There are two reasons. The first is that the cost of school is high in relation to the poorest families' income. Costs consist of school fees (although often modest in rural areas), contributions to school maintenance funds, insurance, books, pens, uniforms and travel expenses. Many of these costs have to be paid in advance, at the start of the school year in September. Additionally, as children advance up through school the costs increase. The second reason is that families need their children to work even though they only generate tiny earnings by gathering snails, catching fish, tending the buffalo, weeding the rice or babysitting. Engaged in a hard manual working life, these children soon forget what they have learnt in school and many become illiterate like their parents.

Children are introduced through our Vietnamese partners (teachers, charity schools, orphanages and local government authorities such as Education Departments and the Women's Union). We then visit the family to assess their poverty using a specially designed survey form to choose speedily and efficiently, impartially and objectively, the poorest children. The children do not need to be clever to be chosen nor do they have to pass any test - they just need to be eager to learn.

At the beginning of the school year, all of the children receive a full set of textbooks and enough exercise books and pens to last them for the first half of the year. Every month of the school year, each child receives 10kg of rice. This makes a valuable contribution to the household budget and is roughly equivalent to their "lost earnings" - what they could have earned had they had not gone to school. It represents between 10% and 15% of a poor family's earnings.

At Tet, the Vietnamese New Year (around late January and early February), we give a school uniform to each student. This is a propitious omen for the New Year as traditionally new clothes are worn at Tet. We also give the children exercise books and pens for the second half of the school year as well as cooking oil and sugar. For children in particularly difficult circumstances we provide individual tailored help. This often involves giving bicycles to children who have moved up from primary school to junior high school as the journey to school suddenly becomes much longer.

We don't pay school fees because we believe this is the parents' responsibility. We do not want to take away the parents' responsibility for educating their children. Nor do we want to encourage dependency on us. And, by keeping our costs down we can assist even more children.

Every month we check the school attendance of every child. If their attendance is poor, we will visit the family to find out the reason and offer additional help if they have suffered a disaster. For example, we sometimes give a bicycle or a little extra money if a parent has died. At the end of school year in June we collect the children's school reports. Although scholastic ability is not a criterion for choosing, we do encourage and expect the children to make steady school progress year after year and show signs of making an effort.

This question scores a loud and emphatic YES! Not only does it work it works very well indeed. The effectiveness of our programme is revealed by the very small drop-out rate of children in our programme: normally only two or three children per year out of a total of 1,000. Success is revealed by the increasing numbers who go on to finish Class 12. We also claim, as a lasting success, the attitude of parents to their children's education: it is transformed. Parents begin to realise the importance of keeping their children in school and not pulling them out each time they need a hand in the paddy field or as soon as they have learnt to write a sentence.

The donation covers the cost of rice and books for the children and the cost of our scholarship staff administering the scheme.