Surviving and thriving: voices from teachers in remote and disadvantaged regions of Vietnam

Teaching in high need areas often requires significant resilience, especially as global education systems are recovering from COVID-19 . This study aims to offer some insights into aspects of teacher resilience in areas of greater adversity. We investigated strategies of resilience exhibited by a group of 53 teachers working in the northern mountainous areas of Vietnam. Findings indicate that the teachers experienced tremendous ongoing and unique contextual challenges that kept them from developing professionally. The study finds that the contextual challenges outweighed the available coping resources, resulting in the teachers "surviving not yet thriving". Resilience strategies used by the teachers were mostly from within themselves (e.g., motivation, teaching passion, enthusiasm, and a sense of purpose) and from their colleagues' support. There was, however, a substantial lack of financial, practical, emotional and institutional support from schools and local authorities. Implications for teacher resilience intervention and research are discussed.