VietNamNet Bridge – There are teachers from lowland who go to remote mountainous areas of Thanh Son, Trung Thanh and Trung Son of Quan Hoa district in Thanh Hoa province, to bring literacy to local residents.

The teachers who dare not return to home villages to enjoy Tet

Tet will come in nearly two months, and it is now the right time for people to plan their trips to home villages to enjoy Tet with families and relatives. For all Vietnamese people, Tet is a reunion party. However, the teachers in the mountainous areas of Thanh Hoa province do not plan to go home this year, because they dare not spend money on long and time consuming trips.

Urbanites these days complain that everything is getting more and more expensive. However, the price increases have affected the poor teachers in the remote areas more acutely. The rice price has climbed to 16,000 dong per kilo, while the pork has surged to 80,000 dong. Vegetable has become luxurious goods.

Food and household articles are carried to the areas from Co Luong-Mail Luong commune in Hoa Binh province. The prices keep increasing day after day and they are always more expensive than in the lowland, because of the transportation costs.

The Trung Son Primary School is a very old house with three rooms, including one room reserved as the accommodation for Ngo Quoc Hoa and his wife. Hoa has been living here since 2003.

The teacher related that now he and his wife earn 3.7 million dong a month. Hoa has luckily become a regular member of the personnel and can get salary from the state budget. However, his wife, Ha Thi Diep, a nursery school teacher, is still working under fixed-term contract,  receiving 535,000 dong a month. Hoa said that the total monthly income of his family is just  enough to buy 50 kilogrammes of pork

Even when Hoa and his wife try to tighten their belt, they still do not have money to buy milk for the one-year child. Therefore, Hoa decided not to go home  this Tet. “I still do not know how I can arrange money to celebrate Tet,” he said.

The loneliness, coldness and difficulties

Due to the serious shortage of regular teachers, the Quan Hoa district’s Education Sub-department itself has to hire teachers under the fixed term contracts to ensure that there are enough teachers. The teachers do not get salaries from the state budget, but get pay from the local budgets or from the schools. Their salaries are very modest, just 550,000-900,000 dong a month (about $50)

The cottage in the middle of Bo mountain village is divided into two parts, one serves as the classroom for children, while the other is reserved for Ha Thi Ti, a teacher.

The teachers, who are working under fixed term contracts here, with their modest pays, call meat and fish “luxurious products” which they only eat one or two times a month. Sometimes, they return to home villages in the lowland and come back to the mountainous areas with food given by their families. However, if it rains at weekend, they are not able to return home, which also means that they will not have good food for the following week.

There is no electricity in Trung Thanh, Trung Son and Thanh Son communes. For water and electricity, teachers have to spend money to purchase petrol and oil to run power generator.

Pham Thi Sen, a teacher, related that when she first came here, she cried her heart out every night, because she felt lonely, cold as she imagined the tough life ahead.

Teachers here are paid once in every three months. With the modest pays, they have to tighten their belt. However, even when they have money, they still cannot buy good food if it rains. The only thing they have in such circumstances is just loafs of bread.

However, despite the difficulties, they continue living and working hard, in order to sow the seeds of knowledge in the mountainous areas.