Literacy is the first condition for people to access development opportunities in the digital age.

Illiteracy eradication is the foundation of improving people's knowledge.

On December 6, the Ministry of Education and Training held a workshop to exchange, share and honor advanced models in the work of eliminating illiteracy for ethnic minorities.

In his opening speech, Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Deputy Director of the Department of Vocational Education and Continuing Education (Ministry of Education and Training) - said that although the literacy rate of the 15-35 age group has reached 99.39% and the 15-60 age group has reached 99.10%, illiteracy and re-illiteracy still occur in many ethnic minority communities where socio -economic conditions are still difficult.

He emphasized that literacy is the foundation of improving people's knowledge and is the first condition for each citizen to access development opportunities in the digital age. Especially, in the context of the 4.0 Industrial Revolution and the national digital transformation, the concept of "literacy" does not stop at reading, writing, and simple calculations, but also requires the skills to receive information and use technology to serve life and production (functional literacy).

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Thuy - Deputy Director of the Department of Vocational Education and Continuing Education (Ministry of Education and Training) spoke at the workshop.

Maintaining sustainable literacy results has become a vital requirement to achieve the goal of multidimensional poverty reduction and socio-economic development in ethnic minority areas in the spirit of the National Target Programs.

Therefore, Mr. Thuy said that correctly assessing the current situation and proposing breakthrough solutions to improve the quality of illiteracy eradication work for ethnic minority people in the 2025-2030 period is an important and urgent political task, aiming to realize the Party and State's policy of "Leaving no one behind".

Many classes are opened right in the border guard station.

As a person directly involved in the work of eliminating illiteracy in the locality, Ms. Lieu Thi Phuong - Principal of Ba Son Primary School (Lang Son) - shared that people in the villages often have a mentality of fear and shame when talking about learning to eliminate illiteracy. Therefore, the school must coordinate with village elders, village chiefs, prestigious people in the village, and village party cell secretaries to mobilize students.

In 2025, the school opened a literacy class with 40 students. After only 2 weeks of opening, the number of students increased to 88, and was divided into 3 classes. The school mobilized the army, Youth Union, Women's Union, etc. to teach literacy. The advantage is that the class can be held at the school because the population is concentrated around the school.

Teachers share about literacy work for ethnic minorities.

According to Ms. Phuong, the biggest difficulty in the teaching process is that 100% of the people are ethnic minorities, have difficulty in pronunciation, and have very weak ability to absorb information and listening skills. Therefore, teaching Vietnamese spelling is very difficult.

For students, people enjoy the policies of the National Target Program on illiteracy eradication. But for teachers, they still face many difficulties. Teachers teach 2 sessions/day, and in the evening they teach literacy, and lesson preparation must be done in parallel with teaching the primary school program.

"The school is far from the city center. Some teachers have to travel more than 100km because they have families and small children and cannot stay at school. I hope there will be preferential policies for teachers who directly teach literacy," Ms. Phuong said.

Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Nhu Hong - Deputy Political Commissar of the National Defense Economic Group of Nghe An province - shared that the difficulty in opening an illiteracy eradication class is changing the local viewpoints and backward customs.

With practical experience, the unit has had a creative approach, promoting literacy while supporting the people. In the political mission, Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Nhu Hong and his teammates proposed to bring poverty reduction support projects, seedlings,... to support the people.

The officers went directly to the villages to conduct surveys by making forms and signing receipts. For households that could not sign, they made a list and determined how many were illiterate in the village. We mobilized in many ways.

"We talked to the people, they must go to school to eliminate illiteracy, if they don't go to school, they won't be given breeding stock. It's just a joke, but this is a method of mobilization, linked to serving people's lives" - Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Nhu Hong said.

Officers and soldiers share experiences in literacy work.

Many classes are opened right in the border guard station, combining literacy with legal propaganda, preventing child marriage, human trafficking and instructing production techniques. Major Lo Van Thoai (Nam Lanh Border Guard Station, Son La) said, to get people to come to class, sometimes we have to help them finish harvesting rice before starting the class.

Colonel Ca Van Lap - Deputy Chief of Political Affairs of the Border Guard - Border Guard Command - said that in order to eliminate illiteracy and school-age children dropping out of school, Border Guard units have actively and proactively coordinated with localities and schools to go to each household to encourage families to let their children go to school, assigning officers in charge, along with teachers to take turns teaching classes.

Over many years of implementing the work of eliminating illiteracy, over 70,000 people have been eliminated from illiteracy, over 80,000 children have received universal primary education, nearly 50,000 drop-out students have been encouraged to return to school, especially over 40 villages and hamlets with no education have been eliminated, with contributions from Border Guard officers and soldiers and teachers on duty on the border and islands.

Illiteracy eradication is the foundation of improving people's knowledge.

Many classes are opened right in the border guard station.

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