Abstract
The aim of this book is to provide both the general reader and the education specialist with a comprehensive understanding of the education system in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR, short form Laos). It covers the education system from early childhood education and development (ECE) through primary and lower and upper secondary schooling to postsecondary and higher education. It covers both general education and technical and vocational education and training, both formal and nonformal delivery.
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- 1.
Note that “Maha” is an honorific title, not a name, but it often appears in bibliographies and in-line citations together with the name.
- 2.
For access to data, definitions, and other documentation, see http://data.uis.unesco.org/.
- 3.
Richard Noonan is solely responsible for most statistical tables and all statistical projections in this volume.
- 4.
A useful and regularly updated glossary, R. and V. Noonan, “Historical Glossary of Education Development in Lao PDR,” can be accessed at http://tc.academia.edu/RichardNoonan.
- 5.
The ethnolinguistic grouping given here are those most commonly used in the academic literature. A summary table in the report of the 2015 census (MPI 2016b, p. 37) disaggregates some of the categories given here, as shown in the brackets: Lao-Tai {Lao + Phoutay + Tai + Lue}, Mon-Khmer {Khmou + Makong + Katang}, Hmong Iu-Mien {Hmong}, Tibeto-Burman {Aka}. A complete disaggregation into the 49 recognized groups is also given (Ibid. pp. 121–122).
- 6.
In December 2018 it was announced that the National Assembly had approved the Brou as an official ethnic group of the Mon-Khmer family. With this addition, Laos now has 50 officially recognized ethnic groups.
- 7.
Author projection.
- 8.
Southernmost third of present-day Vietnam, which includes the Mekong River Delta.
- 9.
Not by the Siamese but, ironically, by a Vietnamese leader who sought the support of the Lao and the Siamese against the French. In the fog of war, however, it led inexorably to the King of Luang Prabang requesting protection of the French against the Siamese and ultimately to the incorporation of Laos into the Indochinese Federation, French Indochina (Stuart-Fox 1998, pp. 140–141).
- 10.
See Appendix, Statistical Terms.
- 11.
The French established the Université de l’Indochine in Hanoi in 1906. In 1954 it was moved to Saigon and renamed Université de Saigon.
- 12.
Author estimate based on enrollment statistics and population estimates. See IBE (1951, p. 177) and Noonan (2011, p. 76).
- 13.
The term “Pathet Lao” means literally “Land of the Lao [people].” In the 1950s through 1975, it was widely used in Western literature to denote the Lao revolutionary movement as a whole.
- 14.
As a date of Independence, reference is commonly made to either the Franco-Lao Treaty of Amity and Association signed October 22, 1953, or more commonly the Geneva Agreement of July 21, 1954. The Revised Constitution of August 30, 1957, omits reference to the French Union.
- 15.
The Global [Partnership] Monitoring Framework tracks progress on the commitments and actions agreed in 2011 at the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, Korea, in 2011.
- 16.
The “Revised Education Law” is sometimes referred to as the Education Law of 2007 (as it was adopted by the National Assembly 3 July 2007) but is also referred to as the Education Law of 2008 (as it was published by MOE in March 2008). To avoid confusion we refer here to the revised “Education Law of 2007/2008.” The Education Law was revised again in 2015.
- 17.
Author projection based on World Bank, World Development Indicators.
- 18.
NER data were missing for China and Vietnam.
- 19.
This is a reference to the classical “three-sector” model of economic development used famously by Clark (1957) and Kuznets (1973). The model has since been extended to four and even five sectors, but the three-sector model is still widely used and is the most appropriate for describing the broad structural changes in the Lao economy in the early decades of the twenty-first century.
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Noonan, R., Phommalangsy, P. (2020). Introduction to Education in Lao PDR. In: Noonan, R. (eds) Education in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. Education in the Asia-Pacific Region: Issues, Concerns and Prospects, vol 51. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-3319-8_1
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