[{"bbox": [96, 152, 1135, 578], "category": "Text", "text": "which is lower than the target 85% in 2020; and the gross parity index (GPI) rose from 0.94 up to 0.97. With regard to post-basic education the upper secondary gross intake ratio (GIR) increased from 47.8% in 2015-16 to 54.8% in 2019-20, although slightly below the revised target of 56% (set during the ESSDP mid-term review in 2018), **completion rate at the end of secondary education remains insufficient (47.7% in School Year 2020-21).** Moreover, vocational education (TVET) enrolment, has not increase over the same period with high discrepancies between Provinces and continuing imbalance between women and men. In TVET, transition from Grade 9 to TVET reached only 3.8% in 2019-20 (against a 5% target) in spite of the development of courses which were identified as most relevant to the labour market (tourism and hospitality). As a consequence, there will not be enough skill workforce supply to meet the demand in the key sectors (construction, agriculture, machinery repair, hospitality, electricity, furniture and motor mechanic), according to the TVET Development Plan 2021-25. This will likely contribute to increase the share of youth (aged 18-30), **not in employment, education or training (NEET)**, currently estimated at 39% for men and nearly 45% for women, with a rate of unemployment much higher than the national average. The number of female students is increasing at public TVET colleges, with women accounting for 43% of all students enrolled in the academic year 2016-2017. But their course selection remains heavily skewed towards occupations traditionally deemed \"female\", such as tailoring, basic business administration, and hospitality."}, {"bbox": [96, 605, 1135, 740], "category": "Text", "text": "The prolonged lockdown measures affecting the private sector and closure of schools in over half of the districts will unavoidably worsen the situation already impacted by the limited access to education especially for girls due to indirect cost of education, household shores, languages combined with the long distance to school not mentioning the low rate of enrolment of girls and women in vocational school and/or higher education in non-traditional fields such as science and technology."}, {"bbox": [96, 767, 1135, 1114], "category": "Text", "text": "**Quality and relevance of the general Education:** A key indicator which reflects the insufficiencies of the general education sub-sector (at least for the Early Childhood Education, primary and Lower Secondary Education levels) are the low learning outcomes of grade 9 graduates in literacy and numeracy. The results of the Assessment of Student Learning Outcomes (ASLO) carried out in 2019 (SY2018/19) for Grade 9 students showed inadequate learning proficiency in Lao language and science at the Lower Secondary level. This is a cause of concern to the MoES and calls for urgent long term policy action, starting with prioritising investment in the quality of ECE and primary education. The ASLO report noted that low learning level in primary have then serious consequences for the quality of students who go on upper secondary and degrees or will go for vocational training diplomas, and for the larger picture of labour force preparation in Lao PDR. **The assessment also pointed out that the low content knowledge and, to a lesser extent, the low pedagogical skills of many teachers led to unsatisfactory learning outcomes, thus advocating for enhanced and increased in-service training of those teachers.** A significant effort to improve the capacity of the teaching workforce should then be continued; as well as their deployment under the Government \"right-sizing\" policy."}, {"bbox": [96, 1137, 1135, 1405], "category": "Text", "text": "**Geographical disparities:** Results from ASLO Grade 3 (2017) demonstrated the variability of learning outcomes across provinces. Provinces which perform poorly in primary education tend to have predominantly rural and remote subsistence agricultural communities characterised by significant ethnic and linguistic diversity, combined with generally lower socio-economic indicators. The key barriers to access and participation include the financial cost of education for poor families, demand for child labour in the household economy, under-developed private and community participation, un-targeted physical resource mobilisation and the lack of inclusive education to cater to the specific needs of girls, children with little or no exposure to Lao language outside of school, and children with a disability. In the 2019-20 school year, grade 1 dropout rates slightly increased to 6 per cent (9.4 per cent in disadvantaged districts) and primary completion rates stagnated at around 80 per cent (69 per cent in disadvantaged districts)."}, {"bbox": [96, 1428, 1135, 1645], "category": "Text", "text": "**Governance of the education sector:** Taking into account the current context, given the increasing pressure on the **education budget**, where the needs far exceed the available resources, a tighter relationship between planning (in the framework of ESSDP 2021-2025) and budgeting is required. The way budgeting is organised and structured in Lao PDR by administrative and economic chapters, makes it difficult to allocate the budget on the basis of the policy objectives of the ESSDP 2021-2025. Nevertheless the Annual Costed Education Sector Plans (ACSEPs) have now helped to link policy targets (performance) to budget estimates. In addition, the ongoing public finance management reforms together with the recently established Education Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) is expected to provide the necessary leverage to ensure budgetary coherence from central (MoES) to provincial"}, {"bbox": [1038, 1680, 1144, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 7 of 35"}]