OBJECTIVE

Pursue the policy to put education at the national top priority, educational development would be redirected to meet the demand to provide human resource for the province’s socio-economic development. Follow the policy of socializing education. Diversify education and training models, develop private and semi-public schools in town centres and residential areas.

Try hard to maintain the results of compulsory education at primary school level and illiteracy eradication which have been achieved lately. Continue to carry out the illiteracy eradication and compulsory education at higher levels and age groups.

Reorganize and reinforce job centres, job training centres in districts and towns. Put the general career consultant centre into stable operation, furnish it with advanced equipment and facilities to foster higher quality of education and training.

Completely eradicate makeshift and temporary schools and classes. New schools and classes must be subject to the national standards. Gradually upgrade and revamp existing schools to meet standard requirements. The province’s goal is to have 200 primary schools, 158 secondary schools, and 48 high schools by 2010, 20 of which are semi-public schools. Conclusively finish the system of kindergartens and pre-school facilities, pay attention to establishing day-boarder schools as a way to trigger the competition to improve the nursing quality. Encourage study promotion programs, and programs to support poor students, students with hardship.

Professional and Job training

Before the liberation in 1975, there were no professional training facilities in Ben Tre. After the Liberation, the Teacher Training High School, the first ever professional training school in Ben Tre, was established in 1977 to satisfy the urgent need of teachers at the moment. Next came the Teacher Training College and the Preschool Teacher Training School.

In addition, the province has also restructured the network of professional schools. From the 11 schools now reduce to 6 schools specializing in teacher training, healthcare workers training, and culture and communication. In the 19 years from 1980 to 1999, the system of professional schools helped train and upgrade 50,000 learners of all fields. Tens of thousands of skilled workers, healthcare nurses and teachers have passed the training system to contribute to the eco-social development of the province.
 

In the school year 2004-2005, the Ben Tre Interdisciplinary College has been established by merging the Ben Tre Teacher Training College, the High school of Economics and the Intermediate Industrial Engineering School. This is seen as the premise for a university to be established in Ben Tre in a near future.

Some basic facts and figures

1. Ben Tre’s literacy ratio is 94.5% of population (1999). Illiteracy has been basically eradicated, and compulsory education has been covered to secondary school level.

2. In 2004, the number of drop-outs at all school levels have decreased. For example, at primary school level, the ratio is 1%, 3.96% at secondary, and 5.28% at high school. 99.99% of primary pupils passed the final examination. At secondary and high school levels, the ratios are 96.53% and 81.46%, respectively.

3. In school year 2004-2005, the total number of primary school pupils is 107,755, a decrease by 8.78% compared to the previous school year. The total number of secondary school students is 95,442, down by 1.56%, and high school students is 45,960, up by 4.42%.

4. The total number of teachers in school year 2004-2005 is 14,704. The province now needs 217 more teachers to fill in high school classes, and 60 teachers to fill in primary school classes.

5. 390 new classrooms have been brought into use in school year 2004-2005.

Art and Culture

Overview

Located in the country’s greatest river basin delta, with sea shores adjacent to rice fields, Ben Tre possesses some special geographical features. Favoured by the nature, this land is very attractive to visitors, with delicious speciality orchards and some of the most beautiful and splendid flower gardens in the Mekong Delta.

Travelling by boat on the Ham Luong River, visitors can enjoy themselves contemplating at thick rows of coconut trees jostling along its banks. This is one of the great features that make Ben Tre the land of poetic charm in the eyes of tourists from other parts of the country as well as the outside world.

Coming to Ben Tre, you will be met with gentle-minded and righteous people, those who are born to live and die in the land of their ancestors. They are intelligent people, the people of self-help and self-improvement spirits who have been overcoming enormous difficulties throughout their settling in, protecting and building the land since their first ancestor setting foot on here up to the present time.

In Ben Tre, there are many historical relics and memorial houses you can visit, such as the Dong Khoi Memorial House in Mo Cay district; the final point of the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Sea in Thanh Phu on the Co Chien River; the Nguyen Dinh Chieu Memorial Complex; and a lot of other old pagodas and Buddhist temples. Here you have chances to listen to folk songs and lyrics floating and resounding over the river, and perceive the profound cultural beauty of the land.

