Family, children and youth policy and administration
Access to education
Laos Ranks Lowest in Global English Proficiency Test
The Education First English Proficiency Index (EF EPI) conducts the world’s most expansive ranking of adults by their fluency in English. This year’s index featured 111 countries, Laos ranked the lowest on the list and Netherlands ranked the highest. The countries were divided into five bands: ...
Amrita Paul
Younger children struggle with distance learning
Like many Thai students, Tanwa Ngernpot, a six-year-old student in Nonthaburi province, can’t return to school after the New Year holiday. The Education Ministry last week ordered all public and private education providers in the “maximum control zones” of 28 provinces to be close until Jan ...
DUMRONGKIAT MALA
Room to Read extends support for education
Lao children will benefit from a project to strengthen education, funded by Room to Read at a cost of more than US$3.6 million. The ‘Enhancing Education for Lao Children Project phase V’ is also financing the Reading Promotion Project in Attapeu province, with US$135,935 provided by ...
Times Reporters
Learning lessons from COVID-19 in Myanmar
Thaw Lay, a high school student from Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, knew that this school year would be unlike any other. “I was excited, but I also knew that things would be a little different, when school reopened later this year”, he recalls. Thaw Lay ...
Students from Lancang-Mekong region join innovation training camp
An innovation and entrepreneurship training camp was launched on Thursday at Fudan University with 30 university students from six countries along the Lancang-Mekong River. The participants were winners of the third Youth Innovation Competition on Lancang-Mekong Region’s Governance, which was held in January 2018 in ...
PM okays funds for social support system
Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has approved a target programme to develop a social support system for the 2016-20 period. The programme is aimed to create a safe, friendly and healthy living environment for children and reduce the rate of increase in the number of ...
Shamed and exploited
Kneeling on the wooden floorboards of the Cambodian Prostitute Union’s “drop-in” centre, Bopha’s voice began to tremble as she spoke of the obstacles her daughter faced at school. Bopha, whose name has been changed to protect her identity as a sex worker, said her daughter’s ...
Ministry cracks down in orphans scandal
The Ministry of Social Affairs has decided to reintegrate more than 3,000 children in orphanages back into families after discovering the abysmal conditions of many facilities, with some having reported sexual abuse. The announcement, which was made during the launch of the Mapping of Residential ...
Earlier sex education needed to fight abuse
Public concern is once again inspiring changes to education programmes in schools, with calls for more sex education to be included in the curriculum so that children can better protect themselves from sexual abuse. Recent reports of children being sexually abused in different parts of ...
More kids in care than thought: study
Almost one in every 100 children in Cambodia is living in a residential care institution, a number far higher than previous estimates, according to a new report in the British Medical Journal. Around 70 percent of the children in Cambodia’s orphanages are estimated to have ...