Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School: A place to make dreams come true for ethnic minority students

After half a century of building and development, The Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School has always performed well its role and mission of education and training, truly becoming a home, a place to make dreams come true for thousands of ethnic minority students in remote areas in the province.

Teachers and students at the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School research and exchange documents outside of class time

Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School, formerly known as Lang Son Provincial Ethnic Youth School, was established in 1973. In the early days of establishment, the school’s teachers and students had to study under the communal house of Tan Lien commune and people’s houses around the area, then both taught and built schools and classrooms. During its development, the school had to move and change its name many times. In 1991, the school was moved to its current location, Po Mo village, Mai Pha commune, Lang Son city. Since then, thanks to good implementation of education and training, the school was honored to be awarded the Third-class Labor Medal in 2003, Second-class Labor Medal in 2008 and First-class Labor Medal in 2013 by the Party and State.

Focusing on educational work

During the 50 years of building and development, through historical periods, overcoming the difficult beginnings, the school developed rapidly in scale and its facilities were gradually fully equipped. Thereby, the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School is the first high school recognized by the Provincial People’s Committee as a school meeting national standards in 2009. Since then, school facilities have continued to receive investment from all levels and sectors to to ensure convenience for educational activities, applying information technology in management, teaching, testing, evaluation and implementation of digital transformation. In order to carry out educational work well, school teachers regularly improve their knowledge and improve their self-study capacity to improve their professional qualifications and skills; the prescribed teaching programs and plans are fully and seriously implemented by teachers; always create conditions and guide students to practice self-study skills, help students creatively apply the knowledge they have learned, focus on tutoring and training knowledge for weak students to improve the quality of comprehensive education. At the same time, because the students are children of ethnic minorities in remote areas and have uneven cognitive levels,  in addition to regular classroom hours, the school also assigns teachers to be on duty and give private tutoring.

Mrs. Lanh Huong Lan, Biology teacher of the school (in the past 3 years has been awarded a certificate of merit by the Minister of Education and Training for outstanding achievements in the emulation movement “Innovation and creativity in teaching and learning” school year of 2020 – 2021; awarded the certificate of merit by Lang Son Provincial Party Committee for “Outstanding example in studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s ideology, ethics, and style in 2022” said: As subject teachers, to perform teaching well, we always actively innovate teaching methods, apply information technology in teaching and guide students to participate in competitions; focus on educating life skills for students, helping them promote and apply their abilities well in learning and training.

Every year, the school sends teachers to improve the quality of good and excellent students to form competition teams to select excellent students at all levels; at the same time, develop a tutoring plan and fix knowledge “gaps” for students with weak academic performance. maintain collective activities and life skills education to train good relationship, ideals of life, and raise students’ awareness in preserving and promoting national cultural identity, help students become closer and more united in study and life, create a favorable environment for students to practice virtue and talent.

Kieng Minh Nghia, a student of class 12A3 (from a poor family who always overcomes difficulties in studying, has been awarded the title of excellent student for 2 consecutive years) shared:  Under the roof of this boarding school, I always receive dedicated and thoughtful attention and care as well as sharing and encouragement from teachers and friends, thereby helping me feel secure in studying. I always promise myself that I will try my best, overcome difficulties to study well and later become a useful citizen for society.

Thanks to the constant efforts of the teachers, the spirit and desire to excel in learning of the students, the school’s teachers and students overcame many difficulties and challenges to achieve high achievements in teaching and learning. In the past 5 school years, the school has made outstanding progress in training excellent students at the provincial level with a total of 538 prizes, including 7 first prizes, 51 second prizes, 193 third prizes. Every year, the school’s rate of excellent students reaches over 98%, and the school’s high school graduation rate always reaches 100%; Students passing universities and colleges achieve from 70% to 80%. Thanks to that, the quality of education remains at the top of the non-specialized high school sector in the province.

