The ministry of education and sport will focus on improving the quality of education to enable Laos to better integrate with the region as well as cracking down on fake certificates circulating in the sector.
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of education and sport s Dr Phankham Vilayvanh was responding to questions raised by National Assembly members at the ongoing NA session last week.
Dr Phankham said this ministry has found some 100 fake certificates this year and announced it will continoue to expose these kinds of activities in the future.
“Those who make fake certificates are consider to be lying and acting corruptly I think that if they worked with government sector in the future, they would continue to be corrupt and I think that we need to find them out, ” he said .
The ministry also argued against the manner in which authorities had also public schools to the private sector as part of the government’s policy to convert state assets into capital.
“Please don’t sell schools to the private sector,” Dr Phankham requested, saying all schools are designed to meet the needs of society in different areas. He noted that relocating schools can cause a negative impact in long run.
Concerning the education curriculum, the government has a policy to ensure an English course is taught in the third class of primary school but the minister noted that this policy has not been implemented properly.
“We want English Language as a main foreign language in all of the Lao education system to enable the country to better integrate with the region and the world,” he said.
“Now we are focused on training more English teachers. New generation teacher need to know and teach English. ”
Concerning the improvement of education quality, Dr Phankham said the National University of Laos has joined the Asean university network, aiming to improve the quality of education and enable Lao teachers to exchange knowledge and experiences with the Asean counterparts.
Lao students are now able to continue their studies at universities in other. Asean countries and students in Asean can also continue their study in Laos.
Dr Phankham said the long-term strategy of Lao education is to focus on quality of education. “If we want to integrate our country with the Asean region, we need to improve the quality of education.”
He explained about the significance of education quality, saying that all state and private organizations implement their administrative tasks through several factors including human resources funding, equipment and management relate activities.
“But human resources are the decisive factor for the achievement off all tasks. If we do not have quality people, modern computers are irrelevant to having the job done effectively,” Dr Phankham said.
The Ministry of Education and sports plays the role of supplying human resources for various sector in society. In past years, the ministry has not produced enough graduates to supply the required human resource personnel for sectors in society.
The ministry mainly teaches basic knowledge in a number of areas. He argued the relevant sectors to further train them in their specific fields so that they are better able to serve the sector they are working in.
Some officials have proposed that various ministries establish their own universities to produces quality human resources to work specifically for their sectors but Dr Phankham argued that this role should be played by the Ministry of Education and Sports.
Meanwhile other ministries should focus on upgrading the skills of those graduates who currently work in their sectors.
source and photo: Vientiane Time