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LANTEN AND THEIR SCHOOLING IN NORTH LAOS 
---An Anthropological Perspective
Yuan Tongkai
(Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China)
Abstracts:
Based on anthropological research, this study gives a brief description of the living conditions of the
Lanten people, their education and literacy. It also explores the factors resulting in Lanten’s
impoverishment in a more synthetic, historical, and anthropological perspective, and argues that the
dynamic interaction between a group’s culture and the opportunity structure, given the specific historical
context of its incorporation into the dominant society, results in a unique cultural model that intensifies the
poverty of small ethnic groups like Lanten in Laos.
POVERTY, LANTEN, EDUCATION, OPIUM,
ANTHROPOLOGY
INTRODUCTION: RESEARCH PROBLEMS AND SIGNIFICENCE
This paper is one of the results of the field research conducted in north Laos in 2006, which lasted
for nine months, from December 2005 to September 2006. During this period of time, I visited 12
Lanten villages in three provinces in north Laos, spending almost six months in the field, living
with the villagers. A total of 235 households were interviewed, based on anthropological methods,
1602 family members’ basic information, such as their age, marriage, and schooling, was carefully
recorded. A general statistics of their annual income, such as how much rice they grow, how many
animals and poultry they raise, what they sell in the markets, is scientifically analyzed, which, to
some extent, can offer us an objective view of Lanten people’s living conditions.
The Lanten in Laos are sub-divided into two tribal ethnic groups, one is Kim-Di-Mun, which
means ‘at the foot of the mountain’ and the other is Kim-Diang-Mun, meaning ‘at the top of the
mountain’, the former are found in Luang Namtha, Oudomxay and Bokeo, while the latter live only
in Phongsaly province. They all belong to the Landian sub-group of the vast Yao ethnic group. In
Luang Namtha, they are also called Lao Huay, which means “people living by the stream” since
1975. According to Schliesinger (2003: 274), Lanten arrived in Laos from China and Vietnam more
 The writing of this paper was made possible by funds granted by Asian
Scholarship Foundation, the Awards ID. Number is
05189. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.
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recently than the other Yao sub-group, the Mien, probably in the early twentieth century, in search
of stability and new mountain rice fields.
This study mainly concerns on Kim-Di-Mun in Luang Namtha. Based on anthropological field
work, this study aims to make an illustration of the schooling and living conditions of Lanten
people by paying special attention to the complex social reality, and tries to find out the factors
resulting in their impoverishment in anthropological perspectives. This paper argues that the
dynamic interaction between a group’s culture and the opportunity structure, given the specific
historical context of its incorporation into the dominant society, results in a unique cultural model
that intensifies the poverty of small ethnic groups like Lanten. At the same time, it provides a vital
source of information to help researchers and government officials gain a more complete
understanding of the traditional culture and the present living conditions of Lanten in Laos. The
project’s findings, to some extend, will help broaden the understanding and knowledge of Asian
scholars about Yao people both in China and Laos.
THEORETICAL REVIEW AND RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
I. THEORETICAL REVIEW
Minorities and education has been and still is one of the key issues in all societies. One of the more
compelling and complex questions entertained by social scientists and educators today concerns the
differences in school outcomes among various ethnic minority students. Why, for example, are
some ethnic groups more likely than others to excel in school, given that all are minorities who face
structural barriers to opportunity? Several explanations have been proposed to account for the
differences in the school performance of minorities in plural societies. Some scholars have argued
that cultural and language differences affect the school success of minority children (Erickson and
Mohatt, 1982). Others have argued that the difficulties were probably due to “cultural
discontinuities”, or “culture conflicts” (Burger 1968; Philips 1983). It is true that cultural conflicts
do cause learning problems. But they do not account for why some minorities do well in the same
schools and classrooms where their ethnic peers do not. One of the most distinguished educational
anthropologists, John Ogbu, finds out that the primary problem in the academic performance of
minority children does not lie in the mere fact that children possess a different language, dialect, or
communication style of interaction (Ogbu 1987: 317). He argues that the differences were caused
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by the treatment of minority groups in society at large and in school as well as by the perceptions of
the minorities and their responses to school due to such treatment (Ogbu and Somons 1998: 154).
