Explain the following: (a) Only one-third of the students in Vietnam would pass the school leaving examinations. (b) The French began building canals and draining lands in the Mekong delta. (c) The government made the Saigon Native Girls School take back the students it had expelled. (d) Rats were most common in the modern, newly built areas of Hanoi.

(a) Only one-third of the students in Vietnam would pass the school leaving examinations because the French colonial administration followed a deliberate policy of failing students in their final year examinations so that they could not qualify for better-paid jobs. Only the wealthy Vietnamese could afford enrollment in these expensive schools, and to add to that, very few would pass the school-leaving examinations.

 (b) The French began building canals and draining lands in the Mekong delta for increased cultivation. This was done under a garb to "civilize" Vietnam on a European model, but it was actually an economic idea meant to increase rice production and subsequent export of rice to the international market.

 (c) When the French principal of the Saigon Native Girls School expelled the students protesting another student's expulsion, there was widespread remonstration. Considering the gravity of the situation, the government decided to control the intensity of the protests by providing an outlet-making the school take back the students.

 (d) Rats were most common in the modern, newly built areas of Hanoi because the modern and apparently hygienic sewage system provided ideal breeding grounds for rodents apart from being a good transport system as well, for the rats. Sewage from the old city was drained out into the river or overflowed in the streets during heavy rains. The large sewers now became a protected breeding and living space for rats. Hanoi, despite its "modernity", became the chief cause of the plague in 1903.