By CARE

by Channy Chheng

Up to 50 students in one classroom – it is hard to concentrate (photo: CARE)

It is already two months that I have been working for CARE in Germany. The time has gone by really fast. Anyway, I think it was enough time for me as I gained a lot of experience and knowledge about culture, working environment, the way of living, education, transportation and also politics. All this has broadened my horizon and will help me in my professional future. I will fly back to my country with many interesting things to tell my friends and my family.

This is my last blog entry for CARE. You might be reading it when I am already back in Cambodia. For the last entry, I chose to write about education in Cambodia. I have worked as a teacher for the last seven years and this is a topic close to my heart. And I hope that it will have helped you to learn more about my country.

The education among my siblings

I am from a big family, seven sisters, and I am the only one who had the opportunity to study at university. Because of my parents’ financial constraints, they could not support all my sisters until high school. They had to quit after elementary school and come to help the family in the fields. In Cambodia, the traditional farming requires human and animals forces rather than machines. I always think that it is really unfair for my sisters, but we could not find another way. Naturally, parents would like to educate both equally, but if forced to choose one, they choose to educate boys. This is partly due to personal security, girls are also not allowed to travel long distances and live away from their family to attend upper secondary schools. Most of the high schools in Cambodia were built in the provincial towns, therefore girls from smaller villages simply cannot reach them.

Unfortunately not all girls in Cambodia get the chance to go to school (photo: CARE/Fokuhl)

Poverty keeps the children away from education

We cannot deny our bitter history during Khmer Rough Time. The war has hindered Cambodia’s development, especially the education. This was three decades ago, but I have seen that the education system in Cambodia still continues to be plagued by many difficulties, including an acute shortage of qualified teaching staff, poor morale due to low salary levels and lack of suitable teaching materials. Moreover, the number of students dropping out of school remains a big concern.

Even though enrolment in general school is free, there are still a lot of students dropping out every year especially in the elementary school. Reason seems to be poverty. How can the parents keep their children in school with their family income less than one dollar per day? Furthermore, children are often expected to stay at home to look after their younger siblings, do housework or help their families in the fields.
“I will quit the school next year and look for a job in the garment factory to help my family,” said a student of mine responding reluctantly to me when I ask them about their future. Some family are very poor, they can’t even afford studying materials, clothing or a bicycle for their children.

Education doesn’t work well with corruption

Students always say that their parents give them 2, 000 to 2, 500 riels (about 0.5 euro cents) of pocket money. That is enough to buy some breakfast and snacks during the break, but they also have to pay their teachers before they walk into class. Any students who pay are given good scores; those who don’t pay get lower scores. This is unacceptable.

The corruption in school is potentially deteriorating the education system. I find that the education in Cambodia is as poor as most of its population is. I quite often hear the complaints from parents regarding the quality of their children’s education: Their knowledge is far worse than their grades show.
One outrageous example of corruption is that teachers often demand 15 to 20 Euros each semester from any student who wants to get good grades. This amount is even higher if a student fails and still wants to go to study in the upper grade. The other practices which are seen as corruption include selling of exam questions to students or selling of fake certificates of accomplishment.

The corruption not only happens in the general school, it also appears in the higher institutions. Recently Prime Minister Hun Sen called on officials to enhance school quality, particularly at higher education institutions even thought the enrolment rates have been booming in recent years. He complained about master’s and Ph-D program and called them “too easy”. “Some master’s and Ph-D students can not even type on computers.”

I do support what my prime minister mentioned regarding the so-called too easy-to-earn degree. There are thousand of graduates every year, but the qualifications of those do not meet the standards needed in professional life. Their real knowledge is not equivalent to the degree they are holding.

So far, I have been devoting myself to the education for seven years, as now I am 27. I know the government is trying very hard to make the education system better, but it is still not enough. However, it seems to be overlooking the teachers who stand in the front line of education. So to strengthen the education, increasing teacher salaries must be prioritized. Moreover, the teachers have to adhere to their professional code.

Tags: Asia, Cambodia, Cambodian Diary

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 at 13:17 and is filed under Cambodian Diary, Channy Chheng, Projects Asia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.