Pay attention to students’ mental and physical lives

50 years after its founding, in the 2023 – 2024 school year, the school has 68 administrators, teachers and staff, 100% of teachers meet professional qualifications, of which 30.1% are above the standard; At the same time, the school has 20 classrooms with nearly 600 students, belonging to the Tay, Nung, Dao, San Chi, Muong ethnic groups… of which the Tay and Nung ethnic groups account for nearly 90%.

Teachers at the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School enthusiastically guide students during class

Talking to us about this special school, Mrs. Vuong Xuan Thuan, Principal of the school said: Each officer, teacher, and employee of the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School is always aware of being a role model for students in terms of manners, ethics, lifestyle, behavior, way of working… teachers always share responsibility in educating students on ethics and lifestyle; implement “teaching words and teaching people at the same time”, help children confidently and boldly integrate into the learning and boarding environment when they have to be away from home. In addition, to help new students entering the school quickly get acquainted and integrate into the new environment, many teachers have self-taught ethnic languages to be able to converse and grasp thoughts and feelings to help students be more confident in communication and learning.

In the past 5 school years, the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School has made outstanding progress in training excellent students at the provincial level with a total of 538 awards, including 7 first prizes, 51 second prizes, 193 third prizes. Every year, the school’s rate of excellent students reaches over 98%, and the school’s high school graduation exam results always reach 100%; Students passing universities and colleges range from 70% to 80%. Thanks to that, the quality of education remains at the top of the non-specialized high school sector in the province.

 

As a boarding school, students eat, live and live at school, so the school focuses on paying attention to students’ meals such as ensuring quality and quantity, food hygiene and safety. With the characteristics of the school, the mission of officials and teachers is not only to teach knowledge but also to teach life skills, to teach students the ideal of a good life, the desire to learn and the desire to contribute to building the homeland and country. Therefore, the school is always interested in organizing extracurricular activities, experiential activities, and career guidance; Competitions and performances to exchange culture, arts, sports… so that students have the opportunity to comprehensively develop morality, intelligence, physicality, aesthetics and basic skills.

Thanks to that, in the last 5 years, the school’s students have regularly won high prizes at competitions, such as: First prize at the Provincial National Defense and Security Sports Festival, students participated in the national level competition won third prize. Provincial Vovinam competition in 2023, achieved 14 individual medals, 5 team medals, was the unit with the highest total number of medals in high school; Students participated in the 12th Provincial Phu Dong Health Festival won 45 medals, of which: 25 gold medals, 8 silver medals, 12 bronze medals, ranked first in the entire high school group.

Shared about his time studying at school, Ly Anh Tuan, class 11A2 (won first prize at the Provincial Security and Defense Sports Festival for the 2022 – 2023 school year) said: Studying in a boarding school, I consider this my second home. I feel very happy that the teachers always take care of me, teach me like parents and teach us the necessary knowledge to continue striving to study, realize dreams and ambitions. I promised myself that I would try to study well so that in the future I could become a useful person for my homeland.

Besides sports activities, the school also implements a variety of student club activities such as: Media, Vovinam, Art, Ethnic Culture, English, Reading Culture… help develop personal capacity, creative spirit, build character and civic responsibility for students. At the same time, the school focuses on and promotes specific educational activities so that students are aware of the sense of responsibility in preserving national cultural identity, pride in cultural traditions, determines the role of continuing and developing the culture of ethnic minorities in Lang Son province, worthy of the trust and expectations of generations of teachers and the people of Lang Son ethnic groups.

Evaluating the school’s educational work, Mr. Hoang Quoc Tuan, Director of the Department of Education and Training said: Although there are still many difficulties and challenges, with the determination and efforts of the collective of officers, teachers, staff and the students’ spirit of overcoming learning difficulties, the Provincial Ethnic Boarding High School has achieved remarkable results. In the coming time, the school needs to continue to improve educational work associated with education on ethics, life skills, and good traditions of the nation. The school well perform the work of ensuring regimes and policies for students; Regularly organize cultural and artistic activities, physical training and sports… to build the school into a friendly, healthy and safe school, worthy of being a place to nurture ethnic minority students of the province.