Thread: Laos High School Graduates Flocking to Chinese Studies in University

Recent high school graduates in Laos are increasingly opting to study Chinese at university in hopes of finding better employment, indicating that the country's youth feel that Laos’s future lies with Beijing, students told RFA.


Chinese investment in Laos was a mere 1.5 percent of its total foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2003, but Beijing accounted for 79 percent of FDI in Laos in 2018. The sharp rise in investment has prompted job hunters in Laos to view proficiency in the Chinese language as an essential skill.


A student who graduated from a high school in the capital Vientiane told RFA’s Lao Service that students are flocking to the Chinese language major because they believe that after graduation it will be easier to find a high-paying job, and that most businesses will need workers who can speak Chinese.


Another recent graduate from the northeastern province of Hua Phanh told RFA that he chose to take the entrance exam to the National University of Laos to major in Chinese language as his first choice and English language as a second choice.


“I think in the future businesses will need people who know Chinese. At the present time, markets here in the northern parts of Laos mostly sell products from China,” the Hua Phanh student said.


“Laos will also have a high-speed rail connecting to China, so we will need more people who speak Chinese,” the student said, referring to the high-speed Lao-China Railway, scheduled for completion in December.


In the southern province of Savannakhet, another recent graduate told RFA that he would study Chinese, following in the footsteps of his older brother and sister.


They graduated as Chinese majors from the National University and have jobs with salaries of five to six million kip (U.S. $523 – 627) per month, higher than even government officials.


“If you have a job with a high salary working with Chinese people, you get more money than working with Lao employers,” the Savannakhet student said.


'It's just easier to find a job'


In Oudomxay province, in the northwest, a recent graduate there said that many of Oudomxay’s students are also opting to study Chinese.


“It’s just easier to find a job as a Chinese language speaker. We can learn Chinese at the Chinese center in town. If we’re good at it we can become Chinese teachers,” the Oudomxay student said.


“Oudomxay has a lot of Chinese investments, so if anyone can speak Chinese, they are preferred at hiring time,” he said.


A professor of Chinese language at the National University of Laos said that its Chinese language department will only accept 240 people into the major this year, which is slightly higher than the previous year’s 200.


“Lao students want to learn Chinese because they know that Laos will have the high-speed train and that it will bring in even more Chinese investment projects,” the professor said.


“Chinese investment in Laos will of course require Lao workers who can speak Chinese, and they can earn higher salaries that way,” the professor said.


According to statistics from the website of the National University of Laos, Chinese language was the most popular major for new students in the 2021-2022 school year, with 988 taking the entrance exam. The next most popular major was economics, followed by management and then banking and finance.


Partnerships with schools


In an effort to promote studies of Chinese language and culture worldwide, Beijing has established partnerships with foreign universities to set up language schools, called Confucius Institutes.


The Confucius Institute at the National University of Laos is by far the largest and most popular Chinese language school in the country, an employee of the institute told RFA in February.


Universities in China have also been setting up campuses in Laos.


“Soochow University in Laos is also expanding by building a new campus in the Vientiane suburbs. Several hundred students who attend the university want to continue their studies at Soochow University in China,” the institute employee said.


Though the World Bank in October 2020 acknowledged that Laos has made many developmental gains over the past two decades by halving poverty, decreasing malnutrition, and improving education and health, it also said that Vientiane could do better at schooling children.


“A child born in Laos today will only be half as productive as she could be if she enjoyed full health and education… While a Lao child goes to school for 10.8 years on average, she only receives the equivalent of 6.4 years of learning,” the World Bank said.


According to UNESCO, in 2019 91.6 percent of Lao children of primary school age were enrolled in schools, but for secondary school-aged students the enrollment figure was 58.8 percent.


UNICEF in 2017 reported that only a third of Lao students in grade 3 met literacy standards, and only a fifth passed math standards for promotion to grade 4.


“For each additional year of education among young adults, poverty rates were 9 percent lower,” the report said.


Laos’ High School Graduates Flocking to Chinese Studies in University — Radio Free Asia

Makes perfect 原因

Originally Posted by misskit

Beijing accounted for 79 percent of FDI in Laos in 2018. The sharp rise in investment has prompted job hunters in Laos to view proficiency in the Chinese language as an essential skill.

Fancy learning a new language before heading back there BLD?

BLD is pissed off, because the Chinese have taken over the mining contracts

Makes a lot more sense than studying Shakespeare.

Originally Posted by misskit

Laos’s future lies with Beijing,

Of course it does; geographically, economically . . .

Originally Posted by misskit

major in Chinese language as his first choice and English language as a second choice.

ouch!

Originally Posted by misskit

In an effort to promote studies of Chinese language and culture worldwide, Beijing has established partnerships with foreign universities to set up language schools, called Confucius Institutes

Laos would do well to ask other countries how they went…

The new USSR … The UCPPR?

Originally Posted by Edmond

Makes perfect 原因




Fancy learning a new language before heading back there BLD?

I won't be speaking there shit anytime soon

Originally Posted by Chico

BLD is pissed off, because the Chinese have taken over the mining contracts

BLD is pissed off because the Chinese have taken over every fucking thing. Nasty little fookers

Laos is a Chinese vassal state.

Originally Posted by sabang

Laos is a Chinese vassal state.

Coming soon to a state near you.

Originally Posted by tomcat

...yep, soon to be joined (if it already hasn't) by Cambodia...locals politicians put personal wealth above national independence...this situation suggests China has a firm grip on ASEAN and can stymie any conference statement that it has imperial ambitions...

Cambodia's embraced the chinky and the cash way before Laos. Laos has been a bit more discrete about it. And also quite Naive in thinking it's all part of there development plan. It's not. It's a Land grab . It will bite them ( and cambodia) in the ass

Originally Posted by beerlaodrinker

Cambodia's embraced the chinky and the cash way before Laos. Laos has been a bit more discrete about it. And also quite Naive in thinking it's all part of there development plan. It's not. It's a Land grab . It will bite them ( and cambodia) in the ass

Discrete?

They're in insurmountable debt and have already handed over their power grid to the chinky parasites.

2 phucking shay.

Looks like my reply to that educated polymath Karen has been cleaned up by a mod?. Did I go to far? Well. Fook you karen

phuck me, I should have given it a screen shot. Thanks mods for taking down a very polite response to a put down by Karen. It was one of a kind trust me.

Did I miss Karen's reply too…

Don't the people in Lao have any idea of what happened to Tibet and is happening to Nepal and Bhutan? China the imperialist communist state loves stealing weaker countries which is pretty obvious to most people.

Apparently they don't.

Originally Posted by Saint Willy

Did I miss Karen's reply too…

Just Karen, karening again. He might have his period on or the sads

Originally Posted by Grumpy John

Don't the people in Lao have any idea of what happened to Tibet and is happening to Nepal and Bhutan? China the imperialist communist state loves stealing weaker countries which is pretty obvious to most people.

They probably do, but they live in a police state, so protesting it doesn't end well.

Another thing the Laos authorities have learned from the chinkies: "Re-education".

Lao Villagers Lose Farmland to Chinese Banana Grower — Radio Free Asia

Yep. They can't protest. Last year a young girl criticised the govt on social media about the slow response to a Damn collapse. Shes still in jail.