 Students play chess during a break at Ninh Phuoc Secondary Boarding School for Ethnic Minority Students. (Photo: Ngoc Anh/VOV5) |
For the 2022-2023 academic year, the school has 31 teachers, education officials, and staff and more than 260 students, most of them of the Cham or Jrai ethnic minority. The students visit home every 2 weeks at weekends.
Vice Principal Tran Mai Thanh said, “All students are exempted from fees. They are provided with school supplies including briefcases, notebooks, and rulers. 9th graders are given sleeping mats, mosquito nets, and coats. We have a library where students can borrow textbooks until the end of the academic year.”
According to Thanh, every summer vacation, the students are given the travel fare to go home. They are given regular medical check-ups and health insurance. The school also pays for their electricity and water use. Extracurricular outings to other localities are organized at the end of the school year to teach the students life skills.
Nguyen Mai Ngoc Huyen, an English teacher, told VOV that the school also has a dormitory for teachers.
“I’ve been working at the school for 4 years and have a lot of memories of it, which is my second family. I spend more time at school than at home. Learning opportunities for ethnic students have been limited so teachers must use remedial teaching method to fulfill the goals set by the Ministry of Education and Training,” said Huyen.
She said she hopes that this secondary school will become a multi-level school so the students can get a tertiary education here.
 A corner of the boarding school’s library. (Photo: Ngoc Anh/VOV5) |
Thanks to State support, Ninh Phuoc Secondary Boarding School for Ethnic Minority Students has been renovated and now has well-equipped facilities, a football pitch, and a table tennis and chess room.
9th grader Chau Duc Anh, who has been studying at the school for 3 years, said, “Last year I received the ‘good student’ title. My school hours are from 7 to 10.25 am. The afternoon is our self-study time, if we don’t have any compulsory lessons. In the evening, students have self-study for 2 hours from 7.00 to 9 pm to prepare for the next day’s lessons. The teachers are very enthusiastic and teach us a lot about social issues. Now I know the cultural heritages of Ninh Thuan province.”
The school has encouraged students to preserve their traditional ethnic culture and taught them life skills to help them establish an independent life and contribute to the development of their homeland.
Sixth-grader Thieng Anh Cuong, whose family is in extremely difficult circumstances, said, “I want to become a teacher to spread knowledge to students. I love my grandmother very much. She has worked very hard to raise me. I like literature and often play chess after school.”
In the 2019-2020 academic year, Ninh Phuoc school was awarded a certificate of Advanced Labor Collective by the provincial Department of Education and Training.
In the 2020-2021 school year, one of its 9th graders Chau Dao Xuan Nghi, won the third prize for math at the provincial level.