5. Law on Public Officials and Public Servants and Law on Public Employees, amended in 2019
- Indefinite-term employment contracts are only applied to the following 3 groups of persons:
+ Public employees are recruited before July 1, 2020;
+ Public officials or public servants are transferred to public employees under the provisions of point b of clause 1 of Article 58 in the 2010 Law on Public Employees;
+ Persons are recruited as public employees working in areas facing extreme socio-economic difficulties.
In addition, the term of definite-term employment contract may be extended up to 60 months (36 months at maximum prescribed in the existing regulation);
- 02 more groups of persons are recruited to work as public servants through qualified candidate consideration:
+ Students taking state-nominee training and education programs prescribed in the Education Law work for the local jurisdictions where nominate them to these programs after their graduation;
+ Students gaining degrees or diplomas with excellent grades, and talented young scientists.
- Disciplinary sanction in the form of lowering of pay tiers is imposed on public employees that do not hold superior or senior office.
6. 2019 Law on Education
- New regulations on minimum qualification requirements for teacher’s provision of training and instruction services:
+ Kindergarten and preschool education: Qualified teacher must hold at least an associate degree in pedagogy (currently, certificate of graduation from post-secondary pedagogical training program);
+ Elementary, lower secondary and upper secondary education: Qualified teachers must hold at least a bachelor degree in teacher training discipline. If there is not the adequate number of teachers capable of teaching a subject, teachers of such subject must hold a bachelor degree in a relevant major and a certificate of graduation from pedagogy career improvement course.
- Students taking teacher training programs are entitled to tuition fee and stipend support in the entire course. They must, however, reimburse such financial support if, after 2 years of graduation, they:
+ do not work in the education field;
+ provide services for a period lower than the prescribed duration.
7. 2019 amended Law on Entry, Exit, Transit and Residence of foreigners in Vietnam
- Any change in purposes of visas will not be allowed, except in the following cases:
+ Visa holders show documents certifying that they are investors or representatives of overseas organizations making foreign investments in Vietnam in accordance with regulations;
+ Visa holders present documents certifying that they are parents or spouses of inviters or guarantors;
+ Visa holders are invited or guaranteed by entities or organizations to work and obtain work permits or are certified to be granted exemption from work permit requirements in accordance with regulations;
+ Visa holders enter by using electronic visas and hold work permits or are certified to be granted exemption from work permit requirements in accordance with regulations.
- More visa classification symbols will be added, including: LS, ĐT1, ĐT2, ĐT3, ĐT4, DN1, DN2, LĐ1, LĐ2 (currently, only ĐT, DN and LĐ are available);
- Conversion of regulations on electronic visas into Law:
+ EV mark is valid once and lasts no more than 30 days;
+ Foreigners using electronic visas upon entry or exit must meet prescribed requirements and must enter or exit through international border gates or checkpoints stipulated in Government’s decisions.
8. Law on Government Organization and Law on Local Government Organization, amended in 2019
- The term “irregular/spontaneous meeting” that may take place under the administration of the Government, People’s Councils or People’s Committees is no longer used and will be replaced by the term “thematic/special-purpose meeting, or meeting to deal with sudden tasks”.
- An additional eligibility standard for becoming a delegate of a People’s Council: The delegate must be a Vietnamese national.
- The number of Deputy Chairpersons of People’s Committees of class-II communes is restricted to 02 persons. This means that one more person is added to that number prescribed in the existing regulation.
- Total number of delegates of People’s Councils of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city that may be elected is 95 persons (currently, 105 delegates).
In addition, the new Law sets out regulations on making adjustments to reduce the number of delegates of People’s Council and changing the standing membership of People’s Councils of provinces, districts or communes.
9. 2019 Reserve Force Law
- Regulations on 4 cases of mobilization of reserve forces, including:
+ Reserve forces are mobilized under general or local mobilization commands;
+ Reserve forces are mobilized under martial law orders;
+ Reserve forces are mobilized if there is any threat to national security, social order or safety which is not so serious that a state of emergency needs to be declared;
+ Reserve forces are mobilized to prevent, control and mitigate consequences of calamities, natural disasters or dangerous diseases.
- Regulations on manning requirements of each reserve unit:
+ Reserve servicemen or technical equipment listed in plans for provision of additional personnel for standing forces of the People’s Army are divided into reserve units.
+ Reserve units must ensure the adequate number of reserve personnel, reserve technical equipment and the number thereof on standby accounting for between 10% and 15% of the existing number, and must keep adequate stock of weapons and technical equipment for future use under their assigned duty.
10. 2019 Law on Vietnamese Citizen’s Entry and Exit
From July 1, 2020, various passports will contain electronic chips.
The Law prescribes that passports with electronic chips are passports into which electronic devices are inserted in order to store encrypted information of passport holders and digital signatures of holders. These passports may be issued to Vietnamese citizens aged at least 14 years.
Persons at the minimum age of 14 years have the right to choose whether they are granted passports with or without electronic chips.
Types of passports containing electronic chips include:
- Diplomatic passport;
- Official passport;
- Popular passport.
11. 2019 Library Law
2019 Library Law covers more entities and persons eligible for establishing libraries, including:
Vietnamese or foreign entities and persons, or investment communities, will all enjoy the rights to establish non-public libraries if they meet the following requirements:
- They satisfy requirements concerning defined objectives and customers or readers;
- Their information resources match their functions, duties and meet demands of their customers or readers;
- Their facilities and equipment meet library operational requirements;
- Librarians' professional qualifications and skills are corresponding to library’s services;
- Library’s legal representatives have full capacity of performing civil acts.
(This is different from existing regulations under which only Vietnamese organizations are accorded the rights to establish libraries).
12. 2019 Law on Architecture
Regulations on eligibility requirements for architecture practicing certificates:
- The intended applicant must hold university or higher qualification in the architecture sector;
- The intended applicant must have at least 3 years’ experience acquired from previous involvement in providing architectural services or partnership with other self-employed architects;
Individual applicants winning national or international architecture awards can be exempted from this requirement.
- The applicant must successfully pass the test for eligibility to receive practicing certificates in architecture.
Individual applicants spending at least 10 successive years directly involving in state management of architecture, higher education or other higher training in the architecture sector or directly practicing architecture will be granted exemption from this requirement.
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