In his presentation to the Education Forum in May 2003, His Excellency Tol Lah set out his clear vision:
When
I reflect on what I saw as the main priorities for reform in 1994, I realise
that many of the fundamental issues for effective education reform remain
unchanged. Firstly, it remains
critical to continue to focus on a limited number of key policy priorities and
programmes which will drive the reform process.
Secondly, we must continue to provide a clear framework for co-ordinating
the resources of the sector from Government and donor partners.
Thirdly, and most importantly, we must sustain the culture of change
within the education system through transmitting goals to all stakeholders,
especially teachers and parents.
NGOs
working in the education sector recognise the considerable progress that has
been made over the last ten years and reiterate their commitment to supporting
and collaborating with the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and the
Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). They
note and affirm the following achievements:
·
The production of policy
documents and planning processes such as the National Poverty Reduction Strategy
(NPRS), the Education Strategic Plan (ESP), the Education Sector Support
Programme (ESSP), and Education for All (EFA).
·
The Priority Action Programme
(PAP) process of setting published targets for the disbursement of funds. Whilst the implementation of PAPs has been far from perfect,
the system has delivered increased resources to schools and institutions.
·
Enhanced co-operation between
the Ministry, donors and NGOs.
·
The collaboration between the
MoEYS and NGOs in implementing the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction Programme on
Girls' Scholarships.
·
The increase in absolute
enrolments in all sectors.
·
The number of schools that have
been constructed, particularly in remote areas
and the increasing provision for wells, latrines and access for children
with disabilities.
·
The draft proposal for
Curriculum Development which emphasises a coherent structure, efficient use of
resources and flexibility at local level.
·
The draft Education Law which
guarantees institutional status, autonomy, good governance, quality assurance
and partnership.
·
The improved procedures for
security in setting and marking the Grade 12 examinations.
·
The increasing engagement of
young graduates and their impact on the reform process at local and national
level.
The
MoEYS and NGOs now have evidence that teachers and school directors are willing
to take on new ideas, use and develop new resources and provide for interactive
learning when they receive devolved funding and have regular, well-informed
guidance and feedback at the local level. Programmes
such as the MoEYS' Education Quality Improvement Project (EQIP) and Child
Friendly and Gender Sensitive Schools Project, (supported by UNICEF/KAPE)
present good models of efficient and accountable management, greater community
involvement, gender equity, supportive supervision and training and
better communication, resulting in quality
improvement in school and classroom environments and more purposeful teaching
and learning.
While
recognising the progress that has been made, the NGO community has concerns
about the key issues that remain. In
general, issues raised in 2001 and 2002 have shown only marginal improvement or
have not been resolved:
Access
and inclusion:
Figures
for enrolment for 2003 indicate improvement
over 2001. In 2002-2003, 89% of
primary aged students (an increase of 3%) and 19% of secondary school students
(an increase of 2%) were enrolled in school1.
However, repetition rates in Grades 1 and 2 remain high, and dropout and
repetition rates in both primary and secondary schools continue to cause
concern. Related statistics such as
population changes and stay-in-school figures need updating.
Girls
continue to represent 47% of the enrolment in Grade 1.
Figures drop to 41% of enrolment in lower secondary school and 33% in
upper secondary school[1].
There is a big decrease in girls' participation between Grade 6 and 7.
In primary schools, female teachers represent 40% of the work force,
declining to 22% in upper secondary and below 20% in post-secondary levels[2].
There continues to be a need to focus on proactive strategies in both
demand and supply to ensure equitable access for disadvantaged groups such as
females, the disabled and ethnic minorities.
Finance:
The
RGC commitment of 18.2% of the national recurrent budget in 2002 and the
promised increase to 20% in 2005 is highly commended. However, the problems of revenue collection and the low level
and late disbursement of funds continue to undermine the progress of educational
reform. To date, only 80% of PAP
funding for 2002 has been disbursed, none has been disbursed for
2003 and yet PAP deliveries will be cut off at the end of December 2003[3].
