Impact of ‘Ethnic Affinity’ Between Teachers and Children on Enrolment Status: Evidence from the Northern Lao PDR

Focusing on primary education in multi-ethnic Lao PDR, this study aimed to examine whether ethnic affinity between teachers and children contributes to preventing ethnic minority children from repeating grades. The results demonstrate that target schools with high degrees of ethnic affinity produced fewer students who repeated grades. In contrast, target schools with low degrees of ethnic affinity had many students who repeated grades. In target schools with high degrees of ethnic affinity, the children mostly repeated Grades 3 and above, and no children repeated a grade more than once. Conversely, in target schools with low levels of ethnic affinity, many children repeated lower grades, such as Grades 1 and 2, and many repeated grades more than once. Furthermore, based on the results of the semi-structured interviews with the teachers, the study investigated the reasons and backgrounds underlying the repetition of the students. The result indicates that repetitions are mainly due to the family circumstances of the children, such as poverty and parental problems, in addition to repetition due to ethnic affinity, such as problems with the medium of instruction.