The sun has not awakened yet in the village of Lao Chai, North Vietnam. It is 5.30 in the morning and Elina gets ready to go to school. The nearest and only secondary school available is Trường THPT số 1, situated in the town of Sapa. It can potentially take up to an hour to walk from her house to school to get to class on time, around 10 km of wet and muddy streets.

                     

On her way to school she is joined by a group of little girls, aged thirteen to eighteen, excited about new subjects to learn. It is 6.30am and the first class begins.   

 

A usual day for a 17-years-old girl except for the fact that every day she needs to work after school, selling handcrafted goods on the streets to earn money to help her family.

“I love going to school and studying but my family needs me,” she says with a tender voice, as if she had no choice. “I also have two younger brothers (11 and 13-years-old) who need my care.”

 

Elina An was nine when she first started to work. Her family belongs to the Black Hmong tribe, one of the many minority ethnic groups in Vietnam who live in the high mountain areas, far from schools and facilities. Elina is just one of the many children in Vietnam who spent their childhood not asking for the newest toy to play with, but worrying about making savings and taking care of her siblings.

 

“Families in the village don’t support children to get educated,” Shu Tan, founder and director of the Sapa O’Chau Project, strongly points out.

 

“Parents need their children to work in the fields and they don’t understand how important education is. Children learn really fast and giving them the right teaching and support can shape their future and affect their lives in a positive way.”

 

A third of ethnic minority households in Vietnam has a child that drops out of school and 14 per cent of those children go to school and work at the same time, according to the Work Bank Group organisation. In some rural areas only 10 to 15 percent of the children continue beyond third grade, while almost 96 percent of students in the capital, Ho Chi Minh City, complete fifth grade.

 

In the last two decades, Vietnam has witnessed a rapid economic growth. In 1986 the government introduced new reforms that shifted Vietnam from being one of the poorest countries in the world to a lower middle income one.

 

The quality of life for the 26 million children in the country has relatively improved: a growing number of young people tend to attend primary and secondary school and have access to an adequate health care.

 

“Most Vietnamese parents grew up within the country’s isolated and harsh educational regime during the 1970 and 80s,” Ngân Saro, 23, a primary school teacher in Ho Chi Minh City, explains.

 

“Fortunately, we’ve gained great strengths from it to be in our position today. Our children nowadays are brought up with excessive care and protection. We help them to cultivate morality, embrace wisdom and foster efforts – three fundamental qualities of a proficient citizen.”

 

The overall dropout rate was 22 percent in 1989. In the same year, literacy among those age 15 and older was 87.3 percent, compared to 93.5 percent in 2009.

 

Vietnam definitely seems on track to meet its UN project, Illiteracy eradication till 2020, estimating to eliminate illiteracy for 1.2 million people and bring literacy levels to 98 percent.  

 

“When I was a student myself, Vietnamese schools did not provide enough equipment to help the student develop specific skills to apply in everyday life,” says Nguyễn Thanh Hằng, a primary school teacher in Hanoi. “The environment was not suitable for primary students with narrow and humid classrooms; and extracurricular activities were organised only once a year.”

 

Since 2008, the government has been spending 20 percent of its budget on education, recognising it as a national priority. Its main concern has been to upgrade the facilities, especially in big cities such as Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

 

“New schools were built and expanded to meet the learning needs of a demanding society,” Nguyễn Thanh Hằng adds. “Classroom buildings are now larger and more spacious, encouraging kids to study and play around.”

 

“The quality of teachers is gradually improving. We teach children communication and life skills to protect themselves and students are now more confident, willing to learn and to get involved in social activities.”

 

Despite these remarkable improvements in terms of education and child care, disadvantaged groups such as poorest households, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities still remain one step behind in the achievement of a better education quality, especially in remote areas of the country.

 

There are currently around 130,000 out-of-school children in Vietnam. The rate for primary school net enrolment among the poorest and the wealthiest families was respectively 89 percent and 99 percent.

 

And the rate for ethnic minorities groups was even lower: around 73 percent for the Mong and 87 percent for the Khmer, as reported by the United Nation Development Program 2009 Census. Still, the level of literacy for the Kinh majority (Viet) is 95.9 percent, compared with around 38 percent for the Mong.

 

According to the report of Out of school children in Vietnam by UNICEF, an imbalanced economic and socio-cultural growth distribution has mainly affected children and families who live in the rural and mountainous areas.

 

“Poverty is one of the key factors that limits the ability to afford educational costs,” says Ms Tran Thi Phuong Nhung, Gender Programme Manager at UNESCO Hanoi Office. “Parents aren’t aware of the importance of studying. They need their children to work to generate income for the families [mainly based on agriculture] and therefore, there’re no sufficient funds to pay related cost for learning,” she adds.

 

In 2008 ethnic minorities were accounted around 50 per cent of the poorest, compared with almost 9 per cent for the Kinh majority. By 2010, poverty levels reached 65 per cent, according to a GSO survey.  

 

Child poverty, in particular, appears to be more prevalent than traditional statistics reveal.

Ethnic minority children make up more than 60 percent of all poor children.

 

Language barriers, severe natural conditions and school distance are also responsible for the number of children who have not finished primary school, around 23 percent.

 

The government and other sustainable organisations are now aiming at finding new plans and possible long-term solutions.

 

UNESCO and its partners - UN, Educate a Child, UNICEF, Save the Children and more – are embarking on achieving Goal 4 - The education goal- of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.  

 

Ms Tran Thi Phuong Nhung says that UNESCO needs to “invest considerable efforts in both financial and technical sources to deal with the existing issues in the education sector”. “School-related accommodations, curricular, teaching method, quality of textbook, salary for the teachers and cultural appropriateness are some of them.”

 

And the need of a global awareness is high. “At Headquarter level, we’ve developed a blog for education which posts news, sharing, achievement written by the beneficiaries; at country office, we have developed a website which is frequently updated with news and stories in the related field to share our works to all; and occasionally, we also invite international participants to attend related events in Viet Nam about the UNESCO support for the education and other sectors,” Ms Nhung explains.

 

Non-popular organisations are also trying to stand out in this ‘education-for-all’ battle. Sapa O’Chau is one of them. Since 2010, this social enterprise has been running sustainable projects to help reduce the number of illiterate among ethnic minority children in the town of Sapa and elsewhere in Vietnam. And significant changes have been made throughout these years.

 

“The development outside is rapidly growing and it’s becoming more difficult to find good job opportunities if you can’t write, read and speak only Vietnamese,” says Shu Tan, director and founder of Sapa O’Chau.

 

“We’ve been running English classes every day with great response [40 students attend]; we’re also planning to buy a new house and school where children can stay without coming and go. Families are now starting to value education as a better way to change their lives.”

 

Shu Tan, 30, a single mother from the Black Hmong tribe, has devoted her life to give young generations the prospect of a better and more liveable future, funding with her own money.

 

“Nobody really helps. We receive support and donations form tourists and other communities every now and then but it’s hard.”

 

However, “You cannot say that the government is doing enough or not,” she says.

There is a more important “need to find a balance and ensure we work out together, making sure there are not mistakes. Education is the key”.

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Photographs by Chiara Brambilla