COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

Evolve.
Adapt.
Overcome.
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The Teaching Profession in

Laos

RYAN CROSBY GARCIA

CONSTANTINO, MARITES E
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

The Teaching Profession in Laos

• To qualify to teach at the upper secondary level, students need to
have a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Education at National
University Of Laos (15 years of total schooling).
• To teach at the lower secondary level, they need to have completed
at least 14 years of schooling with a diploma from 1 of 5 teacher
training colleges.
• To teach at the primary school level, they need a diploma from 1 of 9
teacher training colleges or schools and need to have 11 to 12 years
of total schooling.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

LAO Teaching Profession

• The lack of qualified teachers has been a major obstacle to improve the quality of education in
Lao.
• Given the extremely low salaries of teachers and attractive new private sector opportunities, it is
difficult to attract students to the teaching field.
• To improve the quality of education, in-service training department, the national research institute
of educational science  and the teacher development center of the NUOL in the mid-1990's a new
pedagogy was introduced by the ministry of education to move away from traditional rote
memorization to more active, experiential and problem-solving, student-centered type learning. 
• Primary education in Laos is compulsory, free and universal through the fifth grade; however, high
fees for books and supplies and a general shortage of teachers in rural areas prevented many
children from attending school.
• Although school enrollment rates for girls remained lower than for boys, gender parity has been
increasing.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

Laos’s Teacher Licensing

 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

LITERACY AND WOMEN EDUCATION IN LAOS.

• Overall, there are more illiterate women than men. Causes of female literacy
vary across provinces and among the different ethnic groups, but poverty,
distance, cost, and traditional beliefs tend to be the main factors. Other
factors include the burden of household chores, early marriage or pregnancy.
Luang Namtha, in the northern region has lowest percentage of adult
literacy, and  Vientiane capital has the highest percentage of adults who can
read and write.
• Both boys and girls attend village schools but only a few boys are encouraged
to continue their education on the district or provincial level. According to a
UNICEF report Laos will not be able to reduce poverty or improve its living
standards unless a greater effort is made to get girls into schools.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

EDUCATION PRIOR  TO THE LAOS

PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
Of the many ethnic groups in Laos, only the Lao Loum had a tradition
of formal education, reflecting the fact that the languages of the other
groups had no written script. Until the midtwentieth century, education
was primarily based in the Buddhist wat, where the monks taught
novices and other boys to read both Lao and Pali scripts, basic
arithmetic, and other religious and social subjects. Many villages had
wat schools for novices and other village boys. However, only ordained
boys and men in urban monasteries had access to advanced study.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

Facts about the education system in Laos

• The school terms runs from September to June.
• Education in state schools is taught in the Lao language only.
• Free schooling is provided to all Laos children for 4 periods:
• Pre-primary 3 years (age 3 to 5)
• Primary 5 years (ages 6 to 10)
• Lower secondary 4 years (ages 11 to 14)
• Upper secondary 3 years ages 15 to 17)
• Education is only compulsory for the 5 year primary period.
• Lao teachers are generally under paid and many need to engage in farming
to feed themselves leaving schools understaffed for large parts of the year
• Good higher education is in short supply in Laos, meaning that an unhealthy
proportion of Laotian teachers don’t receive the training they need to teach
children effectively creating a vicious cycle of educational underachievement.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

Building a more resilient education system

• Khang Panya Lao is not only helping children continue with their studies
during COVID-19, but it is making the education system more resilient.
When future emergencies arise, including floods or other natural
disasters, students and teachers will be able to immediately access the
platform and avoid an interruption to their education.
• In the future, the platform will also support online learning for children
who can’t physically go to school, due to disability or location, presenting
an opportunity to the reach the most vulnerable populations.
• To support increased resiliency, the ministry, is preparing for the national
roll out of teacher trainings in how to use Khang Panya Lao in classroom
as well as a teaching and learning resource for use at home.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

Laos: A new digital platform ensures continuity of education

”Khang Panya Lao” is a new teaching and learning platform to ensure children continue learning while schools are closed. It was developed by the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) in Laos with
support from GPE, UNICEF and the European Union.

To prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Laos, all schools and educational institutions closed in March 2020 and remained closed for several
months. This disrupted the learning of over 1.7 million children and young people, who were entering the last 2.5 months of the 2019-2020
school year. Due to the second wave of the virus, school closed again in April 2021, putting children’s learning further at risk.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a need to develop an innovative approach to reach children during school closures and mitigate learning
loss. With support from GPE, UNICEF and the European Union, the Ministry of Education and Sports developed Khang Panya Lao (“wisdom
warehouse” in English), an online teaching and learning platform that can be accessed via the web and as an application for tablets or
mobile phones.
The platform is designed as a supplementary teaching resource for use in face-to-face classes. It also enables students to continue their
education from home by accessing digitalized learning content. Khang Panya Lao is based on UNICEF’S Learning Passport initiative and was
developed to: Facilitate learning for children and youth.
Support the work and professional development of teachers, principals, pedagogical advisors and early childhood education staff, Develop
digital skills for children, youth, teachers and staff in the education sector.
The platform makes the national curriculum textbooks and supporting resources - including interactive games, videos and storybooks -
available online for children of pre-primary age and children from grades 1 to 12, as well as teachers and others educational staff.
Contributing partners are Aide et Action, Australia-DFAT and BEQUAL, Humanity and Inclusion, JICA, Room to Read, Save the Children,
UNESCO, UNFPA, USAID, WFP and the World Bank.
These local partners are all providing their learning content to the platform. In addition, Child Fund is supporting teacher training in
remote communities of Houaphanh province using tablets.
By mid-October, more than 43,300 students have registered to Khang Panya Lao and the numbers keep growing.
 COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Calayan Educational Foundation, Inc.

TEACHER SALARIES IN LAOS

• Teacher salaries in Lao PDR are low, and since 1993/94 lost much of their
value in real terms. Primary teachers earn around 390,000 Kip (US$39) per
month. Lower secondary teachers earn about 450,000 Kip (US$45) per
month. Around 85 percent of this salary corresponds to base pay and 15
percent to bonuses, supplements and family allowances.
• In 2003, real primary teacher salaries represented about 40 percent of GDP
per capital.
• In 2006, teacher salaries recovered to some extent from the loss in real
terms experimented since the early 1990s to 97 percent of GDP per capital,
up from 89 percent of GDP per capital the year before.
• In 2022, person working in Teaching / Education in Laos typically earns
around 4,830,000 LAK per month. Salaries range from 2,310,000 LAK (lowest
average) to 8,800,000 LAK according to Salary Explorer.A