VietNamNet Bridge – Poverty has struck down a 10th class student. A young girl from Quang Binh who dreamt of being able to continue studying killed herself because she didn’t have money to pay high school tuition.

The suicide note of Hoa

Why?

Hoa died for the VND228,000 that she could not pay the school, just $13, for the next few months of studying. It is a small sum for many families, but a really big sum for poor families like Hoa’s.

“Dear parents, sisters and brothers,

My life should not be a heavy burden on you. I think death is really shameful, but I believe it is the best solution for now,” Hoa wrote in her suicide note.

The death of the student might have given a start to many educators. Vietnam’s educational system, which is striving to more deeply integrate into international education, and aiming at international standards, has witnessed a heart-breaking story.

Education going backwards…

In early November, UNESCO released the Education for All Global Monitoring Report 2008, which revealed that Vietnam had fallen by nine grades in the Education For All Development Index (EDI) to 79th among 129 nations.

Vietnam’s EDI has decreased, though it has been spending a lot of money on education and training. Statistics released by the General Statistics Office show that from 2001 to 2006, the state budget for education increased by four-fold, from VND12.6tril to VND54tril.

Meanwhile, families have to pay additional big volumes of money to keep their children going to school. Tuition fees and the sums of money families have to pay have been increasing steadily every semester and every school year. A lot of students have to give up school for lack of money.

Talking about Vietnam’s educational system in the global integration period, Prof Academic Pham Minh Hac, former Minister of Education, said that there have been problems in the spending on education.

Prof Hac said that the sums of money allocated for localities just exist on paper, while no one knows exactly how much money is actually being spent on education in localities.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education and Training Nguyen Thien Nhan, at a working session in Tra Vinh province in April, decided to give support to students who have dropped out because of poverty. The Ministry of Education and Training will join forces with the Ministry of Labour, War Invalids and Social Affairs to give 15-20 kg of rice to every poor student.

Nhan has also asked local authorities and schools to persuade students to go to school by giving them bicycles and textbooks.

It remains unclear how the decision by the Prime Minister has been implemented. Meanwhile, there are a lot of students who still cannot go to school because of no money to buy textbooks.

Will Hoa’s be the last suicide note written by a student unable to go to school?

(Source: Tien phong)