Ben Tre is also best known for many other aspects, one of which is its glorious history of fighting foreign invaders. Best regarded, and embedded in one of its best known alias, is the Dong Khoi Movement (Simultaneous Uprising) taking place on the 17th day of January, 1960, started in Dinh Thuy Commune, Mo Cay District, then spread out across the province and into neighbouring localities. The most famous figure that led the movement to a success is Mrs Nguyen Thi Dinh, whose name has gone into history and down to the memory of posterior generations.

This land of genius also gave birth to many great old time scholars and intellectuals, such as the master educator Vo Truong Toan, scholar Phan Thanh Gian – the first Doctorate holder of the Cochinchine (the Southern Colony under French rulers) who has left a great literary legacy of more than 500 valuable works.

There are other great cultural figures that contributed invaluably to the country’s arts and literature.

Born in Ben Tre, Truong Vinh Ky was Viet Nam’s first journalist and one of the “founders” of country’s modern journalism. He is said to command 27 foreign languages (12 Western languages and 15 Eastern languages). During his 40 years of arts operations (1858-1898), Truong Vinh Ky created 118 works of arts and literature of various genres such as research, collection, translation, transcription, and dozens of publications written in French language.

One of the very famous journalists living in the same time of Truong Vinh Ky is Suong Nguyet Anh – the talented daughter of the Master-Poet Nguyen Dinh Chieu. She was Viet Nam’s first female journalist who was the Chief Editor of the once-renowned newspaper “Nu Gioi Chung” (Common Women) published in the late nineteen century and the early years of the twenty century.

Le Hoang Muu is another well-known journalist who was Chief Editor of another early-day newspapers in the Cochinchine named “Luc Tinh Tan Van” (The Six Provinces’ New Culture).

There are a list of artists whose names have been acknowledged in the country’s arts and culture history. There is Le Long Van (a.k.a Ba Van), who has been rewarded the title of Nghe Si Nhan Dan (People’s Artist, the noblest title granted to atrists with invaluable contribution to the country’s arts and culture) for whole-heartedly devoting his life to developing and maintaining the Cai luong theatre (the traditional style of performing art most popular in the Southern parts of Viet Nam). There is fine arts researcher Nguyen Phi Hoanh, painter Le Van De, architect Huynh Tan Phat, sculptor Diep Minh Chau – one of the great names in Viet Nam fine arts, and whose name has been introduced in the European Encyclopedia.

Art of food (Gastronomy)

Common dishes

The common dishes here are those popular among farmers as well as urbaners. As the general socio-economic life has grown to a higher level, there would certainly be extended exchanges on various areas of life, and thus the differential line between urban and rural living standards have also been blurred.

In general, eating practices in Ben Tre are not different much from those in other provinces in the Mekong Delta region. They are those same practices and experiences brought in by old time settlers from the Middle and the North of the country for years long in the past. These people, influenced by the Chinese culture, knew how to prepare their dishes in the close interrelationship between nutrition, medicine and the human physiological properties, to utilize the abundant resources bestowed by Mother Nature and the environmental advantages of the land for tasty, healthy and Yang-Yin harmonizing dishes of food in their daily life.

Seasonal Dishes

Ben Tre has its own seasonal delicious couisines based on local animal and herb species. These include rural and ritual diets that suit every appetite. For example, anabas cooked in fish-sauce decorated with some black pepper or spicy herbs is the prime dish of September and October; and recipes with fresh-water fat crab and soft-shelled crab are most delicious from July to September. Rainy season is the reproductive time for frogs, and this is also the season for having fried frog and a lot of other recipes. Besides, Ben Tre has a variety of fishes and birds that can be used very much in local as well as Western couisines such as fry, grill, stew, simmer, boil, etc, accompanied by myriads of home-grown herbs and vegetables to make eaters enjoy their meal greatly.

