Up to now, Viettel people who directly implement the project since the first days of implementation have never forgotten the happy and joyful memories of bringing the Internet to upland schools.
“I still remember the time I went on a business trip with experts from the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Education and Training. We went to check the Internet quality at a secondary school in Muong Nhe, Dien Bien in 2009. Teachers and students stood outside to welcome us. Through everyone's eyes, we saw the respect and affection teachers and students had for us,” recalled Mr. Dao Trong Trinh, Director of the Telecommunication Business Center of Viettel Enterprise Solutions Corporation (VTS), Viettel Group.
The journey of mouse clicks opening up the world for poor students
After completing the phase of bringing Internet to each school, Viettel has maintained stable network quality and high speed until now. From the beginning of 2024, the package bandwidth has been doubled, helping to increase transmission speed faster. For new educational institutions, Viettel continues to sponsor transmission lines.
In the mid-2000s, Viettel had just achieved initial results in the telecommunications sector, and there was still much to do to expand its business and profits. However, Viettel's leaders set a goal of universalizing the Internet to 100% of schools in Vietnam, something no other company had ever dared to do. Behind this decision was the goal of providing equal learning opportunities for all Vietnamese children.
“Viettel leaders managed very closely. Even one of the criteria for evaluating staff at that time was the rate of Internet deployment in schools. Everyone looked in the same direction to implement the program, determined to help poor students in remote areas have the opportunity to narrow the gap in education with their friends in urban areas,” Mr. Trinh recalled.
At that time, most schools in remote areas of Vietnam did not have Internet access, and even the number of schools in big cities that had Internet access was not large. Therefore, teachers had little access to information and teaching materials other than old sources, and students only knew about the world through what teachers shared.
Also participating in the school Internet from the early days, Mr. Nguyen Trung Hiep, an officer of the VTS Digital Education Solutions Center, said that what motivated him to be passionate about the project was when he learned about the scene of teachers in many highland schools having to travel dozens of kilometers of forest roads to places with Internet access just to send reports to the lowlands. The isolation makes normal, easy tasks in the city become a difficult journey for those responsible for "sowing knowledge" for children in the highlands.
“The program officially started in 2008 and concluded in 2010, but the time we actually covered almost all schools in Vietnam with the Internet was only about a year. As time went on, we realized how valuable the school Internet is, from the smallest actions like helping teachers not have to travel long distances,” Mr. Hiep shared.
Achievements beyond numbers
After more than 20 years working in the education sector, from being a classroom teacher to being promoted to a management level, Mr. Le Van Luc - principal of Viet Yen High School No. 2 (Bac Giang) can clearly observe how the Internet has changed teaching and learning.
In comparison, Mr. Luc said that in addition to always having an endless source of reference online, the story of interaction and coordination between individuals also benefits greatly. For example, in the past, lesson plans had to be prepared by hand and then brought to school for direct approval by the department head, but the time for this process has been shortened thanks to electronic lesson plans.
Both the maker and the reviewer work on the computer, saving both effort and resources. In the past, the process of interacting with parents was limited when messaging platforms and chat groups were not available. Teachers and parents mainly met and communicated through parent-teacher meetings. Even when mobile phones were available, communicating with everyone still took more time and effort.
Regarding school Internet, the leader of Viettel Group once shared: “We are doing something that even the US is striving to do by the end of President Obama's term, bringing broadband Internet to 15,000 US schools. The bigger difference is that all of that connection is provided free of charge by a business”. The content mentioned is the initiative called "ConnectED" launched by former US President Barack Obama in 2013. According to the plan, within 5 years, 99% of students across the US can access the Internet on broadband and high-speed wireless networks.
Over the past 16 years, Viettel has provided free fiber optic Internet to 46,000 educational institutions worldwide (including Vietnam and 10 foreign markets). The number of teachers, pupils and students supported to access the Internet is up to 25 million people.
That achievement has been recognized by the world. At the end of September 2024, Viettel's school Internet program was honored in the top 3 in Fortune Magazine's "Change the World" ranking. Over the past 10 years, this ranking has honored corporations that have made great contributions to solving global social and environmental issues. Viettel's ranking is only behind the space-related initiatives of the consortium GHGSat, Rocket Lab and SpaceX; Grab's solution to solving financial access barriers in Southeast Asia.
With the advent and explosion of 5G networks, the School Internet promises to bring even more learning opportunities to students in rural, remote and isolated areas. The high-speed, low-latency connectivity of 5G is the foundation for creating even more groundbreaking changes for online teaching and learning, thereby further promoting equal access to education.
