Under the scorching sun, with the motorbike revving its engine in first gear, we followed Mr. Luc Tien Vinh, the principal of Tan Tien Ethnic Boarding Junior High School, along with three other teachers and a Tan Tien commune official, to Nam Bat village to encourage students to attend school. After traveling about 10 km on the paved road, a challenging 4 km dirt road lay ahead. The slope was steep, the rocks jagged, the tire tracks deep, and the motorbike teetered precariously on the edge of a deep ravine; a momentary lapse in control would send us plunging into the abyss.
After nearly an hour of struggling with the road, the Dao village at the foot of Don Mountain appeared before us, a collection of simple wooden houses. Every house was deserted because the villagers hadn't returned from working in the fields. Teacher Vinh explained: Nam Bat is the most remote and difficult village in Tan Tien commune, with over a dozen Dao students studying at the secondary school and boarding at the school, but some of them hadn't yet returned to school for the August 13th assembly.
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| Eagerly welcoming the new school year. Photo: Giang Anh. |
Entering the small stilt house, we met Ban Van Lap, a sixth-grade student who had just returned from tending buffaloes. Lap said he wouldn't be going to school for a few more days because he still needed to help his mother tend the buffaloes, gather firewood, and pick vegetables for the pigs. His mother, Truong Thi Eng, doesn't speak standard Vietnamese, so the elementary school teacher, Ly Van Sang, had to speak in his local dialect for her to understand. She promised to let her son go to school and wouldn't make him stay home tending buffaloes anymore.
In the scorching sun of Nam Bat village, the heat was intense, like a frying pan. Despite being drenched in sweat and parched, the teachers persevered, climbing the slopes to visit several more students' families. In some places, they had to wait half an hour to meet parents returning from work, trying to persuade them to send their children to school. Seeing the impoverished and desolate Dao village, the treacherous dirt road that many students had to walk down to school on in their worn-out rubber sandals, we understood the hardships and difficulties of the educational mission in the highlands.
Teachers who work in remote villages.
Following the teachers, we arrived at the Nậm Bắt Primary and Kindergarten branch. Teacher Lương Văn Thoại brought out a small basket with several bunches of ripe mulberries, telling us to eat them to quench our thirst. After the summer professional development course, the teachers were only just returning to school today to clean up, while the students wouldn't be starting school for a few more days, so everything was still in disarray.
Teacher Luong Van Thoai from Nghia Do commune, who has been dedicated to the Tan Tien highland schools for 18 years, especially "stationed" in Nam Bat for the past 7 years, shared: "For preschool and primary school students, persuading them to attend class at the beginning of the school year is very difficult. Last school year, the Nam Bat branch had nearly 30 students, more than half of whom came from poor families. Many families were busy with farming and couldn't afford to take their children to school. Nam Bat has two large streams flowing through the village, and at the beginning of the new school year, it was also the rainy season. On many days when it rained heavily, students couldn't go to school, and the teacher had to go to their homes to carry them across the streams to class."
The Nậm Bắt school is remote and isolated, lacking electricity and phone signal; communication is limited to word of mouth or walking to students' homes. Before the start of the school year, Teacher Thoại would beat the drum loudly, both as a signal to announce the start of the school year and to urge students to come to class. In this remote Dao village, the resounding sound of the school drum is perhaps the most cheerful and lively sound each morning, sowing hope in their impoverished lives.
In Tan Tien, schools and branch campuses have very few female teachers. Teacher Nguyen Phan Ngoc, who has taught in the mountainous Tan Tien for 12 years, shared: In 2005, Tan Tien Secondary School had 13 teachers, 12 of whom were male. One female teacher only taught for one school year before requesting a transfer. This new school year, 14 out of 21 teachers are male. Tan Tien Primary School has 28 teachers, but only 6 are female; two years ago, the entire school only had 3 female teachers. In this challenging area, male teachers become the pillars of universal education, tirelessly "carrying" literacy to the mountains.
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Teachers from Tan Tien commune went to students' homes to encourage them to attend class. |
Thoughts before the new school year begins
On the first day of the 2018-2019 school year, the atmosphere at Tan Tien Ethnic Boarding Junior High School was not as deserted as I had expected, but rather quite lively. Students from remote villages such as Nam Bat, Can Chai, Nam Hu, Nam Din… were all present at the school, busily working to beautify the school grounds. After the summer break, teachers and students reunited, everyone was excited, and laughter filled the schoolyard.
Lu Thi Seo, a student in class 9A from Na Phung village, smiled and said: "My house is more than 6 km from the school. This morning I woke up at 5 a.m. and walked to school. Although the road is long, I'm looking forward to seeing my teachers and friends again. I'm very happy to have friends from the village walking with me on the way."
Right on the school grounds, a middle-aged man with dark skin and sweat-drenched clothes was helping students dig the soil and clear weeds. It was touching to learn that he was Sung Seo Seng, the parent of Sung Thi Gio, who had traveled 11 kilometers to help the teachers with the work at the beginning of the new school year. “Oh dear! Helping the teachers for one or two days is fine, I just hope the children study well, learn to read and write, and become officials to help the community in the future,” Mr. Seng said.
Teacher Luc Tien Vinh shared: "A few years ago, Tan Tien was among the 12 communes with weak educational development in the province, but since 2015, there has been a remarkable improvement. Last school year, the attendance rate at Tan Tien Ethnic Boarding Junior High School consistently reached 96% or higher. It's encouraging that 33% of students achieved good or excellent academic results, including 6 students who received the title of outstanding student at the district level and passed the entrance exam to the district's boarding school. The percentage of junior high school graduates continuing on to high school or vocational training is over 70%. In the 2018-2019 school year, the school had 188 students, including 125 boarding students. Both teachers and students strived to excel in teaching and learning, achieving many more positive results."
However, the biggest concern for teachers and students on the eve of the new school year is that Tan Tien Ethnic Boarding Junior High School currently lacks a dining hall, so students have to eat in their boarding rooms, which is very inconvenient. The school also has over 300 square meters of courtyard that needs to be paved with concrete to prevent muddy conditions during rainy and windy days. Mr. Hoang Trong Diep, Principal of Tan Tien Ethnic Boarding Primary School, expressed: The school has 132 out of 282 boarding students, but still lacks security guards, administrative staff, and one classroom. 100 students at the school are from poor families who cannot afford to buy enough clothes, shoes, and school supplies for their children at the start of the new school year, so they desperately need the support of the community.
Source: http://laocai.edu.vn/tin-tu-co-so/tieng-trong-truong-ngan-vang-331677
