(VOVWORLD) - When a new lunar year arrives, many family clans and residential areas nationwide organize activities to honor individuals who have achieved outstanding academic results during the year and encourage them to continue learning. Such activities promote the Vietnamese traditional fondness for learning and hope for new achievements in the year to come.
The 2018 Tet is special for Pham Thi Hong Loan, a future teacher of the Pham Duy clan in Nhan Chinh village, Ha Nam province. She passed the entrance exam for the Hanoi National University of Education and will study at its branch in Ha Nam.
Loan said she was inspired by the clan’s outstanding role models, who were honored at previous spring festivals to encourage the family’s learning tradition.
Loan said receiving the clan’s award will motivate her to study in the future.
“I’m very happy to be among Pham Duy‘s descendants to receive the clan’s scholarship. The award recognizes my efforts and is a great encouragement for me to strive for higher achievements in the new school year,” said Loan.
Since 2005, the Pham Duy clan has held a festival to honor those with outstanding academic and work achievements, and called on clan members to donate to their learning promotion fund.
Pham Duy Vuong, Deputy President of the Pham Duy Family Council in Nhan Chinh village, said: “The event is important to us, especially the young people. Through the award, we want to encourage our tradition of learning. We hope the awardees will remember their ancestors and be inspired to make even greater efforts. The event is usually organized at the beginning of a new lunar year to inspire students to study harder in the new year.”
A learning promotion festival is often held every year on the second or third day of the first lunar month, beginning with new-year writing. The elders give calligraphic words to the children and review the clan’s learning tradition.
Duong Van Tien, deputy head of the learning promotion board of Duong Kinh Bac Family Council, said: “We consider it a festival in which all clan members get together and encourage each other. It is also an opportunity to sum up what we did during the year and set future orientations. The festival has inspired the clan’s children to do their best.”
Vietnam now has 1 million families who have earned the title "Family of Learning", 60,000 clans recognized as a "Clan of Learning", and 210,000 communities recognized as "Learning Communities".