The District Education Bureaux, under the MOES and the Department of Non-Formal Education, are responsible for non-formal education institutions in their own districts. Non-formal education programmes in Lao PDR target three groups: (a) children and young adults aged 6-14 who did not have an opportunity to attend primary school and are willing to follow literacy and continuing education courses, (b) adults aged 15-40 who are illiterate and are willing to follow 8 literacy and continuing education courses, and (c) youth and adults aged 15-24 who do not have definite vocations and are willing to follow basic vocational training (UNESCO 2008).
In 2005-06, 44,357 people were trained in the NFE literacy programme; 96,955 enrolled at primary level; 1,890 at lower secondary; 4,278 at upper secondary; and 3,826 trained in the skills development programme. More females than males were enrolled in the literacy (19,692 males and 24,665 females) and primary (43,428 males and 53,527 females) programmes, while more males than females were enrolled in the lower (1,277 males and 613 females) and upper (3,235 males and 1,043 females) secondary programmes (UNESCO 2008).
One of the major challenges is the significant disparity in literacy rates by gender, province, urban/rural location, age group and ethnic group. According to the Population and Housing Census (2005), the literacy rate in urban areas is 89% while in rural areas it is only 54%. The literacy rate for the non-Lao-Tai ethnic groups is 49%, with 33% for females and 65% for males, which is relatively low in comparison to the Lao-Tai ethnic groups, with 77% for females and 90% for males (UNESCO 2008).
In addition, NFE personnel have very limited capacity and training. On average, there are two NFE personnel at district level, and most of them have had little chance to receive pre-service and in-service training. In addition, the honorarium is not enough to keep their living condition at the subsistence level. There is also a severe shortage of textbooks, teacher guides and teaching-learning materials. Community Learning Centres (CLCs) are not functioning well in general and some CLCs do not organize learning sessions but are used for meeting rooms and village authority offices. Furthermore, due to the very limited budget allocated to NFE, supervision, monitoring, and evaluation of the NFE programmes is problematic (UNESCO 2008).
