K10 - College for Foreign Affairs - 40 years of contributions

Graduating in 1980, with comprehensive knowledge equipped throughout the course to become soldiers on the diplomatic front, K10 members entered life with the desire to contribute to the country's cause of foreign affairs. During the country’s full-of-turbulence 40 years, although everyone has turned different roads with the majority of them work in different domestic and foreign units of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, they are tied together by the one common denominator - that is, they all studied and trained together for 5 years of studying from 1975 to 1980 at the College for Foreign Affairs.

K10 was the first ever class of the College for Foreign Affairs after the April 30th Historic Victory and Reunification Day. In the new context of the country, in order to soon provide the country with a contingent of well-trained foreign affairs cadres, the College for Foreign Affairs quickly resumed its university training and gained a special privilege of going to provinces and cities’ Admissions Department to hand-pick outstanding students for the school year 1975-1976. In addition, K10 also had a number of soldiers who are discharged or switched professional, and some officials from departments/branches related to foreign affairs. The whole course at that time had only nearly 60 students, divided into 3 classes, of which two classes A and B’s main foreign language was English while class C’s was French, and vice versa, class A and B learned side language French while class C learned English. The specialized and professional subjects were mandatory in all 3 classes. In addition, the training organization then was still deeply affected by wartime characteristics with the slogan "discipline like the army, clean like a hospital". In that condition, plus the boarding of all the members for the first 3 years, the boundaries between classes become blurred.

In the country’s difficult post-war conditions, especially in the final years of the course, K10 students experienced an unforgettable lack of facilities, especially the scarcity of learning materials such as dictionaries, textbooks, reference books... Nonetheless, they received the loving dedication and enthusiasm of the teachers, the staff, who were always caring, inspiring and guiding students with the love of one big family for the "first child". In return, all K10 students at that time were always excited, enthusiastic, diligent, and passionate and practically "devoured" everything they were taught in the class without missing a single detail.

It is extremely hard to compare with today’s learning and researching conditions, but certainly the knowledge that the entire class K10 gathered at the College at that time was extremely valuable, enough to form a solid foundation that helped each person complete their tasks successfully in their jobs and continue to improve their qualifications to meet new and higher standards in the later stages. The 5-year course at the College for Foreign Affairs gave K10 students even more. They were the experiences of collective life, the love between teachers and students, and an unforgettable friendship with both happy and sad memories during boarding time. Up to now, people can hardly distinguish between classes, but often refer to K10 as a class of students with various ages and origins who are serious and enthusiastic in learning, sincere and pure in activities, always united and willing to help each other strive for the best results.

In fact, the past 40 years has proved that with the knowledge and skills provided by the College, K10 members have confidently stand on their feet in foreign affairs areas, following generations of seniors, making worthy contributions to the work to build a "more decent, bigger and more beautiful" Vietnam, "shoulder to shoulder with the five continental powers" as our beloved President Ho Chi Minh wished. In the course of their work, K10 - both individually and collectively, has achieved proud success, making many contributions to the foreign front in particular, to the society, to country in general. In their improvement and growth, the vast majority of K10 students have become high-level diplomats or high-level officers in the Party’s and State’s agencies, including 2 Deputy Ministers, 20 Ambassadors and Consul General, 25 Department-level Leaders with many Director Generals, Directors, Heads of Vietnam Commission overseas, etc. Some people continued to pursue further study after graduating, achieving high degrees, including 2 Ph.D. and 18 Master Degree. In addition, among those who do not work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, many have really become an important pillar of foreign affairs in departments, branches and localities. Many K10 students have been given noble awards by the Party and State such as Labor Medal, Certificate of Merit from the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister, and many departments, branches and localities.

In terms of working spirit, the vast majority of K10 members are always pioneering, ready to take on the tasks of "headwinds" in difficult key areas; joining the military service whenever the country needs them; working in term in all types of our overseas Commissions - from the Embassy which in charge of bilateral relations, the Permanent Mission which undertake multilateral diplomacy, to the Consulate General which is responsible for specific foreign affairs work - relentless and tireless dedication to the implementation of the foreign policy of multilateralism, diversification of the relations of the Party and the State on all 4 pillars - Political diplomacy, Economic diplomacy, Cultural Diplomacy and Consular, Community Affairs. On the other hand, K10 students have gathered lots of diverse and valuable practical knowledge and experience in foreign affairs which are still very useful to the society and the country. Many members of K10 left many valuable documents, research works, books, articles, literature works, and poetry.

40 years ago, the K10 ship has sailed, surfed on the open sea, overcame many hardships, difficulties, big waves, storms and many temptations. That ship, after anchoring in many interesting, unique and diverse shores across 5 continents have safely landed, ending the 40-year journey without any sailor being bribed or broken. With the pride in the efforts and dedication during the past 40 years, entering a new stage of life, it can be said that K10 members have had enough experience to understand what the enduring values of life are, as someone once said:

“Nothing lasts forever, only love remains till the end of time.”

Just like the earth never stops spinning, time will pass and things will be left behind. However, the friendship and kindness will glue K10 member together and stay with them for the rest of their lives.