Also a number of studies show how inequality in the opportunity structures shapes minority
underachievement, but they do not account for the success of minority students in the face of these
barriers. Ethnic schooling has much to do with the local power. Michael W. Apple (1982) points out
that we cannot neglect the process of cultural and political change while stressing the economic
factors, especially when examining the formal educational process which is characterized by
cultural and political power relations. This power relation will influence the academic achievements
of the subordinate, whose language and cultural value are always rejected and they are forced to
learn those of the dominant. In this sense, the poor school performances among the subordinate
minorities can only be understood in a complex nexus of power relations. These studies shed light
into this research that the dynamic interaction between a group’s culture and the opportunity
structure, given the specific historical context of its incorporation into the dominant society, results
in a unique cultural model of schooling that intensifies the educational behaviors of students from
that ethnic group.
II. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The fieldwork methods employed for collection of material and generation of data were mainly
inspired by “grassroots research” (Kaayk 1983:197), which, often used by anthropologists, can
provide reasonably reliable field material. The intensive long-term grassroots research can shed
light on the conditions of the informants and their environments in the rural setting in order to better
understand their realities and the problems that they face. The research methods utilized by
anthropologist offer a unique tool for understanding problems of rural poverty. The anthropologist
uses the real-life setting as his laboratory, seeking to avoid influencing the activities. He observes
the routines through the activities of individuals. The concern with the whole, in which each culture
item is viewed in the context of its meaning and relation to the other parts, and the comparative
method of anthropology provides an intellectual device to gain a deeper understanding of the
poverty process. The present study, by interviewing villagers in all the households of the field sites,
and through much participant observation, provides the “grassroots” insights often lacking in
educational research.
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Doing rural ethnography is the main way to collect the data for this research. To do good
ethnography requires the kind of participant observation traditionally practiced by anthropologists,
which refers to the practice of living among the people he studies, coming to know them and their
life-ways through intensive and continuous interaction with them in their daily lives (Ogbu 1981: 6).
It is impossible to understand a whole society just by studying only one village or community, for
each community is bound up in and responds to its political, social and economic ties with
neighboring groups and to the obligations and pressures those ties impose. The ideal choice is to
choose one village as the fieldwork site and at the same time sharing some time to visit and revisit
the neighboring villages. This will enable the ethnographer to have, to some extent, a panoramic
view of the society he/ she is studying, and help him/her to gain a better understanding of the people
he/she is living with. Based on the techniques of traditional ethnography, I chose one village in
Luang Namtha District, Luang Namtha province in north Laos as my basic field site, and managed
to participate in the daily life of the village, conducting formal and informal interviews, attending
community activities, observing and meeting with villagers. At the same time, I also spent some
time to gain a general understanding of some other Lanten villages and paying special attention to
the broad social contexts. During the initial contact period, with the help of the village head, I
visited every household of the village, collecting the basic data, such as population, age, marriage,
and school attendance. By visiting every household, I soon got a general understanding of the
Lanten people, especially their living conditions. During the field work, I visited ten Lanten villages
in Luang Namtha province, one village in Oudomxay province, and one village in Phongsaly
province. During my stay in the villages, I interviewed each household with the help of my research
assistant and translator, and the village head in each village. After visiting the twelve villages, I
collected plenty of field data and gained a general understanding of the Lanten people in these
villages, especially their schooling.
