Education ministry partners with Australia to build children’s literacy skills

Literacy is one of the most important skills when it comes to personal growth, culture, and development and is the foundation for all learning at school and in life.

A teacher leads her class in reading a storybook.

On a broader scale, high literacy rates contribute to enhanced economic growth and national development.
To promote literacy in Laos, the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Australian government recognise the importance of literacy in every community.
Since 2015, the ministry has been collaborating with the Australian government, through the Basic Education Quality and Access in Laos (BEQUAL) programme, to help more girls and boys of primary school age, particularly those who are disadvantaged, to improve learning outcomes.
Together, they are developing a new primary school curriculum and training teachers in active pedagogy, with a strong focus on building children’s literacy skills.
Teaching of the new Grade 4 Lao Language curriculum, developed by the Ministry of Education and Sports with the support of Australia, starts nationwide this school year.
The new curriculum has been progressively introduced to schools year-on-year since 2019.
So far, the Ministry of Education and Sports, with support from Australia, has written and distributed new Grades 1, 2, 3 and 4 Lao Language textbooks and teacher guides to 490,937 students and 27,267 teachers and teaching principals.
Grade 1 and 2 teachers also received a set of decodable readers and storybooks, along with some ideas for interesting activities to engage children in the stories.
Some teachers were not used to reading books to children in the classroom but were keen to learn how to use the storybooks to improve their teaching style.
Storybooks are important to both children and teachers. They not only entertain children, but also stimulate their imagination and language development, broaden their knowledge, and give them moral guidance. Storybooks can also give children an idea of how to deal with problems they are facing.
The Grade 4 Lao Language curriculum continues to help students develop their language skills in the areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing through an active learning approach.
Lessons are organised around themes which provide a relevant and engaging context for student learning.
One theme is carried across two lessons to give students an opportunity to deepen their ideas and build their language related to the theme.
Guiding questions in each lesson provide a focus within the theme and encourage students to develop and express their own ideas.
According to data from the BEQUAL programme, recognising that 38 percent of the children entering primary school do not have Lao as their first language, Australia is assisting the Ministry of Education and Sports to develop a Spoken Lao Programme that will provide these children with additional support for developing the oral language skills that form the foundation for literacy.
Through the BEQUAL programme, the Australian government is proud to support the Ministry of Education and Sports to improve literacy towards a brighter future for all girls and boys.

By Keoviengkhone Bounviseth
(Latest Update September 29, 2022)