#  >  > Living And Legal Affairs In Thailand >  >  > Teaching In Thailand >  >  > Teaching in Asia >  >  In East Asia, fierce drive for schooling

## Mid

*In East Asia, fierce drive for schooling*
Nicholas D. Kristof
Monday, November 14, 2011      
  THU THUA, Vietnam

Sometimes you see your own country more  sharply from a distance. That's how I felt as I dropped in on a shack in  this remote area of the Mekong Delta in Vietnam.

The head of the  impoverished household during the week is a malnourished 14-year-old  girl, Dao Ngoc Phung. She's tiny, standing just 4 feet 11 inches and  weighing 97 pounds.

Yet if Phung is achingly fragile, she's also  breathtakingly strong. You appreciate the challenges that America faces  in global competitiveness when you learn that Phung is so obsessed with  schoolwork that she sets her alarm for 3 a.m. each day.

She rises  quietly so as not to wake her younger brother and sister, who both share  her bed, and she then cooks rice for breakfast while reviewing her  books.

The children's mother died of cancer a year ago, leaving  the family with $1,500 in debts. Their father, a carpenter named Dao Van  Hiep, loves his children and is desperate for them to get an education,  but he has taken city jobs so that he can pay down the debt. Therefore,  during the week, Phung is like a single mother who happens to be in the  ninth grade.

Phung wakes her brother and sister, and then after  breakfast they all trundle off to school. For Phung, that means a  90-minute bicycle ride each way. She arrives at school 20 minutes early  to be sure she's not late.

After school, the three children go  fishing to get something to eat for dinner. Phung reserves unpleasant  chores, like cleaning the toilet, for herself, but she does not hesitate  to discipline her younger brother, Tien, 9, or sister, Huong, 12. When  Tien disobeyed her by hanging out with some bad boys, she thrashed him  with a stick.

Most of the time, though, she's gentle, especially  when Tien misses his mother. "I try to comfort him," she says, "but then  all three of us end up crying."

Phung yearns to attend university  and become an accountant. It's an almost impossible dream for a village  girl, but across East Asia the poor often compensate for lack of money  with a dazzling work ethic and gritty faith that education can change  destinies. The obsession with schooling is a legacy of Confucianism — a  2,500-year-old tradition of respect for teachers, scholarship and  meritocratic exams. That's one reason Confucian countries like China,  South Korea and Vietnam are among the world's star performers in the war  on poverty.

Phung pleads with her father to pay for extra  tutoring in math and English. He explains softly that the cost — $40 a  year — is unaffordable.

I wish we Americans could absorb a dollop  of Phung's reverence for education. The United States, once the world  leader in high school and college attendance, has lagged in both since  the 1970s. Of 27 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation  and Development for which we have data, the United States now ranks 23rd  in high school graduation rates.

Granted, Asian schools don't  nurture creativity, and Vietnamese girls are sometimes treated as  second-class citizens who must drop out of school to help at home. But  education is generally a top priority in East Asia, for everyone from  presidents to peasants.

Teachers in America's troubled schools  complain to me that parents rarely show up for meetings. In contrast,  Phung's father takes a day off work and spends a day's wages for  transportation to attend parent-teacher conferences.

"If I don't  work, I lose a little bit of money," he said. "But if my kids miss out  on school, they lose their life hopes. I want to know how they're doing  in school."

For all the differences between Vietnam and America,  here's a common truth: The best way to sustain a nation's  competitiveness is to build human capital. I wish we Americans,  especially our politicians, could learn from Phung that our long-term  strength will depend less on our aircraft carriers than on the  robustness of our kindergartens, less on financing spy satellites than  on financing Pell grants.

Phung gets this better than our  Congress. Every day, she helps her little brother and sister with their  homework first and then completes her own. Sometimes she doesn't  collapse into bed until 11 p.m., only to rouse herself four hours later.

On Sundays, Phung sleeps in. As she explained: "I don't get up till 5."

tampabay.com



as they say , when complaining of no shoes spare a thought for the one with no feet .

.

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## Marmite the Dog

> Phung is so obsessed with schoolwork that she sets her alarm for 3 a.m. each day.
> 
> She rises quietly so as not to wake her younger brother and sister, who both share her bed, and she then cooks rice for breakfast while reviewing her books.


How come the alarm doesn't wake her siblings?

Why is Vietnam not in South-East Asia any more.

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