All published and un-published books and papers about Lanten in the library and archives are
also important to this study. As soon as I arrived Vientiane, I got in touch with my host institute—
Institute for Cultural Research, Ministry of Information & Culture, Laos PDR and began to conduct
the documentary research in relevant institutes and departments in Vientiane, such as Ecole
Francaise D’Extrême-Orient, National Library, Ethnographic Data Bank of Laos, Institute for
Cultural Research, The Department of Education, and libraries at The National University of Lao. I
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also hunted all the bookstores in Vientiane, but unfortunately I found nothing useful to my research,
only some statistical data. According to my documentary research in Vientiane, only Schliesinger’s
“Yao”( 2003: 272-285), Lemon’s article “The Present Economy of the Lao Huay of the Nam Ma
Balley, Muang Long District, Luang Namtha”(2005: 44-56) , and Chazee’s The Peoples of Laos:
Rural and Ethnic Diversities (2002: 105-128) mentioned about Lanten people in Laos, and that’s all
you can find in all the institutes and departments in Vientiane.
Each field situation is in many respects unique, however, and the problems one encounters do
not necessarily exhaust the range of possible problems anthropologists can have. But “A few
problems”, as Chagnon (1992:10) pups it, “do seem to be nearly universal among anthropological
fieldworkers, particularly those having to do with eating, bathing, sleeping, lack of privacy,
loneliness, and the discovery that the people you are living with have a lower opinion of you than
you have of them---or that you yourself are not as culturally or emotionally flexible as you had
assumed.” One of the biggest problems for my research and participant observation in Laos is the
language barrier, though some Lanten can read, write and speak a little Mandarin. I had tried to
learn the local native language while doing the research, but it is too difficult for me to master the
language in such a short period of time. I had to collect field data with the help of local translators
all through my field research, which not only costly but inefficient, and it is difficult to find a
professional translator in Laos. Because of this, it definitely influences the veracity and objectivity
of the field data, though I have tried to test them again and again. One of the personal problems that
I experienced while carrying out the field research in Lanten villages is that the threats of chicken
and pig plague, and the local disease to personal health, such as the white plague, are prevailing in
most of the Lanten villages I visited. The other one is food. Traditionally Lanten people only have
rice with chili sauce, which is difficult for me to adjust, and often makes me have a bad
stomachache.
LANTEN AND THEIR SOCIAL-ECONOMIC SITUATION: AN OUTLINE
The Lanten are one of the sub-groups of vast Yao, of the Miao-Yao linguistic family and of the
Mien-Mun branch. They have their own dialect, but use Chinese characters to record their family
records, rituals and treatments of illness as well as write letters. According to Results from the
Population and Housing Census 2005 issued by Steering Committee for Census of Population and
Housing, there are 27449 Lewmien (the Mien and the Lanten) in Laos. In Luang Namtha province,
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according to the provincial Planning Department’s Census 2005, there are18 Lanten villages, with a
total population of 4233. In Bokeo, there is one Lanten village, and in Oudomxay, two, about 950
inhabitants.1
Lanten villages were traditionally located deep in the mountains, but the Lanten villages in
Luang Namtha, Bokeo and Oudomxay, in the late one hundred years or so, were established at
medium mountain altitude, between 700 to 1000 meters, and always near rivers, which is one of the
necessary criteria to set up a village. The presence of mountains for the production of opium and
bamboo paper paste, the production of bamboo for building material and paper and the availability
of forested land for rice cultivation are also considered(Chazee 2002: 115). But in Phongsaly, most
of the Lanten villages are still located on top of the mountains, where water resources and arable
land are scarce. Although most of the Lanten villagers have moved to the mountain valleys for two
or three generations, they are restricted to have access to irrigated land, still subsist on shifting
cultivation in a restricted territory, small livestock husbandry, weaving, production of bamboo paper,
and occasional hunting and gathering. As Chazee’s study shows, “this system of low productivity is
traditionally balanced and allows a subsistence economy if the natural resources are sufficient”
(2002: 111). But with the state policy of forest protection and village resettlement since 1975, with
the restricted shifting upland, their traditional production systems can no longer support sufficient
food for the majority of the families, which usually need more than ten years to fallow after three to
five years of cultivation. Most of the villages, like Ban Nam Deang, Ban Tavan, Ban Nam Chang,
Ban Sune Ya, Ban Nam Ke Noy and Ban Nam Tong, are then forced to resort to devalued survival
activities such as seasonal odd jobs in lowland villages, wood cutting, sale of firewood, and hunting
and gathering. The followings are some detailed case studies, which can serve as good examples.