Guest Meals

Just like other parts of Viet Nam, the people in Ben Tre is well-known with hospitality, kind-heartedness and friendliness. They still retain the traditional values that built mainly on good relationship between people.

As a component of the culture, guest meals in Ben Tre are generally comprised of home-grown and home-made items such as crayfish grilled on coconut-shell charcoal, fat crab boiled in coconut milk, sweet-sour soup with fresh-water fish, pork cooked in fish sauce, roasted pork, etc. The very characteristic of this kind of eating is that it is not confined to any behavioural requirements, and both the guest and the host can freely enjoy their own appetite. The most important elements in these meals are the hospitable treatment, clean and fine eatery items, as well as good cooking and serving.

The Gastronomy on Festivals and Holidays

During the old time, dishes are laid on a multilayer tray to serve in an order from top to bottom, with each layer bearing a specific group of dishes.

Now, this tray is almost no longer used in holiday and festival parties. Instead, dishes are arranged on a rectangular table or a plank bed covered with flower-decorated mat called “feast mat”, and eaters sit cross-legged all around and serve themselves whatever they like.

For festivals and holidays, dishes include those same in guest meals, but specially prepared and solemnly decorated in order to make it distrinct from normal way of eating. And, how many dishes and how special the dishes are may also depends on how rich and poor the host is and whether it is a good crop harvest or not.

For Vietnamese, Tet is the most important holiday of the year, and they also prepared their culinary very specially on this occasion. On Tet Holiday, or the Lunar New Year, friends and relatives come around to toast and exchange the best and luckiest wishes for the whole new year. So, every household prepares at least one large pan of Chinese recipe of simmered pork and eggs called “thit kho Tau” (Chinese pork stew), some jam, sticky-rice cakes called “banh tet” (the Cake of Tet, eaten with pickled scallion heads), a couple of water melons, and pickled vegetables. Many households may have precious dishes depending on their financial state. On the 3^rd Day of Tet comes the rite of “Ra mat ong ba” (Ancestors Revisit) with chicken, chiefly the male ones, tossed in salad. Today, simple way of eating on Tet Holiday is encouraged in efforts to fight wasteful partying.

Religion and Faith

From the very old time, Ben Tre was settled by several ethnic groups such as Viet (or Kinh), Khmer, Chinese, and Champa, and all have harmoniously cohabited for as long as centuries. Along the timeline, they were intermingling in bloodlines as well as culture, especially religion and faith.

In general, each ethnic group is characterized with one of the primitive religions that has developed into main faiths in the region. The Chinese settlers, for example, are characterized by their branch of Buddhism taken along with their Southward migration, whereas the Viet group is normally seen as worshipers of their ancestors.

Since the high old time, Confucianism had been introduced to and adopted by almost all Vietnamese. This very old faith was generated by the Chinese philosopher Confucius, so is the name Confucianism to celebrate his great establishment of a way of life, way of thinking and behaviour, and many other rites that had

deeply affected many aspects of life in East Asia for millenia. It followed the Northern (Chinese) invaders to incroach the Southern territory of Dai Viet, or the Greater Viet, and penetrate into the ordinary life.

Buddhism was introduced later and has replaced Confucianism as the most practiced religion among all ethnic groups. Later on came the Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, which have been introduced since the early time of Wetsern (French and American) invasions. During the French and American invasions, Ben Tre Buddhists, like in many other provinces across Viet Nam, answered the national call to fight foreign invaders. Many pagodas here became hiding shelters for Viet Minh, and later Viet Cong, in their guerilla war against the French and American armed forces. Nowaday, Buddhism is one of the main religions in Viet Nam, along with Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam.

Catholicism and other non-Buddhist religions

A new religion, Catholicism was introduced into Ben Tre by Western missionaries in the late 18^th century. Ba Tri was the district where Catholicism was first practiced in as early as 1740 (others said it was in 1770). Three French Catholic priests named Pierre Luu (a blend of French and Vietnamese names), Pierre Thien, and Paulo Tuyet had come here to preach Christian dogmas. Giong Gia, Giong Tre (Ba Tri District), and Cai Mon (Cho Lach District) are known as the three oldest parishes in Ben Tre. Today, Catholicism is practiced everywhere in Ben Tre, with 85 chapels, 34 priests, 200 nuns, and nearly 100.000 parishioners.

