The consultation meeting participated by 36 representatives (13 females) of the national agencies from different ministries and National Universities of Laos on 3 December 2014. The National University showed that the government of Laos aims to establish the Faculty of Water Resources (upgraded from Department of Water Resources Engineering under the Faculty of Engineering) and develop IWRM curriculum in cooperation with the Department of Water Resources, MONRE as one priority development under current strategy of Laos to create human resource on this field.
From this consultation meeting participants aware and agreed of:
- The needs of more experiences on IWRM for the university by giving examples and request line agencies and other internal external organizations to support for effective IWRM curriculum implementation as well as help to teach students in some subjects related to IWRM.
- The IWRM curriculum and long term IWRM educational strategy need to be mapped in the different matrix based on the real needs and condition of Laos which should focus more on the qualified human resource including numbers of graduates, trainings/short and long-term study, lecturer strengthening, exchange of real practice with government and other institution, promote the IWRM course throughout the educational networks and public countrywide, improve the teaching materials/text books and water laboratory, engagement with businesses and other private sector to support and bring back the graduates to work in the sectors, etc.
- IWRM should be taken into account for all agencies/sectors (not only education) by promoting, awareness rising for all public society in the country that needs to be further disseminated.
- The IWRM subject will be added into university level as individual subject, for primary or high school, it will add into Environmental subjects who will educate about IWRM or water management practices in simple ways.
- The staff of the related water sectors should be upgraded their knowledge and skills on how to better make use of the IWRM approach as a tool through training course and long-tern study.
- The IWRM concept, principle, tools, and implementation should also refer to international experiences especially the country that have good experience or successful. This experience should be outreach and share to all educational institutions and professionals in order to expose new ideas to further teach the students with bringing their active motivation to study on IWRM.
- The university should have opportunity to visit and exchange with other country/university that they have IWRM curriculum – even in the region and/or beyond.
Several action planned was agreed to:
• Review experiences on IWRM of international and other countries to exchange more practical solution and teaching on IWRM.
• Seek the fund for study tour on IWRM curriculum development and lessons learned in other countries.
• Consolidate and scale up the IWRM curriculum and teaching materials for the university and some schools that have suitable condition.
• The Department of Water Resources and other line agencies should support the staff and expertise on IWRM to help National University of Laos and others on teaching/ trainings;
• Seek the fund for short and long term study on IWRM for graduate students and lecturers.