Pu Nhi Ethnic Minority Semi-Boarding Primary School (Pu Nhi commune) is 15km from the commune center, deep in Pu Nhi B village. The road to school is long and high; it’s now easy to travel, but just a few years ago, it was a challenge for every driver. Phạm Thị Vân, who has worked at the school for 26 years, still vividly remembers the difficult days: “The roads were dirt, full of ruts; the area is much higher than the commune center, so it was cold and foggy. The ten-kilometer stretch had no houses. Every time I went to school or went home on the weekend, it was a hard journey, especially during the rainy season when it was muddy and slippery. One Friday after work, it started raining on my way home. I carried my child on my back and pushed the bike, only getting home after 10pm. Now the road is smoothly paved with concrete, but it still has many slopes, and the cold and fog in the mornings and afternoons mean quite a few teachers still fall off their bikes.”

Despite the hardship, Vân and the school’s staff and teachers remain committed to this land, quietly sowing love and knowledge. Nguyễn Thế Quyền, the school’s Principal, said: “The school only eliminated thatched houses in 2019, and many classrooms are still semi-permanent. The school recruits students from the 6 most distant and difficult villages in the commune, with nearly 80% of students coming from poor households. Parents are busy farming or working far away, and they limit their attention and investment in their children’s education, often leaving the care entirely to the school. In many cases, students lack parental care, so teachers have to mobilize and drive them to school every day. Although difficulties remain, the teachers, with their love for the profession and sense of responsibility, are always enthusiastic, striving not only to teach knowledge but also to care well for the students.”

For the first month of the school year, Phạm Thị Vân often had to pick up two students from her class (5A1) who live in Pu Nhi A village every day. One child’s parents work far away, and the older siblings study away from home; the other child’s mother is serving a sentence, and the father works away. Both children live alone, so after the summer break, they weren’t used to the new school schedule and often overslept, failing to attend school. There are quite a few similar cases in the school. Thanks to the dedication of the school’s officials and teachers, students in the area all graduate fully and at the correct age, maintaining class size and academic discipline.

Each locality has its own difficulties, and each teacher has memorable stories about their profession. For Giàng Thị Mỷ (Hua Nguống Primary School, Mường Ảng commune), it was the years she spent at the Pá Liếng school site, only 12km from the central school, but a challenging route. To make it on time on Monday morning, Mỷ had to leave before dawn, bringing personal supplies to stay at the school until the weekend. Although the road has now been cleared and widened, it is dusty when sunny and thick with mud when rainy. “Sometimes I could only ride the bike for a short distance; the rest of the way I had to push and carry the bike. The mud sticks fast to the wheels, and slipping and falling is common,” Mỷ recounted. There were also times the road was completely washed out, and she had to leave her bike and walk into the village. Despite the harsh weather, no matter the season, Mỷ always tried her best not to keep the students waiting.

Giàng Thị Mỷ confided: “Despite many difficulties, the anticipation of the little students and the genuine trust of the parents, especially the pride I feel when seeing generations of students grow up, are the motivation that keeps me from giving up, that makes me love and dedicate myself more to the profession, continuing the career of ‘cultivating people’ in the highlands.”

For the 2025 - 2026 school year, the entire province has 481 public schools and centers, 7,406 classes, and 206,758 students and trainees. Given the characteristics of the mountainous region, the kindergarten and primary levels alone have 1,147 school sites. Many are remote and isolated, sometimes lacking national grid electricity or phone signal. The route to school in many places involves steep, precarious slopes along the hillsides, sometimes requiring walking, climbing passes, crossing streams, or even taking rafts. Not only do the roads present challenges, but schools also lack facilities. Outside of class hours, teachers act as “cooks” for semi-boarding students and “builders” maintaining classrooms, doing countless unsung tasks to create the best conditions for their students. Difficulties are many, shortages are not few, but the love for the profession, the love for the children, and the sense of responsibility are greater. And that is what has kept them at the highland schools over the years. Overcoming all hardships, officials and teachers still “cling to the village, cling to the school” every day, bringing the ferries of knowledge to shore in the highlands. Each step taken to school is a choice made for their students, driven by the hope that literacy will bring change and light up the highlands and border. Every teacher, in any school or school site, deserves to be called by the most beautiful name: Cultivator of people.