Laos will reform the education system from 11 (5+3+3) years to 12 years (5+4+3) , this plan will start to use in school year 2009-2010, which mean the " mor 4 will be in lower school... so we will have mor 1,mor 2 and mor 3, mor 4 in lower school.
in addition, the ministry of education is planing to have Mor 7 in school year 2010-2011..which mean the education from primary to high school will take 13 years (5+4+4)
Yes, no surprise our people like to change all the time. Before 1975 there was 13 years education system in our schools (6+4+3). But after 1975 it left only 11 years system (5+3+3).
But now they are going to change back. They may have their reason, citing to get world standard, probably.
It seems to be a good idea, but I don't like it. Why? In reality, if something has to change all the time, that means the thing is not stable. And probably every time you change it you have to spend your money to update it, for example text books you also need to update and reprint again and again.
The text books what you have before cannot be used any longer. Then, our Lao government would have to ask for help from foreign countries again again. On top of that, our poor people who have many children have to buy new text books again instead of using the old text books from their elder kids who finished the classes.
In other countries they settle their school education once forever. No wonder the quality of their education is high. They know well how to do things for long term. That is why, they are properous, no doubt.
13 years of low quality teaching is the same as 11 years of low quality teaching...just that parents have to fork out 2 more years worth of school fees & all sorts of extra 'activity'/etc fees. quite sad when my friend who finished & passed Mor 6 still could not calculate the average of 3 single digit numbers...
perhaps MOE should just use that budget to increase teachers' pay & make sure that they get their salary on time instead of up to 3-6 months late?
