This article examines the teacher recruitment policies of Laos and Malawi in relation to rural teaching motivation. It evaluates the policies and analyzes the main issues affecting such policies. The study is qualitative, largely relying on available literature such as policy documents from education ministries in Laos and Malawi, UNICEF, UNESCO and World Bank education reports, published journal articles, and any supplementary material available in both the print and online media among others. The study finds that strategies to attract teachers to the rural and remote schools in both countries mainly include rural or hardship allowances and housing schemes. However, due to lack of financial capacity, the strategies have not been fully effective. Thus, the study recommends for improvement of the strategies through readjustment and extension of the benefits to include better housing schemes, provision of in-service training to rural and remote teachers, improved promotion criteria for rural teachers, and increment of the rural or hardship allowances.

This study was conducted to investigate issues of quality assurance at the Arts Education College of Laos. The researchers interviewed participants from two main categories: directors and heads of sections. The study found a number of issues concerning quality assurance at the institution. First, it found that there was lack of a clear development policy which was manifested through the lack of vision on capacity building, failure to provide a clearly laid out plan or development agenda by the administration, failure to support in-service training and academic upgrading for lecturers, no clear focus on the development goals and unclear plans of dealing with the challenges that are impeding quality education at the college. The study also found that the college did not have any mechanism for quality assurance. In relation to this, it found that the state of quality assurance at the college was not satisfying. However, the administrators were optimistic that improvement was imminent.