Hon Chuoi Island is located at an altitude of about 205m above sea level in the south-western sea of the country, 17 nautical miles to the west of the mouth of Song Doc River, covering a total area of seven square kilometres. There are 38 households with 129 people living there mainly earning money by fishing and most of them are illiterate Khmer.

In 1995, soldiers at Border Post 704, Navy Zone 5, planned on teaching on Hon Chuoi Island but the project lasted for a short time due to the lack of students. In 2009, Tran Binh Phuc started working on the island. Recognising that all the people there were illiterate, he decided to ask for permission to open a class near his workplace to teach children while working.
 

The humble, original classroom was 30 square metres, built with logs and old sheets of iron with only a desk for four people. Tran Binh Phuc had to go to every house to encourage the children to go to the class, but only 4 kids came to study. At the end of the first term, Phuc had 7 more students.

For the second term, teacher Phuc went to the mainland and appealed for a donation of 8 desks, some primary school textbooks, some uniforms and old stationery. He made his way to primary schools in Tran Van Thoi District to ask for guidance in teaching.

Phuc teaches all the children from grades 1 to 5 by dividing them into groups and teaching each group separately. He said that the children there were very naïve and they needed visual aids of familiar objects like a boat, a fish, a tree’s branch or a stone to understand the lessons. They found abstract topics strange and had no interest in them.

The class monitor, 15 year-old Tran Thi Thao, who is in grade 5, acknowledged: “Every morning, Phuc comes to fetch us to the class and takes us home after the lesson. Come rain or shine, our class is always full of laughter. He loves us with his whole heart, and diligently instructs each student. We now can read, tell stories and sing to people. I can’t find word to describe his help.”

Tran Binh Phuc has been helping all the children of school age on Hon Chuoi Island become literate. However, he shared: “Compared to the children of mainland official schools, our students are at half the level they would be if they were in an official school. So, I sincerely hope that education on Hon Chuoi Island can be improved in the future.”