Education Sector And

Education sector and Poverty Eradication: Brief Presentation

By Dr. Sisamone Sithyrathvongsa Deputy Director-General, Planning and Cooperation Department, Ministry of Education

Contents 1. Poverty eradication strategy of Lao Government 2. Overall responsibility of education sector 3. Priorities of NGPES implementation of education sector 4. Progress/ achievement 5. Challenges 6. Objectives of NGPES implementation 7. Costing issues 8. Summary

1. Poverty eradication strategy of Lao Government

. There 4 main sectors: – Agriculture and forestry – Education – Health, and – Transport

. Priorities: – Rural development – Access to markets, health care and education – Capacity building for planning at local levels and decentralization 2. Overall responsibility of education sector

 Education is the heart of human resource development,  Develop education countrywide,  Develop formal and non-formal education,  Develop vocational, technical and profession education, and  Develop work skills courses.

2.1 Education and poverty reduction

People are poor because of:

 Lack of education opportunity,  Lack of education fund, and  Lack of recognition of relevance of education to poverty reduction

 But improve education level is a significant factor for poverty reduction

2.2 Education policy and poverty reduction

Education is means of poverty eradication:

 Needs of people: ability to read and write, knowledge and skills, including contemporary cultivation and livestock techniques.  Achieve gender equality: fulfill cultural and social equality between women and men.  Needs of community: provide opportunity to individuals and community to get involved and have strong guidelines. 3. Priorities of NGPES implementation of education sector

 Community participatory planning: – There must be investment to address poverty and support growth of the poorest districts  Integrated development of sector (SWAp).

3.1 Strategy programmes for sector development

There are 3 overall programmes:

 Extend equal access to education  Improve quality and appropriateness of education  Build capacity of education management

3.2 Objectives of education system #1

Government has set objectives for education and training development as follows:

 Provide quality primary education and increase enrolment rate in (lower) secondary education;  Eradicate illiteracy;  Extend vocational, technical and higher education to respond to needs of labour market;  Provide training for labourers, technicians, professional workers and intellectuals as to how to apply modern science and technology to respond to development needs.

3.3 Objectives of education system #2

 Enhance quality of national education and keep up with international standards by moving closer step by step;  Make education the heart of human development;  Plan, manage and invest in education appropriately; and  Make education obligation and responsibility of all people in society.

3.4 Objectives of poverty eradication for education sector

 Development plan is to focus on increase of enrolment rate and literacy rate in 47 poorest districts:

Objectives 47 districts countrywide 2006 2010 2020

― Kindergarten: 12% 16% 30% ― Primary school: 70% 90% 98% ― Lower secondary: 42% 63% 65% ― Upper secondary: 20% 28% 34% ― Literacy rate: 65% 83% 90%

(Ministry of Education tries its best to make enrolment rate in poorest districts grow constantly and at the same as the countrywide rate) 3.5 Government obligation to invest in education Objectives:

 Increase sources of funds for education.  Achieve the ration of management expenditure and investment expenditure 70:30 by 2008.  Increase Government budget for education from 12% to 15% for 2005/06 4. Progress/ achievement

 Outstanding achievements during the past 10 years: – Enrolment rate (NER) has increased from 58% to 80%; take-in rate (NIR) has increased significantly; – Number of trained teachers has also increased; – Completion of each grade has also increased each year.

 Donors have lent support in all aspects of education development, especially school construction.

5. Challenges 5.1 Overall development in the sector is still low

 Repetition rate in primary education is 20%.  Completion rate is 50%.  Only 20% of children who completed primary education go on to secondary education, and only 5% complete secondary education.  Opportunity to get vocational training is limited.  Only 3% of secondary school graduates can continue at university level. 5.2 Poverty disparities

 Most of villages do not have complete primary school (1 to 5 grades), and 15% of villages do not have primary school at all.  90% of poorest villages have incomplete primary school, and 40% of children in those areas are enrolled in incomplete primary school.  Disparity in terms of education opportunity between poorest and poor districts is not so high, but disparity in terms of quality is very high.  Number of trained teachers in poor districts increases, but the number in poorest districts even decreases.  Student-book ration in poor districts is 1.5/1, but in poorest district is 2.3/1.  Drop out rate in poorest districts is twice as higher than in poor districts.

5.3 Disparities in terms of gender and ethnicity

 Countrywide ration of women and men in school is 45/55;  Disparity in terms of school enrolment is very high in 47 poorest districts;  Language barrier is also an obstacle to access to school of ethnic children. 5.4 Cross-sectoral and cross-cutting issues

 HIV/AIDS;  Drug and drug control;  Information technology;  Distant education;  Unexploded ordinances;  Population issue;  Provision of lunch at school.

6. Objectives of NGPES implementation 6.1 Increase equal education opportunity

 Extend opportunity for students to complete primary education, especially in 47 poorest districts;  Reduce illiteracy rate, especially among women; and  Promote work skills training

Increase completion rate of primary education and reduce disparity between areas

 Increase completion rate of primary education, especially in 47 poorest districts;  Reduce gender disparity between 47 poorest districts and countrywide; and  Increase opportunity to continue education after completion of primary education. 6.2 Enhance quality and appropriateness of education

Enhance quality of national education and keep up with international standards by moving closer step by step:

 Enhance quality of teaching to make it compatible with international standards;  Improve education regulations and law to make them more effective and heighten monitoring capacity;  Enhance quality of teaching for primary and secondary schools.

6.3 Capacity building for education system

Build capacity for sustainable management mechanism of education to address poverty and decentralization:

 Provide managers and principals to manage and run schools and institutions;  Improve teacher placement to make it more appropriate; and  Promote community involvement in school management.

Allocate appropriate funds to ensure effectiveness of education sector in the long run:

 Increase budget for education to ensure effectiveness; and  Modify budgeting and financial management system for schools and institutions. 7. Possibility of costing

 Although data base for costing exercise is not effective yet, decisive factors to help estimate costing of administration and investment to extend education sector are commonly known,…  … Therefore, using models, as pilot tools, will give alternatives to estimate costing.

7.1 Examples of administration costing

Some facts regarding costing of school administration illustrate that:

 Unit cost (per one student) for 72 poor districts shows that the cost is twice as higher that the average cost countrywide.  Unit cost (per one student) for 47 poorest districts shows than the cost is even four times as higher than the average cost countrywide.  Decisive factor for the increase and decrease of costing is the teacher-student ration.  Therefore, the costing method that has been used in the past is too low and not appropriate to needs of primary education administration. 7.1 Examples of investment costing

Some facts regarding costing of construction of primary schools illustrate that:

 Unit cost (per square metre) does not depend on location (low land, mountainous, remote areas or close to motorway);  Decisive factor is the quality of construction contractor.

Summary

 The Ministry of Education intends to use costing approach in accordance with costing approach of NGPES to prioritise investment in education, aiming at poverty eradication.  Costing approach of NGPES, MDGs and Education For All (EFA) must be done in the framework of sector development to create integrated and inter-related costing of investment in the sector.

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