To promote community participation for the quality of education

This is a success story about community involvement for quality education. We helped improve school facilities such as desks, chairs, classrooms, water systems, other necessary hygiene equipment, train teachers and promote new graduates to become community teachers, support teaching and learning materials for teachers and students. which has some outstanding articles showing the success of some projects, invite you to read and follow along:

Participatory school improvement and renovation

In order to contribute in improving and solving the aforementioned problems, the project worked together with 18 teachers and students from Savannakhet Technical-Vocational College (Construction-Carpentry Department) under the guidance of the committee from the Office of Education and Sports in the district to implement together with the community with both village technicians and parents until they were able to achieve the following goals in 12 schools: build 3 toilets, 3 drilled water bores, 5 school signs and 5 school barbed fences, build 2 flag poles, 1 bulletin information board, 6 bookcases, extend 1 additional wooden classroom, provide 6 blackboards, 11 school toys and build a new wooden school using old and new wooden, 1 additional classroom. There are some schools in the target area of the project that are up to standard and beautiful because of the support and help from many parties. But there are still some schools where the assistance has not yet reached, some schools were built by the community as a joint effort, but they are not up to standard, the tables and boards are broken and some schools are not enough classroom. Some schools have been built for a long time and are now dilapidated whether the walls, roof, ceiling and other facilities that caused a shortage of classrooms.

Thus, students have to study together at the same classrooms. In addition, schools are still lacking of other facilities such as wells, drilled water bores system, toilets as well as attractive outdoor playground equipment to motivate children wanting to go to school, such as swing outdoor playground and traditional outdoor slicing sport equipment..etc.

The implementation of the activity, the project team was very impressed with the achievement because of the participation of the parents of the people in the village who provided assistance with labor and necessary construction equipment (plank wood, sawed wood...). Previously, the initial thought of the project team that there may not be good cooperation up to this stage, but in fact everyone was working together to implement activities for the school and students. After completing the invention of the toys (outdoor playground equipment), the students have tried to play with that equipment, and the project teams could observe was that the students come to school in earlier time, during the break hours the students have a place to play and have fun, the students' minds are cheerful because they play with new equipment together with many friends, which could be attracting students to come to school every day without school absent.

Written by: Mr. Somchit, Date: Dec 2021

Hong Hien Ban Hao Project (HBH) 12 Primary schools in Savannakhet province

The teachers at the target schools use the teaching-learning techniques that have been trained from the project

Miss Kenta Inthathilat teacher 21-year-old lives in Phanom Phon Village, Adsaphon District, Savannakhet Province. After graduating from 4th grade, she continued her studies at Savannakhet Teachers Training College (KM 7) and after graduation, she came back home to work as a volunteer teacher at Phanom Phon Primary School for 3 years. Teacher Kenta is one of the people who has paid attention to teaching students well. Before the project, she taught and used the curriculum she had learned, focusing on teaching methods according to textbooks, which is one of the reasons why students in the preparatory class tend to miss school and skip classes.

Our village school development project (HBH) has carried out promotion and training activities for primary education teachers with 7 topics: 1) Child-centered teaching-learning management, 2) Skills to lead activities and attract children's attention (games, music, drama, stories...), 3) Production of teaching materials by using local culturalobjects, 4) Skills in teaching Lao language-mathematics, 5) Learning management – twin classroom teaching, 6) Storytelling techniques and work to promote reading in schools, 7) Children's rights and protection of children in schools and communities.

Ms. Kenta, is a teacher also used the lessons she had learned and she noticed that her students were having more involved, making the students more diligent, bold and being able to write better, encouraging the teacher to bring the lessons learned to be used in teaching sessions as appropriate, and the teacher also used songs, stories, and games as a supplement before teaching so that the students could be relaxed and having a lot of fun before leading the students into the lesson, and Kenta could also observe from where the students could sing the song as well as the postures. Ms. Kenta also noticed that her students do not miss classes, the students are diligent, having fun and love learning Lao language such as pictures matching games and verbs using various activities from the training.

This is part of the success of our village school development project in Adsaphone District, Savannakhet Province. We have implemented training activities for primary school teachers in 12 target villages based on the indicators of the project's objectives, it could be seen that at least 80% of the teachers at the target school use the teaching techniques that have been trained by the project (65 teachers) because there is a rate of dropout and class arrears of students at the target school should be less than 5% (a total of about 913 students of 12 primary schools)

The teacher used these teaching techniques before classes, after the flag saluting and arranging in the schedule of the school's activities. Ms. Kenta said: "She is very impressed that the program trained new subjects, especially the teaching method that brought games and music to make students lively, fun, happy to learn, as well as receiving support from the program for teaching and learning materials such as musical instruments, which made the teaching of physical education well. It is impressive to organize activities in the school on Children's Day and National Teacher's Day."

Written by: Mrs. Souphaly, Date: Dec 2021

Hong Hien Ban Hao Project (HBH) 12 Primary schools in Savannakhet province

Mr. Koun and his school are located in Kangbon Village, Adsaphone District, Savannakhet Province

Koun's story shows precisely how the school environment or the teaching technique using only textbooks couldn’t attract the attention of students. Through the implementation of project activities by promoting and training primary teachers to use new techniques in teaching younger students to make students more attractive and not missing school.

The project supported building a room for reading books, 1 book storage container/school plastic storage container for books, 449 story books, 2 stories each, a total of 1,298 books, equipment and teaching materials for 12 schools, such as wooden rulers (long rulers, triangles ruler square, triangles rulers and angles) 10 sets, 8 thinking cards, 6 Lao alphabet cards, 8 English alphabet cards, 8 blank cards, 7 number cards, 11 picture and name cards of animals, 12 picture and name cards of profession, 12 picture and fruit name cards, 12 Lao spelling posters, 12 body vocabulary posters (Lao/English) 12 posters, 12 Lao recipes multiplication posters, 5 Lao vowel posters, 6 Lao map posters, 6 world map posters and 4 simulated earth units.

Mr. Khoun is 10 years old, studying in the grade 5, living with his family in Kang Bon Village, Adsaphone District, Savannakhet Province. He is a person who doesn't dare to express himself, every day he likes to go to the frog stalks according to the rural children's living style and often missing school regularly. One of the reasons is that because of the environment of the school is not interesting enough to make him coming to school. The project has promoted activities for students’ participation and made children’s outdoor playground inventions. It could be observed that he comes to school earlier, during the break time he has a place to play around and have fun, the student's spirit is cheerful because he plays new things together with many friends.

Written by: Mrs. Souphaly, Date: Dec 2021

Hong Hien Ban Hao Project (HBH) 12 Primary schools in Savannakhet province