Progress in the Cambodian Educational System

In Cambodia, access to basic education continues to improve. United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) cited reports that in school year 2010/2011, the overall rate of children enrolled in primary school was 95.2 per cent (95.8 per cent for boys and 94.6 per cent for girls), showing that the gender gap at primary level has essentially been eliminated. Gradually, illiteracy is declining because of the joint efforts of the Cambodian government and United Nations in providing compulsory primary education for all.

Millennium Development Goal Number 2 targets that by this year, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.  As part of its goal, an initiative has been launched in 2013, the Child-Friendly Schools. According to UNICEF, this program aims to prioritize children’s well-being and cultivate creativity by fostering inspiring learning environments, achieve gender balance, engage communities and families and ban corporal punishment. The initiative also pushes to get all school-age children into classrooms, despite their circumstances, and improve the quality of teaching and learning.

Back then, children have limited access to education and the number of schools available in the country is insufficient. But today, every child in Cambodia is given equal right to education and schools have increased. Part of the goal is to also identify children who are not in school and work with parents to allow their kids to get quality education.

Children who are part of the ethnic minorities lack access to education. Most of them are living in the northeastern part of the country that is described as mountainous and isolated. And because of their location, the community relies on its main source of livelihood which is subsistence farming. They are required to transfer from one place to another in search for suitable lands for growing crops, as part of the rotating farming method. This situation hinders children to access stable and formal learning environments. In addition, some ethnic children speak indigenous languages instead of the common Khmer language. To help these kids, UNICEF organized a pilot project that educates children from ethnic groups.

Another concern is that children who live with disabilities also struggle to stay in school. The Millennium Development Goal does not prohibit any one, even children with physical disabilities, to get educated. To address this concern, UNICEF mainstreams education for children with disabilities by developing inclusive education training module and training teachers on how to properly respond to the special needs of physically and intellectually disabled children

Through these initiatives, UNICEF believes that giving every child—no matter what gender, social status or physical condition—the access to education would bear positive results in the long run.

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