It is well known that education creates prosperity, but an island village in the central province of Quang Binh is trying another method: giving birth to create prosperity.

Local adults from this village give birth to more children than the national average, but give them little education. Most of the children drop out of school after fifth grade.

When they turn 17 or 18, they get married and extend the circle of illiterate, poor life on Con Se island.

Without a basic foundation to find jobs in a nation heading towards industrialization, natives of the water-bound village connect their lives with the Giang river and the nearby sea to earn their living by either fishing or selling sea products.

Crew of children

Despite its poverty, the village has the highest birth rate in the area.

A survey last year showed that Con Se had 3,100 residents in 650 households. 1,400 of these people are under 15 years old.

The village has 410 primary school children, accounting for more than a half of the total of all pupils that age in the entire province.

Some parents joke that they want more children to have enough for a fishing boat crew as a way to make a fortune.

With its increasing population the island, which is six hectares in area, has become densely inhabited, with narrow houses packed next to one another. When room for housing ran out, young couples began building temporary huts on stilts along the riverbank.

Now, hundreds of such houses line the Giang River in spite of the seasonal floods that sweep through the island every year.

“Since my parents have no more land for housing, my husband and I have to build this temporary house here. During the flood season we return to our parents’,” said 20 year-old mother Mai Thi H.

Infants of houses on stilt on Con Se Island face risks of falling down to the water flow of Gianh River (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Nguyen Cuong, the head of the island village, said that young people there lack both an appropriate education and land for business or housing.

“Some villagers can’t read or write and don’t know where to mark their signature on a legal document,” he added.

Most children quit school after the fifth grade because there isn’t money to further their education and they are pressured by their parents to help out with work. They do simple jobs such as fishing, mending fishing nets, selling aquatic products, or leaving the village for large cities.

One reason the people of Con Se have more children is so that they have male labor for fishing boats, according to Nguyen Anh Them – chairman of the People’s committee of Quang Loc Commune in Quang Binh.

Ms. Hoang Thi Kim Ngan, director of the Population and Family Planning Center of Quang Trach District, mentioned that the people on Con Se are not receptive to advice on birth control.

It is normal for a family on Con Se to have six or seven children, and some have more than ten.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Long, 37, has seven children but could not afford to care for them all, so she had to send two of them to her grandparents and another to her aunt for help.

“Life on this island is becoming more difficult as we can’t catch as many fish as we used to be able to,” she said. “That’s why I can’t afford daily food for my children.”