B.Nam Deang is named after the Nam Deang River, which runs through the village,
where the villagers take bath every day.2 The village lies in the northeast of Luang
Namtha district, 25 kilometers away from the Namtha city. It is a village mainly
consist of Hmong and Lanten, but the two ethnic groups live seperately. The Lanten
village just locates by the main road from Luang Namtha to Borten, which is newly
built. There are 27 Lanten households, with a population of 188. The villagers have
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In Bokeo, there are only one Lanten village, about 500 inhabitants; in Oudomxay, there are two Lanten villages, but I just visited
one of them, 200 inhabitants, the other one, 250 inhabitants; in Phongsaly, I visited one Lanten village, 276 inhabitants. Because
most of the Lanten villages are hard to get to, I am not sure how many Lanten there are in Phongsaly.
In Laos, Nam means ‘river’.
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no irrigated field, they mainly subsist on the forest and swidden cultivation. Swidden
cultivation, also referred to as shifting cultivation, or slash-and-burn agriculture,
and in Lao known as hai cultivation, is the dominant mode of agriculture in north of
Laos. Traditionally they grow upland rice, maize and cotton. They also raise pigs,
chickens and dogs. But now pig and chicken plague is prevailing the Lanten villages,
and most of the pigs and chickens died. Although Nam Deang located by the main
road, easy to go to Namtha and Borten, both electricity and drinking water are not
available, villagers there still struggling for a living. In this small village, almost
each household has one or two opium addicts. According to my investigation, 65%
of the male adults are opium smokers. In some families, both husband and wife are
opium addicts. About 80% families are short of rice, depending mainly on cassava
and the collection from the forest.
According to my door-to-door interview, because of the lacking of sufficient forested land for
shifting cultivation, most of the villagers in Ban Nam Deang have to do seasonal jobs outside their
village for a living. The present trend towards poverty and the increasing insecurity of the future, to
a large extend, activates their traditional opium addiction.
POVERTY, OPIUM AND ILLITERACY
Lanten’s present situation, to a large extend, is closely connected with their low education rate
and opium smoking. Before liberation, there were no primary schools in their village, and none of
them had any formal schooling. Only after 1975, “ethnic minority schools were set up in all the
provinces in which there were large ethnic minority populations” ( Abhay 2003: 251), providing the
children of minority villages with basic education, and partly in order for some of them to be trained
subsequently to serve as primary school teachers in their home districts. The result is that Lanten
villagers aged 35 and over are almost illiterates. Some of them only had one or two years’
non-formal education, a program designed chiefly for the training of adults, promoted by
international organizations like CWS (Church World Service), UNESCO and UNICEF (United
Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund).
It should be emphasized that nowadays the
local governments, such as Luang Namtha provincial government, in many ways makes honest
attempts to improve the schooling in ethnic villages, but according to my interviews, none of the
Lanten primary schools gets any funds from the governments. Some international organizations,
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such as ADB, UNESCO, UNICEF, CWS and EU actually funded some education programs in
ethnic villages. They provided funds to build new schoolhouses, and support ethnic minority
children to go to school. For example, of the 11 Lanten primary schools interviewed, 6 of them
were funded by ADB and EU.
