In the early 1990s, in what is now Dien Bien, at this provincial teacher training school we came to clearly understand the exceptional disadvantages for Hmong and other lesser populated highland ethnic minority children who sought an education. As the government of Viet Nam decreed that there would be universal access to primary education by the year 2000, the province realized it had no ethnic Hmong teachers, although vast areas were populated by 100 % Hmong communities, and the population of the province was more than one third ethnic Hmong.
There were serious shortages of college students, let alone graduates, in the province, even high school graduates were scarce, and so few were available for teacher training.
Consequently the Tuan Giao Teacher Training School established different training levels to meet the demand for enough teachers to meet the mandated universal primary school access:
Those candidates who had completed high school would train for only one year and then were assigned to teach primary school, as time was short, and schools needed to be established. This level was called Twelve Plus One. Most in this group were Kinh, or ethnic Vietnamese, and had attended high school in the provincial or district towns. Trainees from this class on their way to lunch, upper photos.
For youngsters who had completed ninth grade, there was the Nine Plus Two Course, and for graduates of grade five, the Five Plus Three. These trainees were mostly ethnic Thai, and had long had schools in their villages. Outside their dorm, some of the Nine plus Two trainees, lower left photo.
For the ethnic Hmong candidates dispatched from their high mountain villages where there were no schools at all, but from where these youngsters were deemed the best and brightest, there was the Zero Plus Four Course; the rightfully proud inaugural class of Hmong teacher trainees, here outside their dorm, lower right photo.
A generation ago there were no ethnic Hmong teachers here, and almost no students who had gotten beyond grade five as there were no schools near, and no dorms at the far away schools either.
Nowadays, we are no longer surprised to find Hmong teaching staff; one in three remote commune schools in Dien Bien now have at least one Hmong teacher, and many schools have more. Many more still have none, so the work is far from done.
