Solutions to issues in education system in Cambodia

Solutions to issues in education system in Cambodia

      I.            Introduction

         Education is very important for people around the world. So we need education to build up human resources for the development of our country and it is also important for development of child. Every country has their own strong and week of educational system. Nevertheless, educational system in Cambodia suffered seriously during Khmer Rouge Regime from 1975 to 1979. During 1975 to 1979 all schools were destroyed and all the people who have high knowledge were killed especially teachers. After that period, we live as we reborn. All people have nothing for their life like everything seems to be new. We have to rebuild up the building, schools, and the system of education again. So the government tried to improve it by cooperate and collaborate with external aid and NGOs. The state also provides free for primary and secondary education to all citizens in public school and also citizens shall receive education for at least nine years. Nowadays, we can see that the students have no pay the fee; they still have to spend money on other things such as stationery, textbooks, contribution fee and so on. Moreover, some provinces students are asked to pay  money to teacher for fee; this is the problem that prevent student in poor families from attending school. However, Cambodian people still meet with the three mains problems of education such as poverty, low salary for teacher, and corruption.

   II.            The main problems of education system in Cambodia

A.    Poverty

            While the Kingdom of Cambodia is rich in natural resources, periods of war and internal conflict have left it one of the world's poorest countries. Cambodia's poor people almost 4.8 million and 90 per cent of them are in rural areas. Most of them depend on agriculture for their live, but at least 12 per cent of poor people are landless. Between 6 to 11 years old, Cambodia has about a half a million Cambodian children have no access to school, then 50% of those who entered grade one dropped out of school and had to repeat the class. Those problems are caused by family financial problem. Because of poverty parents have not enough money for all their children to learn and attending the school. Especially, girls will not let to school if in their family meet with the financial problem. Their parents will choose their son to school and let their daughter to find a job in order to get money to support their family. The thing that happened is because of Cambodian culture. Parents always think daughter no need to study much as son. Moreover, in rural area has no school for student to learn. The school is far away from their house.

B.    Low salary for teachers

           As we know teacher in Cambodia especially public and secondary school  get low salary for their teaching. Sometimes the salary they get is not enough to support their family and for their spending every day, so it cause of teacher lack of commitment in teaching because they receive a small amount of salary about $150 to $200 per month. Then, they need to find others job to support their incomes for survival. In Because of that problem teachers are struggled to find another job to support their family so they will less of attention in teaching students. Moreover, the way of their teaching will not good enough to share to their students because the salary is not enough so it makes them feel not satisfied on their job. In addition, teachers sometime support their income with a second job. This can affect their own attendance at school, and can put pressure on the amount of time they have to prepare their lesson.

C.     Corruption

               The 2011 corruption Perception Index, which measures the perceived levels of public-sector corruption in 183 countries, Cambodia ranks 164th in the order of increasing levels of corruption (Transparency International, 2011). Not only high-level officials but also ordinary lower-level officials are involved in corruption in Cambodia. Thus, Education, in particular, is seen as one of the more highly corrupt public services in Cambodia. Parents would need to pay off teachers, head masters, and ministry staff for good scores in examinations, good records in attendance, and school admissions and transfers. In some cases, they would need to pay money to avoid unfavorable and rough treatments of their children by teachers. This problem cause the students get poor education in their study and finish their high school life with little knowledge.

III.            Conclusions

           There are three main problems of education system in Cambodia like poverty, low salary of teachers, and corruption. In my opinions, first problem, the government should try to find a way to decrease the number of poverty in Cambodia. Moreover, the governments should build more schools in the rural area because nowadays there are not enough schools for students to learn and governments should focus much on security of students and improve it in order to cut down parents concern of their children. Second problem, the government should increase the salary for teacher because the salary, which the governments provide nowadays, is not enough for their spending. If the salary is enough for them. They will feel satisfied on their work and try harder in teaching students to get high knowledge because they no need to focus or find other job to support their life. For the last problem, low salary can make them do corruption in education system. When they don’t have enough salary, so they have to find a way to get more money and the way that they do is corruption from the parents and students to fulfill their need. I strongly believe that if the government provides the salary that fit the teachers’ need, so there will be a decrease or no corruption in our system of education. If the governments can solve these entire problems, the education system in Cambodia will be better.