In Laos, general speaking, though Lanten pupils’ learning conditions have been improved, they
still do very poorly in school performance. According to my investigation of the 12 villages and 11
primary schools in north Laos, their literacy rate is among the lowest ones in Laos. Based on the
235 households interviewed, among the 1349 Lanten inhabitants aged 6 years old and above, there
are 891 have never been to school, accounts for 66.05%, 245 had left school, accounts for18.16%,
and most of them only had one or two years’ schooling. There are 213 are at school, only accounts
for 15.79%. Of this population, there are 423 boys and girls at the age of 6-16, among them only
207 are at school, the dropout rate is 51.06%.3 It should be noted that, most of the pupils now are at
Grade One or Grade Two, one or two years later, they probably drop out of school and take care of
their younger brothers or sisters, or work for their families. It should also be noted that the illiteracy
rate of the female is much higher than that of the male. Of the 671 female, 74.66% had never been
to school. Another notable point is that inhabitants above 40 years old, the illiteracy rate is as high
as 95.07%, while the female is 98.88%. The following family case can serve as a good example:
Family case I:
▲〓○
49(0) 50(0)
═
△═
26(0) 27(0)
2
22(0) 23(0) 17 (0) 14(3)
10(0) 6(0)
4 months
(Notes: “▲” refers to the informant interviewed; “△” refers to male and “○”, female; “〓” refers to marriage
relationship; “∏” refers to brotherhood or sisterhood relatioin; “” refers to patrilineal decent relation; the number
refers to age and the number in parentheses refer to the years of schooling the person had)
There are 12 people in this family, 10 of them are 6 years old and above, but none of them
have had any schooling. They mainly cultivate upland rice and corn in their traditional way, only
enough for seven months. For the rest of the year, the family members, both yang and old, have to
3
For the details, please see Table 1, 2 and 3.
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do odd jobs in other villages or go to the mountains to collect bamboo shoots for a living. At the
time we interviewed the family, they only have 2 piglets and 8 chickens, the animals and poultry
raised are not for sale but for religious rituals.
According to my field research, one of the key causes resulting in poverty is illiteracy.
Scholars such as Wang (1990), Tan (1993), Ma and Gao (1998), Han (1999), Postiglione, Yang and
Zhen (2000) explored the mutual relations between poverty and education. They argued that
poverty is one of the main factors preventing poor children from achieving academic success, and
no one doubts about it. But this paper tries to show that the real cause of poverty is the prevailing
illiteracy. Any ethnic groups want to get rid of the poverty, should firstly get good schooling. It is
known that the economic development in ethnic minority regions, on the one hand, is restricted by
education and talented persons; on the other hand, education and talented persons, in turn, will react
on the development of the local economy. Because of illiteracy, the Lanten villagers are still
following their ancestors’ way of living, keeping the slash-and-burn farming, and mainly
self-confessed consuming lifestyles. In general, they still live a life that is virtually little touched by
the modern world. They carry on their daily life as they have done for centuries. For example, in
Ban Nam Ke Noy, the villagers are isolated not only geologically but also ideologically from the
outside. The following case study implies some insightful ideas for us to gain a better understanding
of this situation.
B.Nam Ke Noy lies deep in the mountains, northeast of Luang Namtha district,
it is about 39 kilometers away from the Namtha city. This Lanten village has 232
inhabitants comprising 36 households. There is no electricity, no tap water, nor
clinic and shop either. There is a quite good schoolhouse in this village, which was
funded by EU (European Commission) in 2002. In the first school year of 2006,
there are 20 students at school. They have two teachers, one of them is Tai Lue, and
the other is Tai Dam. They are all from Luang Namtha District. One of them go
home for weekends regularly, twice or thrice per month, and often absent for class.
According to the teachers, in each school year, what they can get from the local
government are only some chalks, text books and six ball pens, nothing else.
Because it is difficult to access to, no governmental officers came here to care about
the schooling, the teachers here show no responsibility for their teaching, according
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to most of the informants. There are 195 inhabitants aged 6 years and above,
among them there are 130 have never been to school, 41 had left school. There are
62 aged 6-16 years old, of them only 20 are at school now. The drop out rate
amounts to 68%.
