Page 81 - AEI Insights Vol. 7 2021

Low et al, 2021

the ToT committee (to conduct regular meetings (monthly) to discuss planning/issues of TOT
for close communication with UM team, to contribute additional content for the TOT modules
(UM will be the primary contributor), to participate in a 1-week trainer's training at UM, to
plan the implementation of TOT in NUOL i.e. learners, time, resources, etc., to implement
research training for faculty members/colleagues (by trained staff/committee) and to
evaluate/review implementation results). The proposal of this project committee was in
response to the strategic purpose of the ASEAN University Network (AUN) for regional
cooperation on academic and higher education collaboration. In addition, it further continues
the good relationship and cooperation between both universities, for research leadership and
higher education development.

Method in Action

At the beginning of this project, interviews and surveys were carried out with experienced ToT
trainers to devise strategies for the development of an effective ToT training programme for
the Laotian participants. Discussions and needs analysis were organised with ToT
experts/experienced academics (including the project team members) and the collaborators in
Lao PDR. Subsequently, the development of a training programme commenced and the
curriculum was constructed by the researcher team based on the feedback/input received from
the research instruments. The later part of the project involved the delivery of the ToT
programme to selected/identified Laotian academics from the pool of our collaborators. This
exchange provided the confidence for the participants/individuals to continue and sustain the
training programme at their institutions through knowledge transfer, training and development
based on a system of mentors and mentees facilitated by the researcher team and expert trainers.
A minor part of this project is the (comparative) analysis of the Laotian academic discourse in
research and academic writing. Data was collected from a questionnaire that was distributed to
the local respondents who taught/learnedEnglish and had some interest in research writing.
Further discussions/communication with the respondents were carried out to clarify findings
and results. Focus Group Discussion were conducted to find out the ToT experiences and
approaches for capacity building and global engagements in the Lao context. The focus group
discussion covered two aspects; (a) Impact of this ToT initiative in order to assess the
sustainability factor of TOT for future planning and recommendations and (b) ASEAN
Contents. The ASEAN Contents sought to seek suggestions or recommendations on what kind
of local Laos content and how they can be included in the TOT presentations and whether the
insertion of Laos content was helpful in making the concepts and terms clear.

Challenges faced in implementing the UM-NUOL ToT Programme

• Challenge 1- Lack of research experience
Research is new and challenging in Lao PDR even though many of the academics have had
experience in conducting research projects and wrote their own theses during their university
days. Some of them thought of their research projects during their university course as
assignments to complete their degree. Not much emphasis was placed on the purposes of doing
research and how they were supposed to conduct it.
Counter Measure 1-Mentor-mentee system: The academics or staff in Lao PDR needed
training on how to do research in order to become full-fledged academics because they
recognize that teaching and research are deemed important for academics. This was made

81