In Vietnam, traditionally, studies are highly focused on. Even in rural area (75% of the population), parents spend a large share of their income in books and night classes for their children. Despite efforts at the national level to develop education, access to a qualified job for youths from the provinces is paved with numerous obstacles: quality training can only be found in public universities in the main cities, where life is expensive and finding a job is difficult when one is not connected. Many students feel too discouraged to even try to take the national entry exams. 

Meanwhile, on the other side of Southern China Sea, in the Philippines, young people will hardly find better a job than in fast food chains, even if they have managed to follow expensive studies. There, students graduate from high school after 10^th grade, vs 12^th grade almost everywhere else in the world. One has to be exceptional to develop real professional skills, after just 2 to 4 years of superior education that many consider as unadapted to the needs of the market. However city lights continue drawing people from the provinces: in less than 30 years, urban population went up from less than half to about two thirds of total population, increasing the slum belts around the cities. 

Social gaps are getting deeper in these two countries, despite high growth rates at the macro level. Another common point is how IT is considered as a key-element for economic and educational development. Thanks to the field works of Thomas, Edouard, Viviane, Nadim and Anne, we have been able to raise interest and enthusiasm from local players: authorities, NGOs, universities and enterprises. We are already moving to the next steps… The first of which being to gather sufficient funds to enable us to go beyond the pilot phase. 

Students will be enrolled in 2009. In June for the Philippines and in September for Vietnam. We will need to complete major field tasks before then: concluding partnerships, building up teams, finding facilities, coaching volunteers, selecting students, getting authorizations… To all challenge enthusiasts: the recruitment process of field volunteers has just started!

Hakara Tea, Project Manager for Philippines and Vietnam