Progress towards the MDGs in the Lao PDR

MDG 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

Education is among the better performing sectors in Lao PDR as reflected in the continuous progress across all key indicators. Net enrolment rates in primary schools rose from 58% of primary school-age children in 1991to 84% in 2005. Progress in retention of students at the primary level, however, is slow, like in other countries of a comparable level of human development. The primary completion rate increased by slightly more than 1percentage point per year during 1991-2003. At this rate the MDG target looks beyond reach. Literacy rates increased nationwide, and priority districts improved more than the national average. At primary age (basic education), literacy almost doubled from 31% to 58%. The increase in the secondary age groups was more modest.

National averages hide variations across regions and ethnic groups, and often provinces with low enrolment rates are the ones with high proportions of rural, poor and children of different ethnic groups. There are still considerable differences in literacy rates between ethnic groups.

Meeting the targets: Pushing up enrolment and literacy rates are usually the first policy interventions of any government. While progress on both these indicators has been satisfactory so far, reaching the last 15-20% of the population is always hard and will require additional effort and resources. It is also important to ensure that the government’s push toward attaining the MDG enrolment and literacy targets is such that it benefits all people regardless of their location, gender, ethnic background or wealth.

Effective public expenditure management reform is required to allocate adequate resources and infrastructure across provinces, for all pupils to complete the primary and lower secondary education and to improve the quality of education, develop a pool of trained teachers and improve curriculum to build its human resource capacity and extend educational opportunities to all. Special efforts need to be made to extend the benefits of education to the people without adequate access to basic education. Performance and retention rate in the ethnic area will improve if teachers who are not ethnic or local people know ethnic language and culture and actually TTC or PES or DES should provide the specific training for them. Multigrade teaching has been encouraged in the rural and remote areas. Improvement in enrolment rates needs to be combined with improvement in teacher training to ensure modern methods of teaching sciences, languages and technology.

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