In this village, the production system is mainly based on traditional swidden
farming of upland rice, corn and cotton, poultry, and pig rearing and on
service-oriented survival activities such as seasonal agricultural work. Only a few
families have a little paddy field, and most of them cultivate upland fields. They
mainly live on upland rice, corn and cassava. Some of the families also grow cotton.
Only 40% families have enough to eat all year round. There are over 30 opium
smokers, some of them mainly live on by working for the local villagers and selling
bamboo shoots.
Another key problem in the region was the widespread consumption of opium. In the 12
Lanten villages I have interviewed, more than one third of the adults are opium addicts, in some
villages, the addicts even account for two thirds, who spend most of their time smoking at home.
The following examples can help you gain a better understanding of the situations of the opium
smoking families.
Family case II:
〓○
54(0)
▲〓○
34(0) 33(0)
17(0)
12(0)
9(0)
In this family, there are 3 adults are opium addicts, the couple and the informant’s
mother, and all of them had never been to school. When the night we arrived at the
village, we happened to witness the 34-year-old informant beat his wife just
because she over-smoked his share of opium. The family has not any land, because
they sold it for opium smoking. They do not have any domestic animals and poultry,
either. They work for the Hmong villagers for opium and food. In their straw hut
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there is almost nothing but some old pots and pans, pieces of ragged straw mat and
worn-out blankets. The children are all ill-fed, what’s more, they do not have any
chances to go to school.
Family case III:
═
63(0)
△≠○〓▲≠○
32（0)
38(0)
○〓△
22(0) 24(0)
15(3)
One day when I entered one of the families, the housewife was preparing for opium
smoking on the bamboo mat, her husband was besides her, also waiting for smoking.
On seeing our entering, they just greeted us by a grudging smile and went on their
own business, as if we were not there. There are six people in the family, the couple,
the housewife’s mother, one daughter, who has just got married, and one
15-year-old son. They have no land, which had been sold two years ago, and grow
nothing. They have no pigs and chickens, either. Because both of them are heavily
addicted smokers, the couple now is too weak to do any manual labor in the field.
They are mainly supported by their children, who do odd jobs for the Hmong
families for some rice and opium. Last year, their son, it is said, was one of the top
students in his class, was forced to give up his schooling to earn money for his
parents’ smoking. The old woman, now is over 60 years old, also has to go to the
mountains everyday to cut firewood for sale.
During my field work in another village, I was also told that one of the families in this village,
both the husband and wife are opium smokers, sold thier one-year-old daughter for 200,000 kip, only
about 20 US$. They have sold their land. Now they mainly live on by doing seasonal jobs to the
Hmong next to their village, and when it is needed, going to the forest to gather bamboo shoots or
cutting firewood to sell in the market in Namtha.
What should be noted is that, this is not a unique case in the Lanten villages I visited. In some
other villages, there are even three or four opium addicts in a singe household. It is hard for me to
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remember how many times I happened to meet the addicts were preparing or smoking opium when I
interviewed them. Sometimes, I stayed with them for a whole morning or afternoon, just watching
them smoking, lying on the mat. Most of the addicts smoke three times a day, often spending nearly
six hours per day and costing about 30,000 kip. In this circumstance, they can do nothing but smoke
at home. Although in recent years some control programs including strengthening the law and its
implementation against drugs trafficking have been carried out by some international organizations
and the local government, none of them worked efficiently. Opium smoking still prevails in most of
the Lanten villages. It is clear that opium control needs a high degree of public awareness and
support in order to be implemented successfully.
CONCLUSION
In general, there are four main factors which hinder Lanten students from doing well in their
academic performance.
Firstly, they are socially, economically and politically marginalized. The “tribal” minorities
often receive inferior education which is usually characterized by inadequately trained and
overworked teachers, as well as inadequate funding, facilities, and services. Though some of the
Lanten students have good schoolhouses funded by ADB or EU, in general, they are still in poor
conditions. Most of the lowly paid teachers are overworked. They are mostly from the other ethnic
groups, asigned to teach by the local government, and none of them are willingly to teach in the
villages for a long time. They are always finding ways to leave for better places. The teachers in
Lanten villages get their sallaries every three months, only about 26 US dollars per month. Except
for the funds from some international organizations, the Lanten primary schools get nothing from
the central or local governments.
