware of. So the best way to educate them is make mechanism for communication. We have been working with the Ministry of Education and Training in supporting the community learning centre and supporting education through museums and pagodas and in different sectors. But the media plays a very important role and ensure that everyone will have access to the information and education.

And for UNESCO, the celebration of the World Radio Day is about that. It is about bringing the world to the Radio. Radio is something that people have for so many generations to have access to information, to hear stories, to hear news to be updated. The Radio is very important nowadays, for example when there is an emergent situation, to guide the population on what to do, to alert the people for example in the storm. So the Radio really plays an important role in many places. It is the only way to access the information that people have and of course the Radio is the one that has the ability to be able to conduct programs for specialized groups. So one of the thing that we are trying to do here today is bring back that feeling that we need to support Radio programs. The Radio is the wonderful tool to bring education and information to people. And you can see the Radio as a very important mechanism for people to voice themselves. Women, youth, and children are able to have programs on the Radio where they have debate, where they can have dialogue, and other different ways of sharing information in a very fun way. There are lots of Radio program for youth. So your question comes at a very important moment. World Radio Day is about making Radio need us and we need the Radio. And that Radio is a really important tool. So that’s what we are trying to promote in relevant to the learning society.

A: Well, we have been working for several years to help the Ministry of Education and Training build a learning society and the process has begun for developing the framework. There have been several national groups involved in the process, and we have built the framework from central to regional and local level. There has been a lot of consultation on that framework by the national authorities. We have been basically supporting and drawing experience from other countries and providing technical expertise. And that institute has helped to conduct a workshop to discuss a policy framework and different aspects. At the end of the workshop, you know, with Vietnam now in ASEAN, we were able discuss and share how a learning society has been developing in other countries and established a network to help each other. A very important issue is that there’s going to be a ministerial meeting-Minister of Education and Training meeting in March and one of the main topics for the policy discussion will be the learning society and Vietnam will have the leading role there. So we have been supporting also the comprehensiveness of the policy brief to be used. At the same time, we are now developing a process by which we will be carrying out what we call a visioning exercise which will have different groups participating in society: what kind of learning society we want for Vietnam and what kind of learning citizens we want for Vietnam. They are also providing support in identifying issues that need to be considered in that learning society, for example the issue of employment and the issue of how we want a society that has more access. We want a society that is more resilient, which means we want a society that knows how to deal with climate change, or is aware of disaster in order to better prepare for that and also to be more committed to bilateral dialog. We want to have international development but the authorities also want to take it to a regional level. We have national guidance on the vision but we want to see how the vision needs to be adapted to different conditions in the regions of Vietnam, and that will go further down to the district levels. In that process, once we have that visioning exercise, and the country has already made an analysis of where the country is right now in relation to its achievement then we will work on defining an action plan going from the current situation to that vision. That’s a very important process and it would be the best idea to share with other countries in ASEAN.

The Ministry of Education and Training is also working very closely with us. We have worked jointly to establish an annual “lifelong learning” week. Last year it was carried out in some provinces. It is about bringing people together to see how important it is that everyone be responsible for education, because we always say the only one here is the Ministry of Education and Training, right? But it isn’t. Training happens in agriculture. Training happens in education. We need everyone to come together on a process supporting education. We do that so we can bring in other sectors, for example the culture sector and we have developed several activities to help children have more access and more interactive access in museums, for example, the museum open up to have children come in for example on weekends to do painting, to learn about ethnic minority for example the Minority Museum, has an activity for children how to cut and make different dresses and material for ethnic minorities. So I think those are very important activities so that learning can happen at any place and at any time. And we need to promote more the interest in reading. If Vietnam is really moving forward in a competitive world and we want people to be more competitive, people need to take more responsibility for their own learning. They cannot always expect someone to come and tell them. They need to develop their own opportunities and opportunities are there. Learning a second language to have even more access to information is also very important but also developing information in Vietnamese for those who don’t have the second language, that is also very important and that’s where the media and the radio can play a relevant role. So is the process a very interesting one, very interesting? All fields can participate in this. We just want to promote this systematic approach and that, for example, issue like recognition of informal or non formal training to have the same level of recognition for example from formal training or informal training. So, people may decide to go to university and get a degree but some people don’t. But they do have equal value to the society. So, promoting that kind of issue is what we are working on and there’s a very excellent team that has been set up to work with us. The group of Vietnamese that are working with us are very committed and very knowledgeable. Many of them have received training outside the country so I think that’s a really good opportunity for becoming a model in this region.

Q. The Lunar New Year holidays are coming, could you give a wish to Vietnamese on this occasion?

Definitely, I think that this is gonna be one of the greatest years ever. This is my 4^th year in Vietnam and I’m staying here during the Tet holiday because I enjoy it very much. I like to see the colorful trees that everybody has. I’d like to see the customs and my wish to everybody is that people be really happy. Sometimes, happiness is not what we think. I have found that Vietnamese think about it more than other people. And being happy is relative. You have to be happy to enjoy your work, you have to be happy to enjoy your family. So, being happy is not always easy, right? We always find so many difficulties in our life. We find things that go uphill and it seems that we can’t make it but the truth is that it’s about the spirit, and I think that Vietnamese have that spirit and so we need to really try to be happy and peaceful with other people so that that will be prosperity because as long as you have happiness you have health. You are healthier, definitely. So I wish everybody a lot of happiness, a lot of health, and a lot of success for this year.