Protestantism was brought into Ben Tre in 1925 by pastor Nguyen Chau Thong of the My Tho Protestant Church. He first spread the faith in the Ben Tre Town, then to several other districts such as Chau Thanh, Cho Lach, … In Ben Tre now there are 12 chapels, 1 pastor, and 12 clergymen serving for 451 followers.

Beside Buddhism, Catholicism and Protestantism, there is no Islamic practices, instead there are local faiths such as Dao Dua (Coconutism), Cao Dai (Caodaism) and Hoa Hao Buddhism. Each of these has its own system of teachings and dogmas, but none has any large base of followers enough to form a great nationwide system of faith.

In fact, Coconutism is not a religion but a course of practices by one person named Nguyen Thanh Nam. Mr Nam, who had studied abroad (in France), was strongly opposed to the French invasion, but by his own way. It is said that he practiced staying on the top of coconut trees and ate solely coconut meat, and no rice or any other food, as a way to protest the foreign invaders as well as the Vietnamese puppet governments.

In Ben Tre, there are 4 branches of Caodaism: Ban Chinh, Tay Ninh (Tam Ky Pho Do), Tien Thien, and Minh Chon Ly. The Ban Chinh branch was founded in Ben Tre in 1934, by Mr Nguyen Ngoc Tuong. Though of the same root as the Tam Ky Pho Do of Tay Ninh province, which was founded in 1926, the Ban Chinh Caodaism of Ben Tre has its own characteristics. On its foundation, the Ban Chinh Caodaism had 85 sub-branches scattered in 18 provinces. Now, it has 249 sub-branches in 24 provinces and cities. In Ben Tre, it now has 59 churches with 20,000 active followers. Tam Ky Pho Do (or Tay Ninh Caodaism) in Ben Tre has more than 50 churches and temples with about 10,000 followers, but after a criminal incident in 1982, this branch has declined and many of its members now just practice it at home. The third branch of Caodaism in Ben Tre is Tien Thien Caodaism, founded in 1927 in Tien Thuy Commune, Chau Thanh District, with 127 churches in 14 provinces 45,000 followers. Now it has 29 churches with about 78,000 followers. Its headquarters is still in Tien Thuy, Chau Thanh. Minh Chon Ly, the last one, has only one church in Binh Dai District with 145 followers. Of the above 4 branches of Caodaism, Ban Chinh Caodaism is the most active and helpful in the national liberation war against the American invaders. Some of its officials such as Nguyen Ngoc Tuong was taken into custody and kept in Con Dao Detention Camp.

The Practices of Ancestors Worship

The word “dao” (religion, faith) here is understood as good faith, good way of living and behaviour toward our own family clan as well as people around us. So, a person in the Mekong Delta region, particularly in Ben Tre, is seen as decent when he or she can fulfil his/her obligation toward his/her parents, grandparents and shows his or her warm treatment toward other family members as well as neighbours. Every home here has an altar to worship ancestors. So, he or she is also required to do the daily rite of ancestors worshiping: to offer burnt incense to the altar. The time of the rite may be at dawn (4 or 5 AM) or at sunset (6 or 7 PM).

There is a “ngay gio” (death anniversary) in every home when all the family members gather to remember their deceased grandparent(s), parent(s), or sibling(s).

On this day, they feast, they toast, and they recollect their past memories with the deceased as a way to remember, to show their love for them. To prepare for this special day, family members go to the marketplace and choose the best of fresh fish, shrimps, pork, beef … and cook in the most special manner in order to show their piety to the deceased parent(s) or grandparent(s). As an ancient rule (maybe rooted from the Confucian time) but strictly observed, family members must keep in mind the death anniversary days of their relatives. Or else, they are considered as irresponsible and immoral. They will be hated and treated as strangers.

Human resource

Population