Education efforts paid off in mountainous district

Today, Ly Chuy Go, a seventh grader at the Pa Ve Su Ethnic Boarding School in the northern mountainous province of Lai Chau’s Muong Te district and his schoolmates are eager to return to school after the weekend.

It is a 7km stretch from his house, so Chuy Go and his friends have to depart from home on Sunday afternoon to get to school on time for the new week.

For Chuy Go and his friends, travelling from home to their school is a difficult one. However, being aware of the importance of learning, they have now overcome the difficulty.

 

“Despite the long distance from home, I still want to go to school and learn how to become a helpful man,” Ly Chuy Go said.

There have always been a number of challenges facing learners on their climb to success. However, these difficulties are incrementally harder for children in remote and disadvantaged areas.

Pa Ve Su is a particularly disadvantaged commune of the border district of Muong Te. It is mainly home to Mang and La Hu ethnic people. The commune has a high poverty rate, up to 90 percent, with low perceptions of the importance of education being a significant barrier, hindering children from going to school.

Teacher Quach Thi Dieu at Pa Ve Su Ethnic Boarding School said in the early days, her class was so empty, with only one student. However, the school’s teachers met with parents and convinced them to let their children go to school. The number of students attending classes eventually started rising day after day.

“The school has already had students taking part in district-level exams for the gifted. That was one of our greatest achievements as a school,” Dieu said.

In the 2017-2018 academic year, Muong Te district had nearly half (24 out of 51) of its schools as boarding schools. The support from local authorities has gone hand in hand with the passion and care of teachers, factors that have motivated the students to continue with their formal education, despite the distinct challenges.

Ly My Ly, head of Education and Training Department of Muong Te district, said the gap in educational provision between disadvantaged and more privileged areas has been narrowing in recent years, with infrastructure for teaching and learning at minority ethnic schools seeing some significant upgrades.

She said in recent years, policies on education to facilitate students of ethnic groups, such as Cong, Mang, and La Hu have been introduced. More attention has been paid to improving the quality of teaching and learning./.