The Lycée Yersin was a school founded in 1927 in
Da Lat
Da Lat (also written as Dalat, vi, Đà Lạt; ), is the capital of Lâm Đồng Province and the largest city of the Central Highlands region in Vietnam. The city is located above sea level on the Langbian Plateau. Da Lat is one of the mo ...
, Vietnam, to educate the children of French colonialists and upper class Vietnamese.
After various changes, it is now the Pedagogical College of Da Lat (Vietnamese: Trường Cao đẳng Sư phạm Đà Lạt), a teachers' training college.
Building
The building stands on a plateau.
From one side it overlooks the great lake of Dalat, and from the other side looks over the valley where the railway station was built.
The French architect Paul Moncet designed the building and supervised its construction.
The building was constructed of red bricks imported from Europe.
The roof was also made from material imported from France, but has since been restored.
The main building is three stories high, with 24 rooms, with a bell tower.
The building describes an arc.
There are traces of a large clock on the exterior of the bell tower.
It has been recognized by the World Association of Architects as one of the 1,000 original buildings of the 20th century.
Colonial era
![Pedagogical College of Da Lat 46](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Pedagogical_College_of_Da_Lat_46.jpg)
The hill station of Da Lat had boarding schools that served all of Vietnam.
It had been seen as a possible center of government that would be hygienic and segregated between Europeans and Vietnamese.
The Petit Lycée de Dalat was created by decree on 16 July 1927, opened on 16 September 1927, and was open for boarders on 7 January 1928.
A primary and secondary school, it was restricted to European children.
However, the proliferation of the Vietnamese elite in the town made it increasingly impracticable to practice segregation.
The Lycée de Dalat, or Grand Lycée, was also founded in 1927, open to French children and the children of the Vietnamese elite. It was a French-style ''lycée'', or secondary school.
On 10 May 1935, it took the name Lycée Yersin in honor of Dr.
Alexandre Yersin
Alexandre Emile Jean Yersin (22 September 1863 – 1 March 1943) was a Swiss- French physician and bacteriologist. He is remembered as the co-discoverer of the bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague or pest, which was later named in hi ...
.
When the governor-general
Jules Brévié
Joseph-Jules Brévié (12 March 1880 – 28 July 1964) was a French colonial administrator who became governor-general of French West Africa from 1930 to 1936, and then governor-general of French Indochina from 1937 to 1939. He promoted liberal an ...
visited Da Lat he told a racially mixed set of students at the Lycée Yersin on 12 July 1938,
The elite "native" children were expected to absorb French culture and values, and actively assist in the colonial process.
In 1936 the municipal council noted that the students at the Lycee Yersin included young Siamese children.
There were growing numbers of children from the elite "native" families in the 1930s.
In 1942 the pupils included the sons of the Cambodian Minister of Finance.
The Vietnamese and Cambodian children often achieved the best results.
Both
Bảo Đại
Bảo Đại (, vi-hantu, , lit. "keeper of greatness", 22 October 191331 July 1997), born Nguyễn Phúc Vĩnh Thụy (), was the 13th and final emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty, the last ruling dynasty of Vietnam. From 1926 to 1945, he was em ...
(1913–97) and
Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) studied at the school.
The school and teaching materials were damaged during the Japanese occupation in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
.
It was restored to the extent possible after 1945.
A brochure for the Lycée Yersin from 1948 depicted a column of highland people on its cover.
The text made no mention of this minority group, whose children were not educated at the school.
In 1948 the lycée sent five pupils to the
École Polytechnique
École may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* École, Savoi ...
in Paris, three French, one Vietnamese and one Cambodian.
As late as 1950, more French than Vietnamese graduated from the school.
In the early 1950s the emperor Bảo Đại granted scholarships so young highlanders, mostly the sons of chiefs or of civil servants, could attend the Lycée Yersin.
Later years
From 1970 to 1975 the college was named the Hung Vuong Education Center, a training facility for primary school teachers.
In 1975 it took the name of Da Lat Teachers College.
Faculties include Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Exercise / Music / Art, Primary, Preschool, Political theory.
Notes
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yersin, Lycee
Schools in Vietnam
Educational institutions established in 1927
Da Lat
1927 establishments in Vietnam