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“I want to become an IT engineer, no matter how hard it is, so that at least I can return to my village and teach computer courses to the kids there,” a very special college applicant toldTuoi Tre on Thursday before he took his college admission tests.

Born without any feet or hands in the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai in 1994, Droeng has shown a strong desire for learning despite his physical disadvantage.

The boy, a member of the Gia Rai minority, one of Vietnam’s 54 ethnic groups, was not only particularly good at math and drawing but he also maintained good academic performance on other subjects at K-12 school.

When he was a child, nobody believed he could go to school. But his father managed to get him there after seeing his craving for it: he once borrowed a pen from his younger sibling and tried to write letters and draw his house and village.

“I pleaded with a teacher to let him attend her class because he really wanted to study,” his father Ksor Dyoang recalled. He made it eventually.

Dyoang carried Droeng on his back to school for a few years. Then the boy crawled like a worm on the way to a local school about one kilometer from home when he grew a little older.

Strong-willed Droeng graduated from high school one month ago and applied for an IT university in Hanoi. With all his burning desire for college, he would probably make it again this time.

In Vietnam those who want to go to college must take standardized admission tests prepared by the Ministry of Education and Training.

This year the tests are slated for July 4 and 5 or 9 and 10, depending on each applicant’s major.