On 29 December 2021, the Vientiane Office of the Embassy of Hungary in Bangkok organised the first alumni meeting of former Stipendium Hungaricum students.
The history of studying in Hungary as a student from Laos goes back to the 1980s when around 300 hundred Lao students participated in various study programmes across the country. Following their graduation, the former Lao students of Hungary achieved unparalleled successes in Laos in the fields of agriculture, forestry, home and foreign affairs, transportation and public service, among many others.
The next generation of Lao alumni of Hungary started as freshmen of a Hungarian higher education institution supported by the Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship Programme. Laos became a partner country of the scholarship in 2014 with 15 supported arriving students while today 150 Lao students have the opportunity to acquire a European degree in Hungary.
The vast majority of Lao students study in English and the study programmes of social sciences, international relations, international economic relations, business management and finance are the most popular.
On 29 December 2021, the Vientiane Office of the Embassy of Hungary in Bangkok successfully organised an alumni meeting for 34 former Stipendium Hungaricum Scholarship holders. László Takács, head of the Vientiane Office greeted the arriving participants and reviewed the mission and history of the scholarship and the important role of Laos and the alumni network.
The greeting was followed by the presentation of the head of the local alumni group with the introduction of the Laos-Hungary Alumni Club. Since some of the participants have never met in person before, after the presentation everyone in the alumni group introduced themselves: where they graduated, where they work and what they miss the most in Hungary.
Based on their responses, all of them is employed: 37.5 % of them at an international non-governmental organisation, 29.2 % in the private sector, 25 % in the public sector and 8.3 % in other sectors. Among the participants were alumni working at the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Forestry, Finance while others work at the UNICEF or the Asian Development Bank etc.
The two and a half-hour long, first alumni meeting in Vientiane was a great success and the Embassy of Hungary in Bangkok was happy to commit to the organisation of future alumni meetings once every year.