Lao PDR advances towards the GCED Curriculum Development & Integration - 1st Round of the Pilot Testing of the Draft Teachers’ Manuals (Phase I)

Lao PDR is one of the leading partner countries for the 3rd Round (2021-2023) of the GCED Curriculum Development and Integration Project (GCED CDI), which APCEIU has been carrying out since the project’s launch in 2016, with the aim to facilitate the partner country to mainstream GCED through curricular integration. With the strong support of the Ministry of Education and Sports of Lao PDR, the Project has been carried out by its resourceful and dedicated local implementing partners, RIES (Research Institute for Educational Sciences) and LNCU (Lao National Commission for UNESCO), in consultation with and with support from APCEIU.

As part of the final year activity, the Workshop for Pilot testing of the draft Teachers’ Manuals (Phase 1) was held in Lao PDR from 29 March to 3 April and successfully concluded with resourceful and insightful comments from experts, teachers, school leaders, and officials from Laos and abroad. Organized by RIES in collaboration with LNCU and supported by APCEIU, the Workshop aimed to introduce and review the draft Teachers’ Manuals on Integration of Global Citizenship Education into Civic Education Subject at Secondary Education developed in 2022. For the final year of GCED CDI in Lao PDR, the draft Teachers’ Manuals - one for the Lower Secondary, and the other for Upper Secondary - are expected to be reviewed through the two-phased pilot tests for improvement and then validated and finalized by the end of this year.

The workshop started with the Curriculum Development Committee (CDC) Orientation and Consultation for two days and was followed by the three-day pilot tests and reviews with seven teachers and two school principals from the secondary schools in Bolikhamxay province, together with the CDC members and some local officials.

During the CDC Orientation and Consultations, the CDC members were guided by APCEIU for their own reviews of the draft Manuals and for the preparation of the pilot tests to be followed. The CDC members were coached on the effective delivery of the pilot test, from their introduction of the draft manuals to

the teachers to the review and revision of various tools for pilot tests. In the pilot testing conducted in Bolikhamxay province, the invited teachers developed and presented their lesson plans based on their understanding of the draft manuals, guided by the CDC members. Comments from school principals and officials of the provincial and district offices were also shared in the general review sessions.

Comments and feedback from the participants were then reviewed and discussed by the CDC members and APCEIU to strategize how to effectively integrate these comments for the improvement of the draft manuals before Phase 2 pilot tests, which will involve three provinces and be conducted on a larger scale in July.