The delegation included Nguyen Van Phong, Deputy Secretary of the municipal Party Committee; Ngo Van Quy, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee; and heads of the city’s entities and Thanh Tri District.
At the event, the delegates paid tribute to the respected teacher Chu Van An, who devoted his life to the humanistic education philosophy, regardless of his students’ wealth, to the teaching that learning goes hand in hand with practice and lifelong learning contributes to society.
Chu Van An, who lived between 1292 and 1370 in Van Thon Village, now part of Thanh Tri District in Ha Noi, is widely considered one of Vietnam’s most talented teachers. His thoughts and wisdom not only left a lasting legacy on Vietnamese education, but also contributed to promoting national humanistic values.
After his death a statue of him was erected at Van Mieu - Quoc Tu Giam in Hanoi followed by the building of a temple in Thanh Tri, an old famous village in Thang Long (present-day Hanoi) to worship him as a patron saint.
The 206th meeting of the UNESCO Executive Board, held in Paris, France, approved the celebration of the 650th death anniversary of Chu Van An in 2020.
Chu Van An’s educational perspective features a number of progressive values considered to be similar to the UNESCO’s four pillars of learning: learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together, and learning to be humans.