For the first time, students at the '3 no' roof heard the school opening drum

Teachers stand at Ong Binh roof (Tra Don commune, Nam Tra My, Quang Nam) to welcome students in the early opening ceremony.

Happy opening ceremony

On the morning of September 4, 44 preschool and primary school students at Ong Binh school, part of Tra Don Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities (Tra Don commune, Nam Tra My, Quang Nam) held the opening ceremony of the new school year right on the yard that had just been leveled to make way for the construction of the new school.

Students waved national flags in the middle of the green mountains and forests.

The joy of students at Ong Binh school (Tra Don commune, Nam Tra My, Quang Nam) with the uniforms given by the Loving Friends Club.

This is the first opening ceremony, the students get to hear the school drum like the students at the main school. They are welcomed into the school for the first time with brand new uniforms. The opening ceremony is conducted like any other school in the country. The moment the National Anthem resounds in the mountains and forests, sacred and full of emotion.

Under the words Opening Ceremony of the 2023-2024 school year, there is also a prominent line: "Only going to school can help our village to be prosperous and develop". It is like a message sent to the students of Ong Binh school, who are overcoming difficulties every day to stay at school and in class.

For the first time, Ong Binh school rang out the school drum to welcome the new school year.

This is a “three no” school – no phone signal, no national grid electricity, no clean water. Teachers have to put turbines under the stream to generate electricity. The people mainly work on the fields. The children are gentle, polite, but dirty, studying in classrooms made from patched rusty corrugated iron sheets and degraded wooden fences full of holes.

From the main school in the commune center, to get to Ong Binh school, you have to leave your motorbike at a local’s house and walk for nearly 2 hours. Although the road is newly built, it has not been paved yet, so in the rainy season, the road surface is no different from a plowed field. It is quite difficult and dangerous for teachers to go to school.

Along with the Opening Ceremony, Ong Binh School also held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a school with a scale of 2 classrooms, 1 teacher's room and a restroom with a total area of about 140m2. This is a school project built from the mobilization of the Friends Club (Da Nang) with a support amount of nearly 500 million VND.

Building school on the mountain

Before the early opening ceremony, the people of Ong Binh hamlet were still diligently carrying bags of sand and rocks to prepare for the school construction. On the first day, the young and old in the hamlet all enthusiastically participated. In the following days, the transportation started to get tiring but the construction site was still bustling.

People from Mr. Binh's roof contributed labor days, transporting rocks and sand over steep slopes to gather materials to build the school.

This year is the second school year that Mr. Nguyen Van Nhan has been teaching at Ong Binh hamlet. He has participated in mobilizing people to contribute working days and transporting construction materials. He is also the one who coordinates the work for the people in the hamlet and also works as a porter. He also buys tools and provides food for the people... So even though his house is right in the commune, he still has to come home late every night.

Ong Binh school will be solidly built from funds mobilized by the Friends of Love Club and contributions of working days from the people in the roof.

Mr. Nguyen Van Nhan has been teaching on contract at Tra Don Primary Boarding School for Ethnic Minorities since 2019 with a salary of less than 4 million VND. While teaching, he also arranges time to study for a university degree at Quang Nam University. In the summer of 2023, Mr. Nhan will complete his university program.

For 4 years of teaching, Mr. Nhan has been a teacher at village schools. “Compared to teachers from the plains, I am a fellow countryman, I understand the psychology of students, I speak the same language as them, so teaching and learning first grade will have many advantages. Sometimes, even if I explain in Vietnamese, the students still cannot understand, the teacher will switch to speaking to them in their mother tongue and they will remember right away. Of course, it is very rare that I can “translate” and I have to regularly use Vietnamese in teaching and communicating with students,” said Mr. Nhan.

Teacher Nguyen Van Nhan (pink shirt) participates in transporting materials with Ong Binh villagers.

Mr. Nguyen Binh Nam – Head of the Friends Club shared: “People like Mr. Nhan have returned to teach the children of their fellow countrymen in that mountainous area. Even with the low salary of a contract teacher.

This is also what we are looking forward to: that is, how can the children not drop out of school, persevere in their studies and then return to join hands in building their villages. Don’t think too far ahead, just a little bit each day, each person contributes a hand, the rain soaks in slowly, then the seeds will grow up…” .

“Just by transporting the materials, I can already imagine that when the school is completed, it will be spacious, beautiful, warm in the rainy season, and free from the scorching sun in the summer. Our teachers and students will only have to teach temporarily in the wooden classrooms for a few more months. With a new, more convenient school, the students will enjoy coming to school more. If the students are diligent, the teachers will be more focused on teaching and learning,” said teacher Nguyen Van Nhan.

(Source: giaoducthoidai.vn)

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