Ministry to help school leavers with further education
The Ministry of Education will provide 40 percent of school leavers nationwide with scholarships for places in technical, vocational or other institutes of higher education in the 2007-2008 academic year.
The Director General of the Higher Technical and Vocational Education Department, Associate Professor Dr Kongsy Sengmany, told the Vientiane Times in an interview that the ministry would allocate places to scholarships students from each province.
“The 60 percent of students who do not receive scholarships will need to take the national final-year school exams from July 11-12. We expect that at least 20,000 students around the country will sit these exams,” he said.
At present, institutes of higher education operated by the ministry, including universities, can accommodate 16,000 students. Other schools and institutions run by the private sector have places for more than 10,000 students.
Dr Kongsy said the Party and government’s policy is to encourage the private sector to set up technical and vocational schools and colleges, to educate school leavers unable to get a place in a public institution.
Currently, more than 55 private technical and vocational schools and colleges around the country offer courses in computer skills, business administration and English language.
“The Ministry of Education has approved the building of schools to teach programmes ranging from higher diplomas to bachelor degrees.
The government is helping the private sector to borrow money from banks to build schools under a tax-exemption arrangement, in accordance with government policy,” he said.
Dr Kongsy said the ministry also encouraged the construction of private technical schools and skill-development centres to produce skilled labour to work in small and medium enterprises and in factories.
But due to a lack of funding, he said, these schools had been slow to develop. There had been more growth from domestic and foreign investment in sectors such as human resources and technology.
He said that compared to improvements in infrastructure, the development of technical and vocational education and training still faced challenges, and the standard of education in rural areas remained low.
“If we want to improve the quality of our vocational training and institutes of higher education, we must do a lot more to develop the general education system to bridge the gap between rural areas and the cities. We need to provide a lot more learning materials to all places of learning,” he said.
The Party and government initiated policies to meet the changing needs of society, one of which is to implement education reform countrywide, he said.
Mr Kongsy added that graduates of vocational and higher education institutions would help the development of small and medium enterprises, which were now growing significantly.
ah..
