Looking for NPAs in Vientiane

I found this internet cafe by the bank of the Mekong River, near the imposing building of the Mekong River Commission. Arrived here yesterday in Vientiane, capital of Lao PDR, together with a German colleague. We are on the second leg of our field interviews (the first was in Cambodia) toward a feasibility study for the German Adult Education Association. It wants to support and promote adult education in Cambodia and Lao PDR, and set up a Southeast Asia office in Phnom Penh.

It’s the closest I have been to the Mekong river. But the sand bars are wider than the water here, around a kilometer from the Thai border. When my companion asked the hotel manager what happened to the water, he said, “It may be held up in China upstream.”

Our first interview this morning was with the director and the planning officer of the Non-Formal Education department. As in Cambodia, “adult education” is less in use than the more traditional “non-formal education.” Of course in the Philippines, as in many things, we are more advanced at least terminologically. The old name of the Bureau of Non-Formal Education (BNFE) has given way to Bureau of Alternative Learning System (BALS).

But by whatever name - alternative learning system, adult education or non-formal education - it is a poor relation in the education family. Coincidentally, the NFE deputy director in Phnom Penh complained that their budget is only 0.06% of the toal education budget. That’s the same percentage in the Philippines, though there has been a slight increase recently.

And yet, “reaching the unreached” is the mantra of the mid-decade report on Education for All (EFA). And what I have heard in Cambodia and this morning in Laos is the same: There are villages, especially in remote areas, where there are no primary schools, or where the schools do not have all the 6 grades. And even where there are schools, many of the children do not enroll, or drop out before completing Grade 6. I did not ask for precise figures, but I presume the numbers here are worse than in the Philippines, where of every 100 children who enroll in Grade 1, only 65 finish Grade 6.

The NFE departments in Cambodia and Laos are tasked to “reach the unreached,” even before the formal school system can be set up in those remote areas. Hence they offer basic literacy programs for adults, and “equivalency” programs that offer out of school adults, youth, and children the equivalent of a primary education. But they recite the same litany of woes - not enough money, not enough trained teachers who are willing to stay in difficult areas, and not enough interest among the adults and youth in literacy classes.

Both Cambodian and Lao governments accept their responsibility to provide “Education for All.” Since this cannot be done only through the formal school-based system, they see the need to explore other teaching-learning systems. Initially, they think of expanding the government NFE system, using mobile teachers, and also mobilizing village-based volunteer teachers, and linking literacy with basic non-formal vocational skills training.

When we asked about budgets and salaries, we were told that in Cambodia the primary school teachers get between 40 to 50 dollars a month. No wonder their Education Watch project reports that the collection of informal school fees from parents is very high. When I hear of these numbers and other problems, I think of the Philippines and feel ambivalent. We could take comfort that the situation of our teachers is better compared to their counterparts in Cambodia and Laos. But we should not simply compare the absolute amounts. In the case of the Philippines, we should consider that there is even more money that is available that should be given to our teachers and the public school system, but which is wasted not only through corruption but on wrong priorities.

That is one added angle to the current controversy about the NBN-ZTE deal and the package of questionable projects including the “cyber education” project of the DepEd. It’s not just a matter of commissions and corruptions, and procurement processes that are not transparent, without checks and balances. The deeper issue is relevance and priorities. If future generations have to pay anyway for all these loans, should they not be invested in what will benefit our future generations? And what is more important that their health and quality education?

During his testimonies, Jun Lozada mentioned something in passing that caught my attention, though hardly anyone picked it up. He said that Victor Corpuz had this idea of “strong republic schools” which would use information technology to offer education to remote and conflict-ridden areas through ”distance learning.” When he was asked to look into it, his critique was that the original design wanted to spend a lot on hardware, and was not informed by the educational principles that learning is contextual and needs trained local facilitators.

Hence he revised the project design and “turned it upside down.” he said. Less hardware, more software, especially “human ware.” I don’t know if this better design would have been adopted, since the prospective financing from the US got withdrawn. If Jun Lozada survives his current ordeal, and if a better government emerges, I would want him to revisit that project as part of the “alternative learning system” that we advocate in E-net Philippines.

Unfortunately, there’s more money to be made, and more quickly, from procurement of hardware. And a technocratic mindset tends to look to ICT as a standard fix for diverse needs. Beyond corruption and good governance, there is a needed debate and dialogue on what kind of education system, including ICT-assisted learning system, is appropriate and effective.

If we accept that learning is contextual, we have to give a premium to learning systems that are diverse and local. A national policy and lead agency is needed, of course, including national budgets, but the delivery system can not be centalized and homogenized. More than the formal school-based system, alternative learning systems need to be decentralized, with greater responsiblity of the local governments and communities. This is also where various NGOs and civil society organizations play an integral role, not just to supplement inadequate funding, but also for innovation and flexibility.

Hence in our interviews in Cambodia and Lao PDR, we talk not only to government ministries, to adult education programs in universities, to international development NGOs, but seek out local NGOs especially those who work with marginalized communities - the unreached.

Since there are a number of Pinoys working with various international NGOs in Cambodia, I benefited from their contacts and their assessment of their Khmer counterparts. Karin teases me that our report is based on inputs from her “German mafia” and my “Filipiono mafia.”  One of the Filipinas even worked previously in Lao PDR, so I asked her for contacts and also her ideas on the state of NGOs in Lao PDR.

“Don’t look for NGOs,” she said. “In Lao PDR, NGO refers to international NGOs.” That was affirmed by an Italian expat whom we interviewed this morning. He used to work in the Philippines with the WHO, and has retired here, married a Laotian, and runs a very interesting program on material health and women’s education. He said that if you apply the name NGO to a Laotian organization, it is interpreted as an “anti-government organization,” and since Lao PDR remains a one-party state, that is not the most desirable identity.

“What do I look for, then?” I asked our Pinay friend. “Look for NPAs,” she said. That is the term they prefer in Lao PDR - ”non-profit associations.”

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