A future for the rising generation

General Secretary TO LAM

Throughout the historical process of national construction and defense, the youth have consistently occupied a pivotal position, regarded as the mainstay determining the nation’s prosperity. In every revolutionary period since the Party assumed leadership, youth have served as the vanguard force, playing a core role - from the struggles for independence and national reunification to the renovation and socio-economic development initiatives. It may be asserted that the history of our Party since its inception bears the distinct imprint of exemplary generations of youth, unequivocally demonstrating their contributions. Notably, the earliest General Secretaries, the Party’s most distinguished leaders, and Vietnam’s eminent intellectuals all assumed critical positions during their youth.

In the current new phase, the role of youth has become increasingly pivotal. Young people constitute the cornerstone enabling the nation's steadfast advancement into a new chapter, serving as the primary resource for establishing and developing new productive forces, and act as a pioneering contingent in emerging sectors. As the future stewards of the nation, the youth represent a crucial factor in cultivating the national value framework, cultural value system, family value system, and Vietnamese human standards.

The maturation, sustainability, and even the destiny of the nation depends profoundly on its youth. During the people’s sacred resistance wars against imperialist and foreign aggressors - fighting for independence and freedom while safeguarding the sovereign integrity and sacred territory of the Fatherland - millions upon millions of young people consecrated their youth, embodying the ethos of “determined to sacrifice to survive for the Homeland."

National history eternally commemorates successive generations of youth who marched to battlefronts with "hearts ablaze with future promise," embodying the spirit of "standing firmer than the Truong Son Range" and declaring "Until the enemy is vanquished, we shall not return". Across warfare, national construction, and defense, we perpetually witness the legacy of the "Three-Readiness Youth", "Three-Responsibilities Women", "Five-Front Volunteers", the ethos "Where needed, the youth appear; where hardship lies, the youth are present", the vanguard role in "national industrialization and modernization", and the Vietnamese youth credo: "Dare to think, dare to act, dare to assume responsibility".

In recent years, Vietnam's younger generation has achieved significant milestones in academic, athletic, and cultural domains, thereby consolidating the nation's international standing. Vietnamese youth have consistently secured prestigious awards at global competitions in mathematics, physics, chemistry, informatics, scientific and technical innovation, the arts, and beyond. These accomplishments demonstrate their robust intellectual caliber and competitive prowess within an increasingly globalized environment.

In the sporting arena, youth have likewise achieved landmark accomplishments at regional and international tournaments, demonstrating exceptional physical prowess and an indomitable competitive spirit.

Culturally, the younger generation plays a vital role in preserving, safeguarding, and promoting the nation's cultural identity. Amidst global integration, Vietnam's traditional cultural values have gained international recognition through the sustained efforts of young people in cross-cultural exchange initiatives, diverse artistic programs, and creative cultural diplomacy.

However, alongside these achievements, significant challenges persist. Despite improvements, the quality of Vietnam's workforce exhibits substantial disparities compared to developed economies, particularly in creative capacity, labor productivity, practical skills, and foreign language proficiency. While Vietnam now ranks among the world's 34 largest economies, its labor productivity currently places 117th out of 181 surveyed economies, equivalent to merely 11.4% of Singapore's output and 35.4% of Malaysia's, with even wider gaps relative to advanced industrial nations.

In recent years, alongside economic advancement, Vietnam has achieved notable progress in enhancing population living standards, educational access, and healthcare provision. Nevertheless, significant disparities persist in youth physical development, overall health status, and mean stature relative to regional peers and industrialized nations globally.

According to the most recent survey from 2020, Vietnam's mean stature stands at 168.1 cm for males and 156.2 cm for females, comparatively lower than regional counterparts: Thailand (171.0 cm male, 159.0 cm female), South Korea (174.0 cm male, 161.0 cm female), and Japan (172.0 cm male, 158.0 cm female).

Vietnam's current life expectancy stands at 74.5 years, nearly double the 1945 level of 45 years and significantly higher than the approximately 50 years recorded in 1975. Nevertheless, it remains 5-10 years lower than that of Japan (84.6 years), South Korea (83.5 years), and Germany (81.2 years), among other developed nations.

Vietnam's chronic stunting prevalence (19.6%) remains substantially higher than in developed nations such as Japan (2.0%) and Singapore (4.0%), indicating that nutritional deficits from early childhood continue to compromise lifelong physical development trajectories.

In high-performance sports competitions, Vietnam excels in skill-based disciplines but faces significant challenges in competing within strength and endurance-dependent events.

A further challenge lies in Vietnam's current transition towards the end of its demographic golden period, coinciding with a substantial acceleration in population aging. In 2011, the proportion of individuals aged 60 years and above surpassed 10% of the total population. By 2022, this proportion increased to approximately 12.8%, representing an estimated 12.5 million older adults. Projections indicate that by 2036, the elderly will constitute 20% of the population, signifying the nation's transition to an aged society. This demographic shift entails a declining working-age population ratio, a rising dependency ratio, and thereby generates increasing fiscal burdens for the economically active population.

