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An overcrowded classroom in rural Laos
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Educational
development in rural Laos is facing challenges in all aspects, especially so in
the southern province of Attapeu where the enrollment rate in elementary school
is very low compared to that of the capital city of Vientiane, where almost 100%
of elementary school children are enrolled.
In addition to limited educational opportunity, Attapeu students also have
an increasingly high drop-out rate, currently at 25%, as poverty prevents them
from remaining in school. The rest of
the enrolled students graduate with low educational quality, due to insufficient
and unqualified teachers as well as shortages of teaching materials, school
supplies and building. According
to an anonymous provincial educator, classrooms are overcrowded. In some
schools, between 111 to 115 students share one teacher in a classroom where
they have to take turn sitting down at their desks so that they can copy what
the teacher writes down on the blackboard.
Thus,
Attepeu is one of three southern provinces chosen to benefit from an
assistance
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WFP Country Representative in Laos Karin Manente, and Laos Deputy Education Minister Lytou Bouapao receive aid from US Ambassador Ravic Huso for WFP School Feeding Project, Dec. 2008(photo-courtesy of US Embassy?
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worth $9 million provided by the U.S. government to the United
Nations World Food Program (WFP) to fund the expansion of its School Feeding Project
over the course of three years.This funding budget is aimed to provide food
to at least 25,000 children enrolled in 323 schools in 11 districts in Attapeu
province to prevent them from dropping out school due to poverty. The other two assistance reciepients are Saravane and Sekong provinces.
Mr. Ravic
Huso, the U.S. Ambassador to Laos, has in the past provided similar assistance to
Laos school children via the World Food Program. In all, the U.S. and the WFP
have provided food to more than 380,000 children as well as their families in
many Lao rural areas since 2005.
Listen to Songrit's report for more details in Lao.