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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Laos
Index
A serious need for skilled technical and economic
personnel
still hinders the government's dealings with international
agencies
and businesspeople. Thousands of the most trained and
enterprising
citizens fled the country after 1975. A related problem
for foreign
policy makers is the relative lack of young university
graduates
who are fluent in English and familiar with international
economics. The several thousand Laotian students sent
between 1975
and the late 1980s to the Soviet Union and its East
European allies
for several years of training often have returned without
tangible
or relevant skills. The hundreds of training years
provided in the
Soviet Union did not produce a solid base of junior
diplomatic
officers intellectually prepared to move easily among UN
economic
development agencies or in Western state capitals. In the
1990s,
education in Western states has become essential for
advancement.
As the horizon broadened for Laotian diplomats and
businesspersons,
elite families in Laos sought training in United States or
Australian universities. Thailand is also willing to pick
up some
of the demand for educational opportunity, and other
Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN--see Glossary) states are
also a
potential source for scholarships.
Recruitment of a professional foreign service is no
easier in
these circumstances. Moreover, party experience seems to
count more
heavily than sophistication in language and diplomatic
training,
even in the realm of foreign relations.
Data as of July 1994
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