Country Report: Lao PDR

Transcription

1 20 th Regional Workshop on the Capacity Building for Trainers of NFE Facilitators in Asia and the Pacific - Yangon, Myanmar, 3-12 December Page 1 Country Report: Lao PDR Mr. Lamphoune Luangxay Technical Staff Department of Non-Formal Education Ministry of Education Lao PDR I. Country Profile in Brief The Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a landlocked country, with an area of 236,800 km 2, composed of 18 provinces, 124 district, and 11,697 villages. Lao PDR is composed of 3 regions, Northern, Central, and Southern region. There are 47 non Lao-speaking minority groups who have different dialects and traditions. Lao PDR is among the world's least developed countries, ranked 143 out of 173 countries investigated 1, with average per capital income of only US$ Basic Population Statistics Population: 5,218,000 Population density: 22 person/km 2 Population growth rate: 2.8% Female: male ration: 50.6 : 49.4 Population under 15 years: 45% Population under 19 years: 55% Population aged years:52% Total Fertility Rate: 5.6 Crude Birth Rate (CBR): 38.8 Crude Death Rate (CDR): 13.0 Life-expectancy: 59 years (M=57, F=61) Source: NSC Basic Statistics 2000 and Lao RHS Report II. Introduction to Non-Formal Education The Adult and Complementary Education officially became the Non-Formal Education Department (NFED) in The activities and goals for non-formal education are: Eradication of illiteracy for the population country wide, especially for women and ethnic minorities in remote areas; Raising the primary and secondary levels lf education for government employees, military personnel, police; and 1 UNDP Human Development Report ADB Country Economic Review 2000

2 Page 2 In conjunction with the two responsibilities above, the promotion of basic vocation for educationally disadvantaged and low-income populations in order to increase income level and to improve livelihood is also stressed. The non-formal education policy of the MOE targets 2 age groups: Those between the ages of 15 and 40 who are illiterate and have not completed primary school, or those over 40 years old who are interested; and Those between 15 and 25 years of age who do not have definite vocations. The adult (15+) literacy rate for the entire population is 68.7% with 77.0% for male and 60.9% for female, and the level of literacy is still very low 3. However, the implementation of various activities has been implementing. One of the programs is establishment of Community Learning Center (CLC). III. Training Programs for NFE facilitators A. Present Programme Until recently, the major components of non-formal education were literacy programs and formal education equivalency programs for adults, with a particular focuses on government personnel and staff. While these programs still operate, non-formal education also focus on other educational needs outside the formal education system. The non-formal education system provides a combination of literacy and basic education for the illiterate, and programs to raise the education levels of the population. It has a particular focus on vulnerable groups: the poor, women, and ethnic minorities. There are 3 Regional Non-Formal Education Centers (RNFEC), and 305 CLCs nationwide (See Figure 1) to carry out the duties of non-formal education at the grass root level, which are the most suitable for literacy and continuing education program including vocational training. Lao National Literacy Survey 2000

3 Figure 1. CLC location in Lao PDR Page 3 NFED in collaboration with NGOs provide financial support for training of NFE facilitators at all level, but the main financial resource is from NGOs. The contents of the training are on CLC management, learning-teaching material development at community level, volunteer teachers in the field of methods of teaching for adults, and using learning and teaching materials related to community like drug abuse, HIV/AIDS production, health care, Income Generating Program, and etc. The training sometimes is pre-service training and inservice training and takes 2 weeks in average, The main organizations are UNESCO Bangkok, UNESCO Paris, UNICEF Vientaine, GTZ Bafis, Ecole Sans Frontiere (ESF), Church World Service (CWS), ZOA, International Volunteer association of Japan (IVJ), Save Children Norway (Redd Banna), ICS Femmes Et Formation Professionally, etc.

4 B. Main Issue Page 4 There are very few NFE staff overloading their work. Only 4 in each Provincial Education Service (PES), and 2 in each District Education Bureau (DEB). The volunteer teachers' also possess low qualification, mostly Grade 3-5. The staffs have little opportunity for in-service training to improve their capacity because of budget limitation. Some volunteer teachers have opportunity to be trained once a year only and not enough learning-teaching materials at community level. NFE facilitators level their job in a short time. All in all, NFE staff is requirement at PES, DEB, and community level is needed including providing in-service training more often in order to improve their knowledge and skills on non-formal education. And lack of fund. C. Future Plan for Follow-up Training Recently, the evaluation of NFE system and ClC implementation in Lao PDR led by Ms. Chiho Ohashi and Dr. Suvit Pichayathit, the UNESCO APPEAL consultant. The main findings and recommendation will be considered as our action plan in very near future, especially in the field of building capacity for NFE facilitators. However, the future plan will focus on training volunteer teachers in CLCs, and NFE staff at district level. The contents of training will be based on the handbook for Adult Learning Materials Development at community level provided by ACCU and UNESCO PROAP. IV. Plan for National Follow-up Activities of the 20 th Regional Workshop A. Curriculum and Printing Material Development at Community Level 1. Rationale Following the responsibility allocation of materials development between national level (60%) and location level (40%). Unfortunately, the NFE staff at provincial and district level success this goal. This because the staff at these level lack of knowledge and skills on process of curriculum and printing materials, and lack of fund as long as tools for development such materials. Therefore, the target groups not interested in learning. 2. Objectives To get the responsibility as set done (national level 60% and local level 40%) Trainers will be able to declare steps of curriculum and printing materials development after the training; and The trainees can develop learning-teaching material using local resource available in the locality. 3. Expected result Build up the volunteer teachers of the 16 CLCs in Luangprabang province The 9 DES can produce the curriculum and painting materials themselves The 16 CLCs in Luangprabang can produce learning-teaching materials themselves

5 4. Participants 3 trainers from NFFD; 1 NFE staff of PES, and 9 NFE staff of DEB; and 2 volunteer teachers from 16 CLCs (2x16=32 people) in Luagprabang province. Page 5 5. Time and venue The training will be conducted at Northern Non-formal Education Centre for 12 days. The time will be considered. IV. NFE Adult Learning Materials Development Material Development is done by the national level- Non-Formal Education Development Material Center OR Non-Formal Education Department, then they are sent back to the provincial, district and community level, We produce poster, flip chart, newspaper, textbook of NFE, booklet, and etc. There are various of contents such as live stock farming, plant propagation, health care, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS protection. They are all materials, not in the form of visual-audio materials. By the way, the Information Communication and Technology is just the beginning of the concept of NFE. As for the process of materials development at national level, we do through training methods of materials development as following: Field survey (needs assessment) Curriculum unity Materials preparation Pre-testing (pilot testing) Revision and finalization Materials were produced at different level. National level was produced by NFEDC. Provincial and district level, the materials were produced by NFE personnel those used to training on the materials development provided by NFED. However, all the materials must be submitted to NFEDC to finalize and printing. Unfortunately, printing and dissemination is not on time and not enough because of the budget limitation. As mentioned on the other section, the main financial resource is from UN and NGOs. Anyhow, we have been trying to ask for more funding from the Government to support these activities. The most effective material that we have produced is the "local newspaper, namely Nung Sour Phim Sao Ban, and Nung Soue Phin Ban Hoe". This newspaper is composed by villagers and for villager. The main content is the core main subject of NFE. Again the NFEDC just revise and finalize. It makes villagers are interested in reading. It is like a stage for villagers to exchange their experiences.