This book provides a comprehensive and in-depth description of the education system in Lao PDR. It covers pre-school, primary, secondary general, secondary technical and vocational, post-secondary non-higher education, and adult non-formal education and training. In addition to the main content, the book includes a glossary of terms and abbreviations used; and an appendix on the organizational structure of the Ministry of Education and Sports, including the linkages between the national, provincial and district level. The content covers public and private sector education provision alike.

Amidst the Eurozone crisis, the European Union (EU) is stepping up its dialogue and engagement with and within Southeast Asia. The EU’s contemporary approach towards Asia emphasises the importance of open economies and common challenges of the 21st Century. So-called non-traditional security issues have been portrayed increasingly as an avenue to share experiences and enhance cooperation between the EU and Southeast Asia. This contemporary conceptual re-orientation demands a closer look at the EU as an actor in Southeast Asia. This book is the first contemporary monograph-length discussion of the EU as a politico-security actor in in the region post-Cold War. Drawing upon the historical and institutional context and a broad range of empirical case studies, it considers the non-traditional security crises of the late 1990s and early 2000s in Southeast Asia as triggers for enhanced regional and inter-regional cooperation. In doing so, the book construes new insights into our understanding of the EU as a global actor and its normative influence in regions far away from Europe. Providing a crisis-centric and sector-specific analysis which is much-needed, the book will be of interest to scholars of Southeast Asian Politics and European Politics, as well as policy-makers.

How does climate change affect social work and social development? What actions are needed to integrate the three pillars of economic development, environmental development and social protection? With global warming and the increase in natural disasters due to the emission of greenhouse gases, an alternative approach to the natural environment is vital. The main focus of this volume is to emphasize the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. For social work the environment has traditionally been viewed as a world of human relationships as opposed to the interaction between man and environment. This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to analyze the person-in-environment concept and to find measures for its implementation. Through the presentation of theoretical and practical platforms for environmental social work or ’green social work’, we hope to bring about a new paradigmatic shift in our attitude to the concept of person-in- environment.