The higher education sector in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) has quite a unique context. It consists of 117 higher education institutions (HEIs). Of these, 57 are public — five universities, 40 colleges/institutes (including specialised institutes, Buddhist colleges, and a Fine Arts Institute) and 12 teacher education institutions (TEIs) — and 60 are private (including branch campuses of foreign HEIs).
They are all largely managed or regulated by the Ministry of Education (MOES) through the Department of Higher Education. Many public HEIs are also managed by their parent ministries — for instance, the University of Health Sciences is under the authority of the Ministry of Health, and the Banking Institute is managed by the Bank of Lao PDR, the country’s central bank.
Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning
The MOES sets the guidelines for curriculum development in HEIs. Entitled the “National Curriculum Standards,” the guidelines cover associate degrees to doctoral degrees, and are more akin to detailed frameworks. This tends to hinder an element of creativity in curriculum planning, and in terms of its adaptability and competitiveness. In 2020, the MOES published updated versions of the guidelines. In the country, only the National University of Laos (NUOL) is able to offer doctoral programmes, of which it has four — in the faculties of Economics and Business Administration, Education, Forestry, and the Post-graduate Education Office. It is worth noting that the guidelines for the National Curriculum Standard for Masters Degrees was changed from two years to three, for master programmes offered part-time — defined as any programme, regardless of level run, that is less than five to seven hours per day or 25 to 35 hours per week. Furthermore, there is now a requirement that each student should publish a paper in an international journal.
Teaching and learning in HEIs is heavily classroom-based. While a student-centered approach is now advocated, a teacher-centered approach has been unavoidable. Furthermore, all faculties of the NUOL have been preparing to employ the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) curriculum, which is based on the hierarchical learning principle of Bloom’s taxonomy and stakeholders’ inputs. Bloom’s taxonomy consists of six hierarchical cognitive processes, namely knowledge, understanding, utilisation, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The development of a curriculum or programme should regularly take the feedback of stakeholders into consideration. At least one faculty of the NUOL has already completed the development of its OBE curriculum. All faculties are expected to implement changes to their curriculum by the end of 2021.
New university programmes in the pipeline include Nuclear Energy and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The NUOL will also introduce a module on entrepreneurship into every bachelors programme, to enhance employment opportunities for graduates.
The MOES reported in its five-year education sector performance review for 2015-2020 that “staff skills and competencies have not kept pace with reforms within the sector and significant capacity building will be required in order to address the policy-implementation gap at all levels.”
Quality Assurance (QA)
There is a concerted attempt to enhance the quality of HEIs in the country. The quality assurance authorities of the five universities — called QA Divisions — are not independent bodies, with the exception of the QA Division of Savannakhet University (SKU). Members of SKU’s QA Division are often young and junior though, and require training. The other four institutional QA divisions are managed by Academic Affairs Offices. Therefore, they do not oversee budgets of their own, nor can they independently select their own staff members. MOES published its locally developed quality assurance framework in 2013, which is the framework currently used. However, since the NUOL is a member of the ASEAN University Network (AUN) and AUN-QA, and is driven by its vision to be recognised regionally and beyond, it often applies the AUN-QA framework to conduct QA at the programme level. At least one faculty of the NUOL plans to invite AUN-QA experts to conduct a QA evaluation in late 2021. The QA systems of Laotian HEIs have not yet been fully functional or effective because of various inadequacies of QA members and the leadership, but things are improving.
Governance and Management
There is a discernible phenomenon of inbreeding in the selection of managers for public HEIs — it is often internal members of the institution who are selected based on seniority. For junior managers (for example, heads of divisions and departments), the selection process entails at least one round of voting by members of the specific authority, such as the departments, faculties, and offices of the institution. For senior managers, it would be up to three rounds. Manager selection is not a particularly meritocratic process, and this carries deep consequences. For example, the MOES reported in its five-year education sector performance review for 2015-2020 that “staff skills and competencies have not kept pace with reforms within the sector and significant capacity building will be required in order to address the policy-implementation gap at all levels.”
Staffing
The staffing of public HEIs is a bottom-up and top-down process. First, the departments of HEIs propose the number of staff members needed in their respective faculties. The faculties then submit these staff numbers to their institutions, which subsequently submit them to their parent ministries. Then, the process reverses. The ministries adjust the proposed number of staff needed according to the government’s capacity, and send the numbers back to the HEIs, which would divide the numbers across the different faculties.
