Learning and Skills for the Future
Why investing in quality education for every child is one of the smartest moves Lao PDR can make.
The Challenges
Lao PDR faces a crisis in education quality: enrolment is up, but many children are not mastering foundational skills and few are staying in school. By grade three, only around one-fifth of students read at the expected level, and by the end of lower secondary, too many lack functional literacy and numeracy. This mirrors a global learning crisis in which most 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read a simple story. Moreover, close to 450,000 secondary school age children are out of school.
Continuing the current trajectory means large numbers of children will enter adulthood without essential skills to participate meaningfully in the modern economy.
Deep Disparities and Underlying Causes
Geography, ethnicity, and socio-economic status often determine a child’s educational fate. Children in remote rural villages—particularly those without road access—are much less likely to attend preschool or progress through secondary school. In some southern provinces, fewer than 10 per cent of children benefit from early childhood education (ECE), compared with around 27 per cent nationally and 58 per cent in Vientiane.
At the upper secondary level, youth in rural areas are more than twice as likely to be out of school as their urban peers, with only 33 per cent attending compared to 64 per cent in urban areas.
Children from different ethnolinguistic groups, particularly those in highland areas who do not speak Lao at home, face additional language barriers, contributing to lower foundational reading and numeracy skills. Gender disparities become more pronounced in secondary school: girls in rural or ethnic communities often drop out due to early marriage, domestic duties or both.
A key driver of low learning outcomes is chronic under-investment in education. Many teachers—particularly in rural areas—lack adequate training or support, and multigrade classrooms are common. Teaching young children in their mother tongue during the early grades is not sufficiently practised, disadvantaging students who do not speak Lao at home. Materials and curricula do not fully address different learning and development needs of children and adolscent, and the sector suffers from insufficient funding.
In 2024, there was an $250 million funding gap in education in Lao PDR. Although policy documents acknowledge these financial and implementation lags.
Solutions for Learning and Equity
- Close the Education Funding Gap: Meeting the 18 per cent budget target for education is critical. Funds must be channelled into teacher development, ECE and support for marginalised areas. This is a proven route to breaking cycles of poverty and supporting national growth.
- Expand Early Childhood Education: High-quality pre-primary education prepares children to succeed in primary school. Lao PDR should prioritise community-based preschool models, particularly in rural and minority areas.
- Improve Teaching Quality: Training, equipping, and motivating teachers is paramount. Teacher training curricula must emphasise foundational literacy and numeracy, alongside inclusive, child-centred methods.
- Future ready skills development and climate smart schools: Enhance support for social-emotional learning and 21st century skills acquisition, including digital and green skills, at all education levels, preparing children for a rapidly evolving world, whilst ensuring schools and their communities are climate resilient.
- Reduce high school dropout rates: Enforce policies and promote inclusive learning that guarantee quality education for marginalized groups (girls and boys, non-Lao speaking groups, children with disabilities), including flexible learning and re-enrolment pathways.