For higher education studies to be relevant, they need to equip students with knowledge, skills and competences required for living and working together – they must respond to the needs of the society – local and global – for which they are striving to prepare highly qualified professionals and responsible citizens.
17 REAL Programme Teams from four Lao public universities conducted multi-stakeholder consultation based on the Tuning methodology in order to find out the current and upcoming needs of the Lao society. This was the first time such a consultation was organized in Lao PDR, with some programmes establishing contact with their alumni for the first time and other programmes exploring new – more effective – ways to engage in such a dialogue with relevant stakeholders beyond academia.
The result of these data collection efforts is the joint report about the desired Graduate Profiles that Respond to the Needs of Lao Society:
– the key elements of any graduate profile that must be catered for regardless of the subject area in order to prepare students for (self-)employment and active citizenship, as well as
– the most required components of graduate profile for 9 top-priority subject areas for Lao PDR: Animal Science, Business Administration, Economics for Rural Development and Business Promotion, Electrical Engineering, English Language, Food Technology, Tourism, Transportation, and Veterinary Medicine.
Based on the data collected during the period of May-August 2025, this first public report of the REAL Erasmus+ project includes an executive summary in English and the full report in Lao.
The Lao text contains the nine subject-area specific reports, and also describes the instruments used and the lessons learned, so as to guide other programmes and Higher Education Institutions in Lao PDR through the process of designing and running similar consultations.
The full document can be consulted and/or downloaded