Recruitment is undertaken at the faculty level. Vacancies are typically posted on social media, faculty websites, and through personal connections. The application selection includes applicants sitting for examinations and interviews.
Generally, new staff members are on probation for one year. After that, they can become permanent staff through various forms of performance evaluation — usually peer evaluation and manager evaluation. At that point, they automatically become tenured staff. There are virtually no key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure staff member performances. Consequently, inefficiency in the functioning of the university is quite apparent especially in non-teaching roles such as in administrative matters. As COVID-19 has impacted the government’s income, there will be more retirees than new staff members over the course of 2021.
To be formally recognised as a lecturer, an associate lecturer must apply for that appointment and meet a set of criteria. Promotions to associate professorships or full professorships, which are exceptional, require a doctoral qualification and a portfolio of externally refereed research publications. Their number of years of experience is also important in this regard.
Financing in Higher Education
The education sector is assigned an annual budget from sources such as the Ministry of Finance (MOF), the Ministry of Planning and Investment, and through official development assistance (ODA). HEIs also derive additional income from tuition fees, and research and various services. However, universities often do not collect fees for academic services even though the regulations allow them to do so, likely because managers want to protect their bases of support.
Severe budget insufficiency has been a chronic issue for HEIs, as is the late supply of the budget from the higher authorities. From 2016 to 2020, the MOES received 13.5% of GDP on average per year, despite the government’s promise of 18%. The higher education sector received just around 5.7% of MOES’s budget during the same period. In addition, the budgets provided are often less than that requested by the HEI, which results in the need for adjusting their original plans of action throughout the university.
The NUOL is the only university that has financial autonomy — it submits its budget proposal directly to the MOF. The NUOL is now the country’s pilot university in financial management, where the government offers only staff wages, allowances, and investment, while the operational budget is the responsibility of the NUOL itself. Before 2018, the NUOL’s faculties had the right to spend fees collected from students, without approval from any higher authority, and could do so immediately. This resulted in a lack of transparency. Fees paid to the faculties now have to be transferred to the institutional account first, after which the NUOL withdraws it for the faculty. Thus, the NUOL’s finances are now more centralised, in a manner referred to as a “one-gate finance flow”.
Enrolments and Enrolment Projections
The total higher education enrolment rose from 2000 to 2013, and then began to decline, raising concerns about higher education policy and practice. A closer examination suggests that two main phenomena led to this decline. First, Laos experienced a rising economic growth rate from the early 1990s, accompanied by declining fertility rates, leading to a slight decline in the higher education population cohort from 2012. Second, the rapid growth of employment opportunities in the industrial sector tended to attract many youth who did not see higher education as a path to more attractive employment opportunities. The total higher education enrolment in 2019/2020 represented approximately 10% of the higher education cohort.
The total higher education age cohort by the year 2040 can be projected based on population projections by the Lao Statistics Bureau, according to various scenarios relating to fertility, mortality, and migration rates. The difference between the upper and lower bounds of the higher education enrolment is approximately 100,000.
Conclusion
HEIs in Lao PDR have an authority-based culture which is less participatory and flexible in nature. HEIs are also heavily-regulated, which reduces the elements of adaptability and agility. Both HEIs and MOES face various challenges, such as in terms of quality, effectiveness, human resource, and budget constraints. It should be noted that although quality assurance practices are very helpful for the MOES/Department of Higher Education and the HEIs themselves, the quality assurance systems of HEIs have not been very effective or fully functional. Because they should serve the needs of all stakeholders, these quality assurance practices need to be better understood by staff. Finally, due to weak institutional autonomy, managers and academics are not in a favourable position to build up and invest more in their own capacity.
NANDULET MOXOM
Nandulet Moxom is the Head of Quality Assurance and Assessment Division of Academic Affairs Office, National University of Laos, Vientiane, Lao PDR.
RICHARD NOONAN
Richard Noonan is an independent consultant based in Vientiane, Lao PDR.
APRIL 2022 | ISSUE 10
State of the Region: The Commemorative 10th Issue
