They cross mountains and forests, carrying their lesson plans, professional dedication, and responsibility to the classrooms in the “multiple-lack” villages. Day by day, these “ferry persons of knowledge” have been contributing to narrowing the regional education gap, bringing learning opportunities to highland students.

We arrived at Huổi Quang School Site (Mường Chà commune) just as the teacher and students were preparing lunch. In the small school, Lò Thị Thùy Dương (a teacher at Pa Tần Kindergarten) - who has been dedicated to the profession for nearly 17 years - gently went from table to table checking the students’ meals. After three years of teaching in Huổi Quang village, Dương is familiar with the challenges of the “multiple-lack village”: No electricity, no internet, no phone signal, and difficult, arduous roads.

When mentioning travel, Dương gave a gentle smile, but her voice still carried a hint of worry. “During the rainy season, sudden rain often falls, and halfway there, the motorbike can’t go further. I have to leave the motorbike in the outer village and carefully walk, wading through mud for an hour to get to school. Sometimes my clothes are completely soaked, but I still have to hurry to welcome the children in time,” Dương recounted.

The class at Huổi Quang School Site is a multi-grade class combining 3, 4, and 5-year-olds with 23 children, plus a nursery class with 12 children. The children here rely on the hands of the teacher and a few colleagues who rotate assignments. Despite the lack of everything, from separated roads to limited living conditions, the teachers persistently stick to the village, bringing literacy and organized routines to the young children. This is a choice driven by professional love and responsibility, with the desire to help open up a brighter future for the children of the highlands.

Located in the “multiple-lack” village, Pa Tết School Site (Mường Toong commune) faces shortages year-round, making teaching and living for the teachers a journey full of hardships. The school site has 4 classrooms, including 2 kindergarten classes and 2 primary classes, most of which are multi-grade classes. Completely isolated from the central school site, Pa Tết is tens of kilometers from the main school, requiring travel across roads that are dusty in the sun and muddy in the rain. Nevertheless, Lường Thị Nhi and her colleagues persistently stick to the village and the class, bringing literacy to highland students.

Nhi shared that the biggest difficulty here is the lack of infrastructure. Without the national power grid, the teachers cannot use computers, speakers, or teaching equipment. In the evening, lesson planning relies on a solar-powered flashlight. Although there is solar power, the power source is intermittent; on sunny days, there is enough light, but on cloudy days, there is not enough power to serve the students’ learning or the teachers’ daily lives. Despite this, the teachers at the Pa Tết school site remain persistent and committed to the students here. The children’s babbling voices echoing through the mountains and forests are the motivation that keeps the teachers striving so that students in remote, difficult villages like Pa Tết can attend school.

Vàng A Hồng, the village head of Pa Tết, expressed: “The teachers in Pa Tết work very hard. The roads are long, and everything is lacking, especially the female teachers who have to endure more hardships. Yet, they are still persistent in sticking to the classes, taking care of the children in the village. Our village is poor, but having teachers come to educate them, the villagers are very grateful.” On the paths of the Điện Biên highlands, the journey of sowing knowledge by the teachers continues persistently every day.

For Tìa Dình Kindergarten, the challenge is even greater as the school has 7 sub-points, with Búng Báng, Na Su, and Háng Sua being the most difficult locations. Búng Báng alone is 17km from the former Tìa Dình communal center and nearly 30km according to the new Tìa Dình communal boundaries. The winding dirt road, high slopes, and slipperiness make the teachers’ commute entirely dependent on the weather. “The roads are all dirt, only slightly wider than before but still very difficult to travel on. On many rainy days, the motorbike cannot go, and we have to leave it at a local’s house and walk for several more kilometers. Despite the hardship, due to our love for the profession and the children, we have encouraged each other and tried to overcome it,” shared Lò Thị Hải (teacher at Búng Báng School Site).

Tìa Dình Kindergarten currently has 41 cadres and teachers; 30 of them regularly work at remote school sites, places where conditions are still lacking in both physical facilities and spiritual life. Although the school has received investment and improvements in classrooms and teaching materials in recent years, the teachers’ journey of sticking to the villages remains full of hardship.

Speaking about these difficulties, Lê Thị Điệp, Principal of Tìa Dình Kindergarten, said: Boarding school teachers have to travel long distances, endure harsh weather, lack clean water, and national grid electricity, and in some places, they do not even have lodging houses. Nevertheless, the teachers persistently stick to their classes, striving to provide a stable and loving learning environment for highland children. Though still facing countless difficulties, the team of boarding school teachers in the high-altitude, exceptionally difficult areas of the province continues day by day to tenaciously stick to their schools and classes, sustaining the journey of sowing knowledge in the “multiple-lack” villages...

In many school sites, the teachers have to overcome slippery, steep roads, even walking for hours in the cold rain. However, overcoming everything, they still consider arriving on time, maintaining attendance, and providing the best care for the children as their sacred duty. For many teachers, the eager eyes of the students every morning and the trust of the parents in these remote villages have become the motivation that urges them to stick to their schools and villages and be devoted to the disadvantaged students. Even in places lacking everything, the teachers are simultaneously teachers and nurses, sometimes acting as the children’s second parents. They renovate the classrooms themselves, bring necessary supplies from home to the village; some even use their salary to buy extra learning materials for their students.

These efforts have significantly contributed to maintaining the attendance rate, improving the quality of child-rearing and education, and creating greater confidence among highland parents in their children’s future. The image of the boarding school teachers silently overcoming difficulties every day is a vivid testament to the spirit of responsibility, silent sacrifice, and professional dedication of the people who keep the flame of knowledge burning in the deep, remote, and western border regions of the Fatherland.