Education officials are working to introduce a subject called Know About Business to the school curriculum for the academic year 2007-08, as part of the strategic plan for education from 2006 to 2010.
“Our plan was to include this subject in the Ministry of Education's curriculum for the academic year 2006-07, but we did not have sufficient budget, so the plan was delayed,” said Deputy Director of the Lao-India Entrepreneurship Development Centre, Mr Tinh Pangpaseuth last week.
The study programme was brought to Laos under the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the Interna- tional Labour Organisation (ILO); and the ministry assigned the centre to incorporate the material into curriculum, according to Mr Tinh.
Mr Tinh said that the course aims to increase business awareness and will be taught in upper secondary and vocational schools, replacing the Technology subject as this was found to be ineffective.
A pilot project to test the new subject began in 2005 in the four provinces of Khammuan, Savannakhet, Champassak and Vientiane . Teacher training and textbooks were funded by the ILO.
Luang Prabang province also benefited from the inclusion of the new course last year, although this marked the end of the funding agreement with the ILO. The centre must now attract further funding to continue rolling out the course to the remainder of the country.
The centre has written a proposal seeking funds from the German Technical Cooperation, officially known as Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), for the improvement of the curriculum and training for teachers nationwide, according to Mr Tinh.
“The Ministry of Education requested us to include the subject in the school curriculum, but we need to improve it before asking the ministry for official approval,” Mr Tinh said.
He explained that some technical words are still complicated for students to understand. The curriculum will include both theory and practical activities simulating real business situations.
The subject has been successfully implemented in the United States and Lao teachers have been trained by the American experts with the assistance of the ILO.
According to Mr Tinh, many Lao traders have the wrong attitude in business as they seek too much profit by asking high prices, and they do not have a long -term business goal.
“If you sell your product at too high a price, the customers will not buy from you again,” he said.
The curriculum will teach students how to invest, how to get access to funds and markets as well as how to allocate suitable prices for products and other business operation methods.
By Souksakhone Vaenkeo (Latest Update September 04, 2007)
i agree with MR TInh but only 1/2, Ex: there are 2 fashion shops standing side by side, selling similar cloth (quality) but different price ( low cost and very costly), in practise there are not few people choose to step into the expensive one but not the cheap one. why? some people want to show off their moneytary status.
it's very usefull to learn about business.... but i'm sad to see that the remove technology lessons.... knowing about science and technology can be very usefull too.
