Leadership and management training plays an important role in improving educational quality and fulfilling the demands of modern society, experts said at a meeting held last Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City.

First-graders at Tran Nguyen Han Primary School in District 8, Ho Chi Minh City

At the roundtable discussion, the chairman of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO), Pehin Abu Bakar Apong, said that such training had become urgent, particularly in developing countries like Vietnam.

Dr Ho Thanh My Phuong, deputy head of SEAMEO\'s Regional Training Centre in Vietnam, said the Ministry of Education and Training in Vietnam has strongly urged this kind of training, saying it should be offered to improve human resources.

Asso Prof and Dr Mark Power Robison of the University of Southern California said that leaders and managers of educational institutions face challenges to reform their institutions on a large scale in order to attract teachers and students.

Leaders need to develop the capacity to transfer experiences in educational development from other countries.

Dr. Witaya Jeradechakul, the head of the secretariat of SEAMEO, added that leadership, management and functional competencies were vital for leaders and managers.

They need the critical and synthesizing minds as well as foresight, he said.

Foresight competence helps leaders and managers decide the ways their organisation would operate in future in order to achieve the best results, he added.

They can foresee obstacles and then reduce these obstacles\' negative influences on their organisation\'s development, thanks to foresight capacity, he added.

At the workshop, Phuong said leadership and management-training programmes had been carried out in recent years in Vietnam.

Phuong said these programmes had attracted many leaders and managers, including rectors, principals, deans and vice-principals of schools, universities and heads of educational departments and offices nationwide.

Educational institutes implementing leadership and management training programmes include pedagogy universities, the institutes of education management in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi and SEAMEO RETRAC, she said.

Vietnam\'s government has worked with the European Community to carry out a project on reform of education management, she added.