With this welfare activity, we are supporting construction of schools in and around Vientiane. As a member of the organization, I also had an opportunity to visit several schools. At the poorest one among those schools asking for aid I've seen so far, the floor was bare ground, and there was nothing else but the roof. That building was holding two classrooms, but there was even no wall to divide them. As for a school with slightly better condition, though the floor was also made of soil, there was a brick-wall up to about one meter and above that was a wall made of bamboos. There was also a partition wall made of bricks about one-meter high from the ground between classrooms, but there was nothing above that wall. Then I also went to see a school made of concrete, there they requested us for desks and chairs. I saw that four students were sitting at a desk for three people, and as many as three students were sitting on a chair which was leaning toward one side with one of its legs broken. I assume that they could somehow manage to raise the money for the construction of building itself but they were still short to cover equipments.

What I felt after visiting several schools was that there was no attitude among them aiming to taking good care of their school buildings with proper repairing in order to keep them in good condition. Setting aside how the students are, it seems that even the teachers are having no intention to be the first to enhance such attitude and to play a leading part. There must be no respect for such behavior as taking good care of things and cleaning a school building/ campus. Though I understand that money is always necessary in everything, I just can't help thinking that if they've been taking good care of the schools and the equipments, at least, by sweeping down the cobwebs, applying pieces of wood to chairs and desks, and shaving them with a planer, the condition wouldn't have gone that bad. With the low salary of teachers as well as the insufficient training program, can we not expect anything better than the current condition? Looking at the poor conditions of schools, I fully realize that we have a heap of things to do such as education of teachers, construction of school buildings, and preparation of teaching materials, but there are just so much work that it's difficult to determine where to start. I believe that the nation should increase the budget for education, but at the same time, it's doubtful how much value the Laotians actually set on education. Seeing a scene of a town in Vietnam on TV or other media, I realize that people there are giving every spare moment to reading newspapers or books, but that almost never happens in Laos. While my friends are having lunch at my house, their drivers are waiting for them outside doing nothing but looking up the sky vacantly.

Yet, the smiles those children I saw at each school had on their faces were brilliant with their white teeth glittering. No matter how hot it was or how gloomy and shabby their school buildings were, they were full of vigorous energies from head to foot.

Translated by Maiko Noda