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Viet Nam's Ethnic Minority Students Become Teachers with ADB's $1.5 Million Grant

HANOI, VIET NAM (18 October 2007) – A $1.5 million grant agreement was signed today between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and State Bank of Viet Nam (SBV) to train ethnic minority upper secondary students to become teachers in their communes. The grant comes from the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR) financed by the Government of Japan and managed by ADB. Signing of behalf of the Government was Deputy Governor Tran Minh Tuan of SBV. Ayumi Konishi, ADB's Country Director for Viet Nam represented ADB at the signing.

The Government of Viet Nam is promoting equitable education development as a key strategy for poverty reduction and sustainable high economic growth. Universal quality secondary schooling by 2015 is a principal commitment of the Government. Despite significant expansion of general coverage, however, the difference in access to, and quality of schooling by gender, ethnicity, regions, and household income remains a major challenge.

Ethnic minority youth remain disadvantaged in education, particularly secondary education, which is a key qualification required to enter the labor market. From 1993 to 2002, the net enrolment rate at the upper secondary schools increased from 2.1% to 19.3% for ethnic minority youth, but the access is still limited. Repetition and dropout rates also remain high for ethnic minority students due to the long distance they have to travel from their homes to schools, the high cost of secondary schooling and the lack of role models after graduation.

"A variety of targeted support to deliver education to ethnic minority groups in remote areas has been tried in the past. Those direct initiatives have shown some positive impacts on the enrolment rate, but they could not affect cultural or social factors that can have lasting impact," said Konishi. "This project is innovative and strategic in targeting long-term benefits by supporting future role models and commune leaders for ethnic minority youth."

The Expansion of Learning Opportunities for Ethnic Minority Youth Project aims to promote equitable and sustainable development of ethnic minorities by equipping ethnic minority youth with post-basic education qualifications and community leadership skills. The project will provide scholarships and academic support program for 220 students and develop new school dormitories to reduce socio-economic barriers preventing the ethnic minority youth from enrolling in teacher training colleges. The project will be carried out over four years with the budget of $2 million. The Government of Viet Nam and the provinces provide $500,000 equivalent for the project.

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