Harrowing real life stories of children show that education is the only light that can chase darkness from their lives.

The first time May At heard her mother’s voice was 10 years after she was born.

When kids in the neighborhood told At that her mother was calling home, she ran back, forgetting to bring the family buffalo along.

It was 2014, and her mother was calling from China.

However, At’s expectations of this event, albeit on the phone, were belied. There was no tearful reunion, no long conversations to retrace the years they’d been apart for so long. In fact, there simply was nothing to talk about. Her mother had left before At was given a name.

"I have a new husband now, so I won't come back," At's mother told her.

The day she was born, April 12, 2005, At’s father pawned the last of the family’s belongings to get drugs. He chased At and her mother out, forcing them to take refuge in At’s maternal grandparents’ house. One day, the mother packed her bags, slipped away and never returned.

At became an orphan just two months after she was born. She’s been living with her grandparents since.

Her mother’s departure left a gaping hole in At’s childhood. But it was her father who made it a nightmare.

At the age of six, At already had memories about her junkie father beating her up badly. Even after she went to live with her grandparents, her father only visited her for two reasons: to forbid her from going to school, or to pawn everything he could from the house for more drugs. She would try to run away from him, each time.

There was one time her father put her in a sack and threw her in the river; fortunately, a passerby saw it happen and rescued her. Another time, her father bound At with a rope and hung her on the ceiling beam to prevent her from going to school. Her teachers, noticing her absence, knew immediately that something was wrong and saved her in time.

Collecting their stories

Earlier this year, VnExpress conducted interviews in two separate schools in two border areas, one next to Cambodia and another next to Laos, where teachers and students wage an incredible daily struggle to better their lives.

It became evident that in these rural, remote areas plagued by poverty and many other socioeconomic ills, schools were the last line of defense for many children – their only escape from horror and their only hope for a decent future.

Losing a second home

Schools in Luong Minh Commune have class records in which notes are kept on each student’s family situation. Many of them are listed "fatherless" or "motherless," or that both are in prison on drug-related charges.

In fact, one out of seven school children in the commune have similar family descriptions.

Children like May At or Xeo Nguyen don’t particularly enjoy summer vacations.

Here at the school, they get to escape from the harsh realities of their lives, which more often than not involve empty bellies and abusive parents.

The Luong Minh Middle School, where Xeo Nguyen and May At study, has 284 day-boarders. But most of them stay there full-time, including weekends.

"A day’s worth of food for a student is even cheaper than a bowl of pho, but the school still struggles to provide students with meat, fish, vegetables and bamboo shoots...," said the school’s Vice Principal Tran Duc Duong.

The job description for teachers in the province goes far beyond teaching. They are also counselors, diplomats, campaigners and lobbyists, all for getting their students to stay in school.

In the province’s A Ba Chuc Primary School, these campaigns against dropping out manifest in sports events, singing contests, and national festivals. The teachers have to make schools the most fun places; so fun its students would never want to leave.

Right before the school year, Ho Van Nguyen, A Ba Chuc’s principal, visited the house of two of his students to remind their grandmother to come to his office for a set of new textbooks, free. He even gifted her tables and chairs and occasionally, some pho broth, which his wife sells. That’s his way of lobbying.

But most of the time, their grandma would say:

"You are too kind. But this house isn’t even ours. Poor as we are, how can my granddaughters go to school?"

Trade secrets

Hai, 38, has worked in A Ba Chuc as a teacher for more than a decade. But he has neither a house nor a wife.

"I’m too poor for that," he said.

The 'pillars' of his ‘house’ are two trees. The ‘roof’ and ‘walls’ are made with bamboo sections and raincoats, coconut leaves and iron sheets. Raindrops dropping on his face as he sleeps is not a rare occurrence.

Hai spoke of "trade secrets" that the teachers use to make kids stay in school. He said the school allowed students from the Cham and the Khmer ethnic communities to take days off on their holidays. The majority, the Kinh kids, would go to school as usual and later help their classmates catch up on their studies.

Hai has another trick up his sleeve.

Among the Khmer people in the area, the head monk of the local pagoda is the supreme spiritual authority. He tells them when to marry, when to build a house, whether they should go see a doctor or not...

Knowing that the Khmer people believe strongly in the monk, Hai maintains close, diplomatic ties with him. When a parent does not allow their kids to go to school, or they want them to work instead, the monk steps in. He would say something like, "if your kid goes to school, he/she could escape poverty," and the parents would listen.

Can't wait, no time to lose

For the sake of their students, the teachers of Luong Minh, A Ba Chuc, and many other schools, are willing to go to great lengths, be it letting a few more students stay in boarding houses, giving them some more meat, or even renovating dilapidated structures in the schools on their own.

As long as the children can continue their education, the teachers don’t mind all the hardship and sacrifice. They cannot afford to wait for the government to swoop down and deliver salvation. Before that day comes, the children would have long left school and returned to lives of drudgery and suffering.

In the fall of 1995, Vietnam first designated September 5 as the annual "First Day of School," the start of a new academic year when families would send their children off to schools and colleges across the country.

The previous year, the U.S. had lifted a 20-year long trade embargo on Vietnam, signaling a new dawn for the country’s fledgling economy, which then had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) only just $20 billion.

Twenty plus years on, Vietnam’s economy has undergone a fantastic transformation, with its GDP increasing tenfold.

However, the education sector hasn’t fared so well. Until 2018, the number of Vietnamese students across all grades increased by only 30 percent from 1995, from 15 million to 22 million.

The disparity becomes even more apparent in some of the country’s most rural, under-developed areas. A 2017 United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report showed that among a survey pool of 16 ethnic minority groups, less than 75 percent of children receive an "appropriate education." Another report on 39 ethnic minority groups showed that less than 75 percent of surveyed adults were literate.

Policy makers, legislators, ministries et al are seized of the matter, but the time they take to bring this assistance to these areas and people in need is time that the children don’t have.

Meanwhile, the teachers, parents and children in such dire circumstances need all the support they can get immediately to ensure a proper education. They need more textbooks, more chairs, more table and other facilities. They should no longer be denied these basic necessities.

And as members of a "civilized" society, everyone has a responsibility to ensure that all children, including the severely disadvantaged, have three meals a day, a roof above their heads, a loving family and a secure future.

Story by Hoang Phuong, Thanh Lam, Hong Phuc

Photos by Ngoc Thanh, Thanh Nguyen, Chu Viet Bac

Graphics by Tien Thanh