Background paper for efa monitoring report
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Kindergarten education for 3- 6 years olds was established in Laos under the socialist system, but unlike in neighbouring China and Vietnam, has not become widespread. The main users of 722 government and 95 private kindergartens are teachers, civil servants and others in "urban" areas and district centres. For this group, childcare is useful, and modest fees are paid. Enrollment in such kindergartens increased only slightly from 7.3- 7.8 % over the 1990-2000 decade, and the number of private kindergartens has actually decreased by 10% (perhaps due to the higher costs to parents). Enrolment is 15% in Vientiane and 13 % in Savanakhet (the second town in Laos) but less than 4.5% in ten of the 18 provinces. Over 90% of children enrolled are of Lao- Phutai ethnicity. The EFA Assessment gives no indication of the quality of this provision. Project workers in Laos hear teachers often claim that children from the kindergartens do "better" and are "more ready" for school, but this is often based simply on children's ability to do things that are learned in kindergartens, for example knowledge of the alphabet, numbers etc.and ability to use a pencil). Rural and ethnic minority children can easily be labelled as "not ready", regardless of their actual cognitive abilities. Attempts to encourage use of kindergartens seem based on assumptions, perhaps based on international evidence, that good kindergartens can support better learning achievement, but there does not seem to have been any systematic research undertaken in Laos, disentangling the effects of kindergarten education from that of other social advantage. Projects do report that in general, urban kindergartens demonstrate somewhat better practice than the primary schools and have been used as "resource centres" for demonstrating Early Years methodologies, as well as playing an important role in the development of Inclusive Education. Over the last four years, the government has been trying the idea of a "one year attached pre school" class in rural areas, in order to "spread the benefits" of kindergarten education more widely as well as to address the issue of under- school age children in school. (Many of these remain "invisible", often counted incorrectly in Grade One figures, and rarely is any system of care and play opportunity set up for them within the school). However, the attached pre-schools are not yet widespread and reports so far are somewhat negative, often described as very poor quality annexes, in which an unqualified teacher gives what is basically a rehearsal for Grade One, and it might be wondered if the "benefits" accrue more to the Grade One teachers than to the children. Such classes are anyway largely irrelevant to more remote ethnic minority communities where there are often not enough children to form a class (i.e. if the school is multigrade anyway) and where it is already difficult to get children enrolled at age six, so that the entry age has been raised to seven years. A number of donors have declined to support pre-schools in rural areas with the rationale that the children would be better off at home, rather than being turned off school at an even earlier age, and that resources best put into improving the quality of the multigrades. Meanwhile, one new NGO project13, aims to slightly re-conceptualise the "attached pre-school" as a "bridging year" for ethnic minority children most at risk of school failure and drop out, using ethnic minority teachers from the local community and focusing strongly on both mother tongue and Lao verbal language learning. If successful, these might come to be seen (and monitored) as an integrated part of Primary Education tailored for ethnic minority areas, rather than a "watered down" version of a 3 year urban kindergarten. However, the majority of 3-6 year olds, and almost all 0-3 year olds, are outside of any formal institution. It has been noted above that in rural areas, where traditional forms of community organisation, including the extended family, are still the norm; many children's learning and development needs will be being well met, possibly more so than for their peers in the poorer quality kindergartens or pre- schools. However, the health impacts of poverty, stresses on traditional social support systems and heavy work demands on poor families, particularly women; can affect the emotional, social and cognitive development of young children. UNICEF have been trialing community- based ECCE, focusing on improving support to these vulnerable families and communities, in five provinces and 480 villages in Laos, now extending to a further three provinces. Interventions combine "parenting" skills, health education, informal child care and play opportunities. UNICEF reported that the context has been challenging and that good measures of impact are not yet available. However, it can be hoped that this provides the beginning of some coverage of vulnerable communities as well as bringing new thinking about how to support the healthy development of young children in Laos. Challenges that lie ahead will include building on the existing capacities and strengths of parents and communities, including traditional knowledge; developing methods of monitoring and recording the "coverage" of different types of provision and, in order to get a better handle on their impact, finding more culturally- appropriate measures of young school- entrants' (mother tongue) language and cognitive development. This should also assist with fully integrating appropriate ECCE interventions, targeted where they can make most significant impact, into sector -wide plans. 3. ADULT LITERACY AND LIFELONG LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES In addition to the focus on improving primary education, there have been attempts to address directly the issue of high adult illiteracy. A National NFE Programme has been running since 1992, giving a three year course in basic literacy (in Lao language) as well as basic numeracy and some nutrition and health information. While "Lifelong Learning" is only just beginning to be considered more systematically, there have been programmes that aimed to combine literacy with wider practical knowledge and skills, and income generation. UNESCO has supported the development of 23 Community Learning Centres, which aim to act as resource centres for communities, not only for literacy learning but also for technical vocational learning and lifeskills. The earlier project ran into difficulties due to lack of capacity and it was found to be too narrow and top down. There are now attempts to develop programmes that can offer a variety of skills training, related to agricultural production and food processing, as well as to developing existing traditional and skills, according to local need and demand. GTZ , UNDP and the Swiss government have also supported vocational skills training linked with the government NFE programme, integrated into wider community development or agricultural projects. According to UIS statistics, Adult literacy rates increased from 56.5% to 64.8 %, with improvement in gender parity from 0.61- 0.72. The Laos EFA Assessment (based on 1995 census data) gives a reported literacy rate of 68.7%, 77% for males and 60.9% for females, indicating an increase of 3.5 % for males and of 13% for females since 1995. A National Literacy Survey has been