Secondly, comparative and historical research shows that there have always been factors
within the schools and classrooms operating against minority children’s adjustment and academic
performance. Among the subtle mechanisms that have been found in such a situation is the lowered
expectation of teachers and administrators. This is true for Lanten in Laos. For most of the village
schools, there is only one teacher, teaching all the courses. No one cares about the teaching results.
Because of the historical and social factors, Lanten in Laos are always treated as inferior ethnic
group by their societies. The teachers in Lanten communities are mainly from the dominant ethnic
group, they consciously or unconsciously treat their students with very low expectations in
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academic performance, and so do the school administrators. This inevitably hinders the students
from successful academic achievements. According to my interviews in Lanten primary schools, as
long as the kids go to school on time, keep quiet in the classrooms, they will be regarded as good
students. In most of the cases, students have no chances to discuss in the classroom and usually
have no homework and other activities after school. In their notion, schooling is just sitting in the
classrooms and listening to the teachers. This treatment by society at large and by the schools affect
how the minorities perceive and respond to schooling. Structural barriers or discriminations in
society and school are important determinants of low school achievement among minorities.
Thirdly, due to the influences of the historical experiences, the majorities in the society,
especially the local government officials have a stereotyped views of “tribal” minorities like Lanten,
namely, they are always connected with the expressions of primitive, backward, and illiterate. For
example, in Oudomxay, there are only two Lanten villages, which are surrounded by other ethnic
groups. Lanten there, more or less, are suffering from inferiority complex. They always feel that the
neighboring ethnic groups, especially the dominant one, like the Lao Theung and Hmong, always
look down upon them, and insult them. For instance, in Ban Nam Tong, there in no primary school
in the village, the students there have to go to school in a Lao Theung village, which is 3 kilometers
away. Because of their inferiority complex, there are only 6 of 30 boys and girls aged 6-16 are at
school, and all of them are boys. That’s to say, all the school aged girls are out of school. The
dropout rate is as high as 80%. According to most of the villagers, not having their own primary
school is the direct cause of the high dropout rate, they do not like to send their children to school in
the Lao Theung village, because their kids are often insulted or beaten by the Lao Theung children.
Often after a couple of days at school, the Lanten kids would not go to school any more. There were
more than 15 boys and girls registered when the school began, but now there are only 6 are at
school.
Fourthly, Lanten parents often have passive attitudes towards schooling. They do not believe in
the importance of “getting a good education”, and do not regard education as one of the important
means to success in life. For example, most of the Lanten elders say that more schooling makes kids
lazier. As one of the Lanten villagers says, “If the kids go to school, they will loose the chances to
learn how to work in the field. Spending several years in school, they still could not find any jobs in
the town. What’s more, they learn nothing useful but became lazy, and are not willingly to work in
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the field any more. So, it is a waste of time and money to send kids to go to school.” The parents’
attitude inevitably has negative impact on their children’s academic performance.
Lanten’s present situation, to a large extend, is closely connected with their low education
rate and opium smoking. As stated above, Lanten people still depend on subsistence cultivation
system. Because of illiteracy and opium addiction, Lanten people are culturally, socially and
economically isolated by the outside world. This, to a great extend, restricts them to break away
from the old traditional ideas, which in some sense prevents them from adopting advanced
technology to adjust the production system. In this sense, problems aroused by illiteracy are
greatly blocking the economic development in Lanten communities. Therefore, this study argues
that the economic development in ethnic minority regions must be focused on the development of
school education. Additionally, it also argues that, more specifically, opium addiction, to a large
extend, inevitably accelerates Lanten’s progression towards chronic poverty and social degradation,
and, in some sense, a passive attitude towards life and development.
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