In the morning of 3 October
2021, with the technical support of Centrepoint Education and Media staff, the Executive
Board of the Bùi Trọng Chương Scholarship Fund (BTCSF) and the Administrators
of the Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted held a virtual award ceremony
for 23 scholarship recipients. This special event was held as the first virtual
ceremony at the high school when Saigon/Hồ Chí Minh City was the epicenter of
the Covid-19 pandemic in Vietnam and the city was in lockdown for 4 months, amidst significant human and economic losses in the city.
To help alleviating the hardships of many students at a leading high school in southern Vietnam, the benefactors and the BTCSF Executive Board decided to raise this
year’s number of scholarships to 23 (cf. 14 in 2019-20, and 21 in 2020-21). Altogether,
21 full scholarships at 11 million VND each, and 2 partial ones at 6 million
VND were awarded to students achieving academic excellence, yet living in unfavourable
financial conditions. The partial scholarships were awarded to 2 students whose
family circumstances were better than those of 21 other students. Among the 23
scholarship recipients, 10 of them had received BTC scholarships in the
previous academic year.
In addition, Mr. Tran Huu Phuc Tien (a
member of the Executive Board and CEO of Vietnam Centrepoint Education &
Media group) offered each student a “foreign language award” worth 8 million
VND at Vietnam Centrepoint. This additional award has increased the total value
of each full scholarship to 19 million VND and each partial scholarship to 14
million VND.
The BTC scholarship-awarding ceremony on 3 October 2021 was attended
by:
- Principal Ms. Lê Thị Bé Hiền;
- Vice Principals Ms. Trương Thị Lệ Hà and Mr. Trần Bảo Ngọc;
- some teachers of the Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted;
- the entire BTCSF Executive
Board (Messrs. Lương
Văn Hy, Võ Anh Dũng, Trần Hữu Phúc Tiến, Lê Nhựt Tân, and Nguyễn Huy Khôi);
- a representative of benefactors (Mr. Nguyễn Đại Hùng Lộc, a school alumnus and CEO of YSIMAN company in Đồng Nai province);
- as well as 2 former BTC scholarship recipients:
- Mr. Lâm Hoàng Phúc (recently joining the teaching staff at the Lê Hồng Phong High School for the Gifted), and
- Mr. Thái Hoàng Ngọc Vỹ (a third-year Stanford University student in Computer Science).
- These 2 gentlemen related their experiences and offered advice to 23 scholarship recipients in 2021-22.
A. Academic achievements and aspirations
B. Family backgrounds of 23 students who received BTC scholarships
(not in the same order as in part A):
- Father passed away, mother: industrial worker in a province; temporarily laid off due to the pandemic; capable of providing very limited financial support for 2 children studying in a big city
- Single mother with modest income; raising 2 children; living in a rented room
- Mother with a very-low-income job; raising 2 children; all living in a rented room
- Parents with low-skilled jobs; raising single child and living in a rented room
- Mother an industrial worker, raising her daughter; officially classified as poor family by neighbours and local authorities
- Mother with poor health and not working; father’s modest income reduced during the pandemic; supporting 2 children in school, family living in a rented room.
- Parents working in low-skilled and menial labor jobs; no income for many months due to the pandemic; supporting 2 children in school.
- Father a driver and mother an industrial worker, supporting 2 children in school.
- Parents in menial labor jobs; father temporarily unemployed; married brother currently unemployed; all living together in the same rented quarters
- Mother a street vendor; married brother currently unemployed.
- Father long passed away; mother in menial labor job and unemployed due to the pandemic
- Parents no longer working because of their age; relying on an elder son currently unemployed due to the pandemic; family of four living in rented quarters
- Father with a very-low-income job; mother trading in the market, having no income due to the pandemic; raising 2 children.
- Father working in a low-skilled job in a province; mother unemployed due to the pandemic; family living in rented quarters
- Father in unstable and low-skilled job; mother in poor health and without a job.
- Parents in low-skilled jobs; currently unemployed due to the pandemic; an elder sister in the same household also unemployed
- Father long passed away; mother in menial labor job with low income; supporting 2 children in school, spending 3 hours a day on bus trips to/from school.
- Parents in menial labor jobs with low income; supporting 2 children in school; family of 4 living in rented quarters
- Parents in menial labor jobs with low income; currently without any income due to the pandemic; supporting 3 other family members
- Father passed away; mother a street vendor (serving breakfasts) to raise 3 children
- Father recently passed away, mother the sole breadwinner to support her mother and 3 children.
- Mother in a low-income job raising 2 children
- Family’s small business suffering heavily from the pandemic; having no income for many months
