Chinese Government trains 40 Laotian students in railway teaching skills as part of the Aid to Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College (Linked to Project ID#63790)

On September 4, 2018, the Chinese Government and the Government of Laos signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a feasibility study for the Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College Project. The project sought to construct a full-time vocational and technical college in Vientiane to train railway workers for Laos. Specifically, the project was intended to complement the Chinese Government-financed China-Laos Railway Project, as captured by project ID#85304 and #33726, a key project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), by providing a reserve workforce for the railway's operation Then, on April 30, 2019, China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA) approved the Aid to Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College. The Aid to Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College took two separate forms: the aforementioned Chinese Government-provided grant financing for the construction of the Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College (as captured by linked project ID#63790) and educational capacity building and educational technology cooperation (Chinese: 教育能力建设及教育技术合作) by Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical College, as captured by this project. The educational capacity building and educational technology cooperation sought to provide vocational training in railway skills to 40 future Laotian teachers for the Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College. Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical College would train 40 Laotian students the Chinese language, in railway majors such as railway locomotives, railway vehicles, and railway engineering, and in professional and technical teaching skills to allow them to be professional railway teachers at Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College. After this two-year training period, Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical College would provide an additional five-year technical cooperation program for Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College by sending 16 experts to Laos in the first three years and eight experts in the last two years to assist the development and educational capacity of the college. In May 2020, CIDCA assigned the Yunnan Province to organize the implementation of the project (as well as the construction of the Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College). It used the Chinese vocational education model as a framework in its trainings. In 2020, the 40 Laotian students passed an exam organized by Laos' Ministry of Education and Sports to be trained by Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical Collage and eventually become future teachers at the Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College. However, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Laotian students were unable to enter Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical Collage as scheduled for their two-year learning term (had it not been for the pandemic, the students would have completed their program in 2022). The first class - an online Chinese language class via the DingTalk virtual teaching platform from teachers at Yunnan Normal University - was on November 29, 2021, marking the official launch of the educational capacity building and educational technology cooperation part of China's Aid to Laos Railway Vocational and Technical College. In December 2021, the 40 students were expected to begin physically studying in Kunming as soon as the end of 2021. On March 22, 2022, the first batch of 32 Lao students from Lao Railway Vocational and Technical College arrived at Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical College in China to begin the two-years study in China. On the day they arrived at Kunming Railway Vocational and Technical College, the students checked into the international student dormitory. After the 7-day centralized health monitoring, the college will organize normal education and teaching work according to the established teaching plan.

Additional details

The Chinese project title is 援老挝铁道职业技术学院.

Number of official sources

1

Number of total sources

11