undertaken in 2001-2, the first of its kind in Lao PDR, supported by UNESCO and UNICEF. Its specific aim has been in order to set in place, and build capacity for, an ongoing monitoring of literacy rates in order to plan literacy interventions and to work towards the EFA literacy goal. This survey has been based on more scientific surveying and testing of actual functional literacy (and numeracy) skills, across clusters in all 18 Provinces, disaggregated by age group, gender, location and ethnicity. The Survey Report is currently being finalised and prepared for publication, however the MoE and UNICEF gave some general information about some key findings. These induce the possibility that literacy might have been over -reported in previous census exercises and that gender differences might be bigger than had been thought. As could be expected, the impact of the expansion of primary and secondary education seems to be beginning to be reflected in higher levels of literacy for 15- 24 age group, among the Lao speaking lowland groups. Some concern was expressed over the high number of Grade Five "completers" who were not able to pass the test, indicating the ongoing problems or teaching quality, though there was a correlation between literacy rates and numbers of years at school/ grade on leaving. It would seem that Adult Literacy remains poor for the older age group, suggesting that improvements that have been made are mainly due to improvements in primary education rather than adult literacy programmes per se. However, it should be acknowledged that internationally adult literacy programmes struggle to be widely effective. UNICEF noted that there appear to continue to be extremely low literacy rates among the poorest 20% of the population and, closely related to this, a continued high illiteracy among many "ethnic minority" communities. This is consistent with the earlier findings of the 1995 census (quoted by Richard Noonan, MoE 2003) which gives the following statistics:
Lao PDR 1995 Census data This suggests a gender difference between ethnic minority groups which does not relate to levels of literacy overall, e.g. the Tibeto- Burman group has very low literacy but better gender parity, while gender inequality is very high for the Hmong- Yao. It was also found that where ethnic minority people are literate in their own language, they are almost 100% also literate in Lao as well (i.e. literacy is almost never obtained first and only in a language other than Lao). With so few ethnic minority children completing primary school, adult literacy rates are not yet being improved. A number of people spoken to in relation to this report noted that the continued lack of completion of primary, especially for many ethnic minority girls, risks that the cycle of early marriage and educational disadvantage in the next generation, will continue. Furthermore, it would seem that the NFE programme is so far struggling to reach those who do not have Lao as a first language. Literacy in the mother tongue has been trialed only on a very small scale. It is now felt that this needs further consideration, participation in relation to language that could be written using the Lao script and thus stimulate and support Lao language learning also. However, creating scripts for languages that do not have one (and whose speakers thus have an "oral" culture) has not been particularly successful in other similar contexts such as Vietnam. Meanwhile, Hmong has traditionally been written in Mandarin Chinese characters, which does not lend itself to short adult literacy courses. Certainly, there are formidable challenges ahead. Success in improving adult literacy over the long term will be intimately tied up with addressing issues of access to a complete cycle of primary education, of at least a minimum quality, in rural and ethnic minority areas. However, in order to break the cycle of poverty and illiteracy, it would seem that there will need to continue to be concurrent intervention to support adults, perhaps linking it more to the concept of "lifelong learning", with increasing attention to direct linking of literacy with income generation and practical skills, numeracy as well as literacy, and to developing reading materials to motivate and sustain learning. Given the PPA finding that literacy is not seen as more important than other skills, it may be worth considering going even further and trying programmes where practical skills are the starting point (possibly leading to demand for literacy in time). In the light of the discussion above on communities where young children are "at risk" of sub optimal development and thus a poor start in school and early drop out, it would also seem that there could be a strong case for "holistic" community- based interventions, addressing immediate livelihood and life concerns including early childhood development and adult literacy, targeted where poverty, illiteracy and school drop- out rates are all high and linking as far as possible to local school development initiatives. As a part of the developing debate on language issues, the language of initial literacy for adults, and/or ways of helping adults to learn Lao language, might be revisited. 4. GENDER PARITY IN EDUCATION Referring back to the four earlier sections, it can be seen that gender parity in education has improved slowly in primary and secondary education, at least in terms of enrolment, but there is still some way to go, particularly for the many "ethnic minority " communities. Fewer ethnic minority girls enrol, and more drop out from school. There are still very large differentials for adult literacy, reflecting a past when schooling for girls was almost non existent. There is a strong perception among MoE and donors that there has been fairly poor progress on gender, but, conversely, the sense of some promising very recent progress. Cultural perceptions and traditions continue to play a role, with traditional roles and marriage patterns meaning that education is seen as less relevant. However, a conscious choice to only educate boys seems to occur where poverty forces it. Where livelihoods needs are met, in the main it would seem that families will send both girls and boys to school. The quality and relevance of education is very significant for enrolling girls, along with the relationship built up between the school and the communities. Positive change now seems to be occurring where initiatives are being taken locally to ensure that girls are enrolled and to make changes within the school environment and ethos. These include the appointment of women teachers (particularly from the local community), more flexible timetabling to respond to local lifestyles and the need of girls to work, ensure that the curriculum is relevant to girls as well as boys and to develop relationships with the community to encourage girls attendance. POLICIES AND STRATEGIES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PROGRESS ON EFA TO DATE From the above analysis of progress on the different EFA Goals in Lao PDR, it would seem that "conducive factors" in enabling achievements so far have been:
KEY CONSTRAINTS TO PROGRESS While there have been some impressive developments, it can also be drawn from the analysis that there have been significant economic, socio- political and institutional constraints to progress on EFA in Lao PDR, of which the following stand out:
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