The healthcare system is expected to face mounting pressure due to the growing demand for elderly care. This presents a significant challenge for strategic planning aimed at sustainable development, specifically the need to effectively harness the young workforce prior to the onset of population aging.

Amidst intensifying globalization, Vietnam's national cultural identity faces a significant risk of erosion. While global cultural exchange and integration yield considerable economic and social benefits, they simultaneously pose substantial challenges to preserving and promoting traditional cultural values. If not assimilated judiciously and selectively, foreign cultural trends risk eclipsing or even eroding the inherent richness of the national heritage.

One of the most evident manifestations of this issue is the generational shift in lifestyle and mindset among youth. Many young people today readily embrace new, modern values from abroad while paying scant attention to their nation's traditional heritage. The pervasive influence of international media, social networks, and entertainment is increasingly distancing young individuals from distinctive national cultural traits, such as traditional performing arts, folk festivals, indigenous cuisine, and even core ethical values and the spirit of community solidarity - hallmarks of the Vietnamese national character.

Social ills and rising youth crime rates are becoming increasingly complex and permeating a significant segment of adolescents, potentially undermining the nation's social vitality.

In an era of profound transformation

The world is entering an unprecedented period of breakthrough technological and scientific advancement. The rapid and robust development of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, big data, and automation is profoundly and rapidly reshaping global modes of work, daily life, and communication. This necessitates that every nation, including Vietnam, meticulously prepare a younger generation capable of meeting stringent human capital standards to achieve sustainable integration and development.

Intellectually, Vietnam’s contemporary youth must cultivate creativity, critical thinking, and rapid adaptation capabilities to technological shifts more than ever before. Young individuals must be equipped to become pioneers in mastering emerging technologies, possessing sufficient competence to research, develop, and apply cutting-edge advancements in practical contexts. Concurrently, the younger generation requires a globalized mindset, proficiency in international communication, and superior foreign language skills to proactively integrate into the international arena, enabling equitable and effective competition with global counterparts.

However, intellectual prowess alone remains insufficient. Robust physical health and resilient character constitute indispensable prerequisites for the younger generation to adapt and thrive within an increasingly competitive global landscape. A physically vigorous youth cohort ensures a high-quality labor force, directly contributing to national development and security endeavors. Consequently, physical education must be prioritized alongside an enhanced public healthcare systems and modern sports infrastructure to improve comprehensive health standards and enhance the physical well-being of Vietnam's population.

Amidst profound global integration, the younger generation must simultaneously cultivate cultural preservation and promotion of national identity. Culture serves as the foundational spiritual bedrock for Vietnamese youth's holistic development, not only shaping national distinctiveness but also functioning as a critical soft power that affirms Vietnam's international standing. Furthermore, sustained cultivation of moral integrity, humanistic values, and heightened social responsibility is imperative to develop a generation equipped with both competence and ethical grounding, capable of substantive contributions to societal and global progress.

Empirical observations confirm that developed nations and global/regional powers universally prioritize comprehensive education, enhanced physical conditioning, and cultural preservation to cultivate high-caliber human capital that aligns with the imperatives of sustainable development. We must proactively assimilate and contextually adapt these international best practices to foster an exceptional youth generation, thereby ensuring the nation's steadfast advancement in the new era.

Marking 80 years since national founding, 50 years of complete reunification, and nearly four decades of renovation reforms, Vietnam now enters a critical developmental phase. This juncture presents transformative opportunities while simultaneously confronting unprecedented challenges. The nation's deepening integration into the global economy coincides with seismic shifts driven by technological breakthroughs and global volatility.

Looking toward 2045 - a historic milestone marking the centenary of Vietnam’s founding - we established the strategic objective of attaining developed, high-income nation status. Achieving this necessitates cultivating a younger generation distinguished not only by intellectual excellence but also by physical vitality, rich cultural identity, and competitive capacity to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with global powers, thereby affirming Vietnam’s international standing.

The consistent guiding principle of our Party and State positions human capital as the cornerstone of sustainable development, recognizing humanity as both the ultimate objective and primary engine of societal progress. Consequently, socioeconomic advancement must prioritize fulfilling the population’s escalating material and spiritual needs.

Strategic human capital development for Vietnam’s 2045 vision

The 2025-2045 period constitutes a narrow 20-year window. Children born during this interval will form the adolescent cohort of Vietnam’s new generation – the future stewards of a prosperous, developed nation.

Achieving Vietnam's comprehensive development vision by 2045 necessitates prioritizing human capital development, particularly among youth. This requires substantial investment in education reform focused on intellectual advancement through creative competencies, STEM disciplines, multilingual proficiency, digital literacy, and Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies. Crucially, cognitive education must integrate with cultural transmission, ethical grounding, and aesthetic cultivation to develop holistically formed individuals. Concurrently, institutionalizing self-directed learning and establishing nationwide lifelong learning ecosystems constitute essential components for actualizing a sustainable learning society.

