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List of Projects by Countryand Training (MSCERT) to popularise poems from Marathi text-booksthat had been set to music.District level training followed. In all 948 resource persons trained10,122 trainees who, in turn, became resource persons at block level andtrained 170,353 teachers.SMART was evaluated by an action research project involvingMSCERT, supervisory personnel like Education Officers, DeputyEducation Officers and chief cluster level heads. It found that primaryteachers had become more vocal, self-reliant and confident in using thecompetency-based textbooks. They had also been exposed to therelationship between syllabus and textbooks. Their content knowledgehad also increased. Planning and preparation of educational materialshad awakened them to new possibilities and MSCERT’s follow-upprogramme further strengthened and consolidated the gains alreadyachieved.ContactMr Vijay Sevekar, Joint Director, Maharashtra State Council of EducationalResearch and Training, Pune, Tel: 020-476938, Fax: 020-477090.LAOS13. Basic Education (Girls) ProjectParticipation rates in basic education among ethnic minority children aremuch lower than among students from other backgrounds in Laos.Ethnic minority girls in particular have low levels of attendance at schooland drop out early. This low participation serves to reinforce the currentsituation where relatively few women are involved in mainstream socioeconomicdevelopment.The curriculum and structure of schooling appear to be unattractive tomany ethnic minority groups. The majority of ethnic minorities speaktheir own language, while the language of instruction in formal educationis Laos. Furthermore, ethnic minority families are very poor and live bysubsistence agriculture. The curriculum offers relatively little that isrelevant to ethnic minority children, particularly girls.36 © Snapshots of Primary and Secondary Education in Asia-Pacific