The new school year is about to start while the majority of students have been fully equipped with textbooks and school things by their parents. The work of taking care of students with especially difficult circumstances for the new school year have also been deployed in many localities. To share those difficulties, the province’s sector of education-training and other sectors have carried out many activities to support children so that the joy of going to school is complete.
Multiplying faith, strength to surmount difficulties
The narrow lodging room in Tan Uyen city’s Khanh Binh ward is where the family of Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram (born in 2014 in Kien Giang province) has lived for the past 3 years. Currently, Tram's father with his leg broken in an accident is at home while her mother sells lottery tickets. All the family's living burdens are placed on the mother's shoulders with the monthly income of more than VND 4 million that is only enough to pay for accommodation and food expenses. Although being 10 years old, Tram cannot go to school like her peers, due to poverty.
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Leaders of Tan Uyen city’s Division of Education and Training visit and offer support to Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram in Khanh Binh ward
After grasping Ngoc Tram's situation, Khanh Binh ward coordinated with Tan Uyen city’s Division of Education and Training (DoET) to visit, encourage and get information to support her to go to school. So far, the city’s DoET has assigned Khanh Binh secondary school to coordinate in reviewing Ngoc Tram's admission records.
Born and grown in a remote commune of the province, with difficult family conditions and orphaned when being young, three sisters of Ho Thi Nhu Hoa, a student of class 7A1 at Quang Trung Secondary School in Bau Bang district ‘s Hung Hoa commune live with their father. In order to take good care of his children, Hoa's father worked hard with all kinds of jobs, but life was still difficult. Loving her father, during the past school years, Nhu Hoa tried her best to study well so as not to disappoint her father's expectations.
Recently, Hoa has been among 300 students selected by Bau Bang district’s Study Promotion Association to award "Giving strength to school" scholarships. Holding her gift in hand, Nhu Hoa shared: “I am very happy to receive this scholarship. With this money, I will use it to buy school things for my three sisters in the new school year.”
These are just 2 out of thousands of cases of students with difficult circumstances supported by the local authorities before the new school year. Supporting poor students at the beginning of the school year is an annual activity of departments, sectors, mass organizations, localities and units in the province for many years. With the desire of acting as a bridge from golden hearts to poor-but-excellent students, these August days, the units have simultaneously carried out “giving strength to school” activities by doing such specific things as donating scholarships, textbooks, clothes, bicycles... These activities have opportunely shared difficulties and given more motivation for students to go to school and strive to rise up in study.
Accompanying students
In the last school year, provincial Department of Education and Training coordinated with relevant units to mobilize, award scholarships together with school things to more than 3,500 local disadvantaged students. Since early this year, the economic situation has faced many difficulties. Many businesses have reduced orders or dissolved, causing workers to be lost their jobs, reduced working hours…Many families have become more difficult. This has also made many students who are the offspring of workers face difficulties in study conditions, even have to drop out of school.
Although all-level authorities, sectors, mass organizations, localities and schools have made efforts to implement many solutions to help many students, they have not yet met actual needs. As of now, the province has had more than 7,000 difficult students. Among them, there are still thousands of cases that can’t afford to continue going to school. They always look forward to receiving support to continue writing their dreams on the educational path.
Nguyen Van Phong, Deputy Director of provincial Department of Education and Training said that in the school year 2023-2024, provincial Department of Education and Training will further have an open letter calling on agencies, organizations and donors across the country to join hands to help the local disadvantaged students with the determination of "not let any students drop out of school, due to difficulties". Currently, the department is directing educational institutions to make statistics and make a list of proposals for students to receive scholarships and support from the "Giving strength to school" program in the 2023-2024 academic year. The program is expected to be held at the beginning of this new school year.
The “Giving strength to school” program is one of the annual activities of the province's education and training sector in particular and the joint efforts of departments and mass organizations in the province in general to support the local students with extremely difficult circumstances; create conditions for them to be self-confident, feel secure and excited to go to school while showing the responsibility of the society for the future generations of the country.
Reported by Hong Phuong-Khac Thinh-Translated by Kim Tin