To cultivate an elite workforce, we must also implement special policies to attract young talents returning from abroad, thereby assembling a globally competitive human resource contingent.

Besides intellectual education, a strategy for enhancing the health and physical fitness of the Vietnamese population must be implemented. It is essential to systematically and effectively promote school sports development to improve the stature of Vietnamese citizens. We need to establish the concrete objective that by 2045, the average height of Vietnamese youth will reach levels comparable to those in developed regional nations (e.g., 175 cm for males; 163 cm for females)

To realize this objective, intensifying nationwide healthcare provision and establishing modern sports infrastructure have become an imperative necessity. Concurrently, we must set targets to increase the cohort of elite athletes capable of medal contention at major competitions such as ASIAD and the Olympics, spanning both skill-oriented disciplines and strength-intensive events.

Culture constitutes an indispensable element in human development strategy. Sustained investment is required to preserve and promote the value of cultural and artistic heritage while simultaneously pursuing innovation and modernization aligned with contemporary demands. The ultimate goal is to cultivate Vietnamese citizens endowed with a distinct national identity: patriotic, compassionate, creative, and integrated without assimilation. Advancing cultural industries to transform culture into an economic driver and national soft power warrants prioritized emphasis.

Within population development strategy, maintaining an optimal demographic structure is imperative to effectively leverage the current golden population period before transitioning to an aging society. Population quality must be enhanced through comprehensive health, nutrition, and education programs. Synchronized implementation of policies supporting young families - encouraging replacement fertility rates and ensuring holistic child healthcare - is essential.

Cultivating ethical integrity, ideological conviction, and aspirational dedication among youth assumes critical significance. We must create environments for active youth engagement in digital transformation, green economy sectors, and national cultural initiatives, while promoting their deep international integration. Thereby, young people will not only assimilate global intellectual excellence but also disseminate Vietnam's distinctive cultural values worldwide.

To actualize these overarching objectives, the Party and State shall commit robust and comprehensive resource investment to optimize development conditions for the younger generation, particularly "Generation Soar," comprising youth who will reach eighteen to twenty years of age by 2045. Education, training, sports, culture, and population policies must constitute paramount national strategic priorities. Every policy and action program is oriented toward enhancing the quality of life and international competitiveness of Vietnam's youth. The Party and State will continue formulating and implementing institutional mechanisms to foster environments conducive to the wholesome, balanced development of young people across moral, intellectual, physical, and aesthetic dimensions.

It is essential to research and develop targeted policy clusters designed to harness the youth's vanguard role in: productive labor; engagement with the Fourth Industrial Revolution; leadership in technological research and application; national digital transformation; entrepreneurship and innovation; as well as active participation in socio-economic development projects, safeguarding of national defense-security, and international integration.

Concurrently, enhanced solutions for cultivating high-caliber young human resources must be prioritized. This entails reviewing, amending, and supplementing key national policies for young talents, alongside breakthrough policies addressing: educational advancement; career streaming, orientation, and guidance; vocational training; employment; housing; and cultural-sports infrastructures for youth. Concrete measures to prevent, combat, and reduce youth crime rates require implementation. Synchronized deployment of a youth statistical indicator system and development of provincial-level evaluation frameworks for Vietnamese youth advancement are equally imperative.

The Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union must intensify organizational innovation and enhance the quality, efficacy, and substantive relevance of its operations, aligning with national and local development objectives while elevating the populace's material and spiritual living standards. Emphasis must be placed on operational depth, tangible outcomes, and ensuring comprehensive outreach across all youth demographics. The Organization must galvanize the youth's spirit of dedication and vanguard activism in: socio-economic development; national defense-security safeguarding; international integration; scientific-technological advancement; entrepreneurial innovation and digital transformation; ideological protection of the Party's foundational tenets; countering fallacious and hostile viewpoints; and participating in juvenile delinquency prevention, suppression, and mitigation initiatives.

Beyond support from the Party, State, and political-social organizations, the partnership of families, educational institutions, and corporate enterprises constitutes an indispensable cornerstone in youth development. Families provide foundational nurture, schools forge intellectual and character formation, while enterprises create ideal environments for youth to demonstrate creative capacities, hone practical skills, and accumulate experiential knowledge.

Ultimately, youth themselves determine the success of these strategic visions. Every young Vietnamese person must proactively pursue education, self-cultivation, and relentless self-improvement to realize their potential. This generation must confidently engage globally, equipped with profound knowledge, robust physicality, and a culturally rich Vietnamese identity, while evolving into global citizens anchored in the Vietnamese ethos who contribute to national development and sovereignty.

Within this trajectory, the centenary of our nation's founding will represent a pivotal milestone toward which we advance with pride and aspiration. Throughout the ensuing 20-year journey toward this landmark, we share a unified ambition: cultivating a generation of Vietnamese youth distinguished by intellectual excellence, physical vitality, and profound cultural identity, possessing the confidence and capability to engage as peers internationally while propelling the nation toward prosperity and global stature.