What Gender Gaps In Education Spending Look Like For Lao Families: A Teacher’s On-Ground Observation
That day of parent-teacher conferences, my plastic stool was sinking a little into the red dirt outside the rural primary school classroom where I taught. The electric fan in the corner hummed so loud I had to lean forward to hear parents, and a pile of worn cotton uniforms sat next to my folding table. Mrs. Thongvilu showed up with two of her kids: 12-year-old Kham, who was in my Grade 6 class, and 10-year-old Boun, her younger son. She twisted the end of her sinh sash around her wrist as she said what she’d come for: could I write Kham’s name in the list of students who could buy cheaper, secondhand entrance exam workbooks? They’d just sprung for brand new books and a month of after-school tutoring for Boun, and that was all they could cover this month. Kham stared at her scuffed rubber flip-flops the whole time, and I noticed her workbook from the previous year was held together with three different types of tape, the cover torn completely off.
Over that year teaching in northern Laos, and the two years I spent working with community education groups around Vientiane after that, I heard that same story over and over. I met a noodle seller at the Vientiane night market who’d pulled her 16-year-old daughter out of high school the year before, because the tuition and book fees for her son’s first year of university came due. She didn’t yell about it or sound especially sad, just stirred the pot of pork broth and said it made more sense to put the money where it would count for the whole family later. Once, I helped count donations for a back-to-school drive, and out of 30 requests for extra supplies, 27 came for boys. Girls got hand-me-down uniforms, mended books, and whatever was left over after the boys were taken care of.
Most stats I’ve seen from UNESCO and local education groups back up what I saw. Household education spending across genders in Laos averages about 20% more per boy than per girl, and the gap gets bigger the older kids get. It’s not that parents don’t care about their daughters’ education, a lot of the time. Most families I talked to wanted their girls to go to school, but when money is tight – and for most Lao families, it always is – the long-held norm is that boys will grow up to support the family, so their education is a safer investment. That gap in spending adds up fast: it means girls are less likely to sit for entrance exams to secondary school, less likely to finish high school, and more likely to go to work young or marry early.
A few of us at the school started making small changes a few years back, and they’ve worked better than I expected. First, we set up a free textbook and uniform swap in every village around the school, and we sort all good-condition supplies by size first, then set half of them specifically for girls. Before, when it was first-come first-served, boys would get all the best stuff first, because parents would ask for them first. By setting half aside, we cut the cost of new supplies for a girl’s family by almost 70% a year, which takes a huge weight off. Second, we run free after-school study sessions for all exam-year students, right at the school. That means families don’t have to pay for private tutoring, which is one of the biggest costs where the gender gap shows up. Before we started this, only 3 out of 10 Grade 6 girls from the area sat for the secondary entrance exam. Last year, that number was 7 out of 10.
Another thing I changed in my own parent conferences that I think any teacher working here can copy: I always talk about the girl’s grades and potential first, before I talk about any boys in the family. I don’t just leave it to parents to bring up what they need. I point out specific costs, and specific outcomes, instead of vague talk about equal opportunity. Instead of just saying “Kham is a good student”, I say “Kham scored second in math in the whole grade. If she has this $3 workbook and pays the $5 exam fee, she can get into the provincial secondary school, and that will let her qualify for a nursing scholarship in three years. We have a small grant here that can cover half of that if you can cover the rest.” That’s way more concrete than just telling parents girls should have a chance, and it changes a lot of minds. A lot of parents just haven’t thought about that specific return on investment for their daughter, because they’ve always been told to prioritize boys.
Kham got that small grant I mentioned, and she’s now in Grade 9 at the provincial secondary school. She comes back to visit sometimes during school breaks, and helps me grade primary school papers. Her family still paid for a full two months of private tutoring for Boun for his entrance exam this year, though. Kham studies for her own exams by borrowing notes from a classmate whose family can afford the extra tutoring books. We’re still trying to get more small grants for older girls, but we don’t have enough money for every kid yet.
Change doesn’t happen all at once. Every year, a few more girls get the books and fees they need to stay in school. Every year, a few more parents see what their daughter can do if they just shift a little of the family’s education budget her way. It’s slow, and the big structural gaps are still there, but it adds up. We don’t have all the answers, and some years we lose more girls than we gain, but for now, that’s enough to keep going.
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