The Ca Mau Education and Training Department has reported that 2,458 students have dropped out so far this year, including 392 students who dropped out because they don’t have money to take ferry boats to the schools.

Students in U Minh district take ferry boat to school

The students of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School in Phu Tan district have to pay VND 468,000 a month, students of Ngoc Hien High School in Ngoc Hien district VND 450,000 a month, and students of Le Cong Nhan in Thoi Binh district cost VND 1,000 per student for every ferry boat.

According to Cao Minh Hong, Chief Secretariat of the Ca Mau Education and Training Department, 392 students have dropped out because they couldn’t pay for the ferry boat fees in the first semester of the 2008-2009 school year. Hong also said that 9,318 students are having difficulties in paying ferry boat fees and they are likely to give up school.

In general, local primary and secondary school students have to take a ferry boat to travel four kilometres to get to school.

The students of Phan Ngoc Hien High School in Nam Can district have to travel 15km of waterways to get to the school.

The distance from students’ homes and Nguyen Thi Minh Khai High School in Phu Tan district is 13.5 km, and the distance is 12 km from their homes to Ngoc Hien High School in Ngoc Hien district.

The students, who have a learning shift in the morning, have to get up very early to catch ferry boats to school, while the students, who have learning shift in the afternoon, have to leave homes at 8:00am and get back home when it is completely dark.

In order to minimize the number of drops out, the local authorities are discussing with ferry boat owners on reducing fees for students. The students from poor families will receive the support from the study encouragement fund. Local authorities have called on ferry boat owners to cut the fee by a half for the poor students.

Meanwhile, schools have collected money and life jackets for the students in families with difficulties.

Some students’ parents have been seeking boarding houses near the schools for their children to stay. However, the solution has not been applauded as students staying at boarding houses cannot be supervised by families and schools, while schools still do not have dormitories for students.

There has been no official statistics about the drops out in Cuu Long River Delta provinces, but local education and training departments all said that the number of drops out have been increasing.

VietNamNet/TP