ພາສາລາວ
We were so happy to receive support from the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) through the BEQUAL program to build extra classrooms and new toilets; we will also welcome Ms Baiphone Keobounhoung who benefited from the BEQUAL teacher scholarship program and she will be our extra primary teacher in September.”
The approach implemented by BEQUAL for construction utilises a community-based contracting (CBC) model enabling the works to be fully managed by local communities through their Village Education Development Committee (VEDC). A project management team and a procurement committee, each including women, are formed by the VEDC to manage the grant funds provided by BEQUAL for the construction work. They will employ an experienced foreman and community labourer to undertake the construction rather than external contractors.
BEQUAL engineers and the District Education and Sports Bureau (DESB) staff are responsible for the overall technical supervision and ensure building designs meet MoES national standards. Activity has commenced all over the country in February with the training of the communities on the CBC approach.
Salavan DESB staff came in February to explain our roles and give us recommendations on suppliers’ selection, construction monitoring and financial reports. The workers will be from our village. We will build a storage space to keep the construction materials. It is also important to prepare a temporary school arrangement to avoid teaching-learning disruption during the works. The training was really clear, especially on the logistics part and the supplier selection. Our village is proud to be in charge of the school construction. It will be our school, built by us. I think the community will more strongly encourage their children to attend class; we will build a nice school with toilets and the children won’t drop out from school like before”, concludes Mr Somsak.
At the end of the training, the VEDC started assigning responsible people for each task of the construction. They were ready and willing to start as soon as possible”, notes Mr Noukham Sisavath, Head of Salavan DESB.