This failure of the Executive to honour the Budget approved by the
Legislature raises serious questions regarding on-going issues of transparency
and financial accountability. Despite assertions to the contrary, NGOs have considerable
evidence from the field that unofficial payments to schools and teachers
continue unabated, so disadvantaging poor families who are unable
to pay the fees.
Non-formal
education and vocational training:
The
low education enrolment and achievement of the children of the poor of today
suggests that poverty will be passed along from this generation to the next[4].
The
problem persists that the learning needs of a significant percentage of children
and youth have not been met through the formal system, and brings into question
Cambodia’s ability to compete in
global markets.
Poverty
rates are higher for households in which the head of the household has had
either no formal education or only some primary schooling.
In rural areas, the poorest quintile has a net primary school enrolment
rate of 50%, significantly below the 75% in the richest quintile.
Less than 5% of rural children aged 12-14 in the poorest quintile are
enrolled in lower secondary schools as compared to 25% in the richest quintile4.
Children from the poorest quintile are extremely under-represented in
upper secondary schools and in tertiary education.
The
inadequacies in the provision of non-formal education and vocational training
continue to cause concern. The
Asian Development Bank Poverty Analysis 2003 states: “Current education sector
policy focuses little on adult basic education and literacy (ABEL) This is
surprising, given the preponderance of adults (particularly females) with little
or no education in the labour force and the significant poverty reduction impact
in the short and medium term from ABEL. It
is also surprising given the urgent need for adult education in substantive
areas such as health, gender sensitivity, agricultural practices and
entrepreneurial skills.”
The
following priorities have been identified by NGOs working in education:
NGOs
strongly support the NPRS, which identifies the stalled Public Administration
Reform as critical to the capacity to achieve Government policies.
NGOs reiterate the need for
a higher level of allocation and distribution of funding to ensure that teachers
are adequately remunerated for their work and that planned educational reform
can be implemented. The unplanned and competing priorities in the Ministry of
Economy and Finance results in the intermittent release of funding to the MoEYS.
Unless these problems can be efficiently resolved, it is difficult to
justify the current shift towards direct budgetary support.
Recommendations:
·
Ensure that Ministry of
Finance concentrates on its role of financial planning and that the MOEYS is
allowed to take responsibility for the administration of the sector budget.
·
Ensure transparency,
predictability and accountability in the allocation and disbursement of
funding. Utilise the developing
banking system for the transfer of cash to local level.
·
Ensure that funding mechanisms
and levels are clear so that informed judgements can be made regarding
performance against benchmark indicators.
·
Reform PAP funding so that it
drives the system rather than perpetuating previous difficulties.
·
Agree a glossary of financial
management terms to clarify the operational meaning of terms such as budget,
allocation, commitment, mandate, disbursement, expenditure, financial year
limits etc.
·
Link teachers’ salaries to
the cost of living and ensure that there is a clear plan to increase
teachers’ salaries to represent a living wage over the medium term.
Develop effective and efficient human resource systems so that
education staff is rewarded
for additional duties and effective performance.
·
Provide clear guidelines and
adequately fund effective training, follow-up support and supervision to
ensure that schools and clusters can plan effectively for school improvement
(instead of rushing to expend a windfall delivery before the reporting period
has expired).
·
Continue to improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of textbook distribution to ensure targets in the
ESSP are met.
2.
There are serious teacher
shortages, particularly in remote areas which results in high primary school
pupil/teacher ratios; for example 80:1 in Siem Reap, 77:1 in Koh Kong, 73:1 in
Pailin, 69:1 in Kampong Speu[5].
Large classes undermine the push towards quality improvement.
Redeployment strategies are not working effectively due to inadequate
incentives, lack of housing or rental allowances for high costs areas, cultural
issues connected with female teachers being away from their families and
unacceptable, lengthy delays in receiving salaries and incentives.
Recommendations:
·
Ensure wider use of locally
residing contract teachers, provide them with opportunities for training and
upgrading so they have some prospect of entering the teaching service, and pay
salaries and allowances on time.
·
Lower the entry point to
pre-service training for local students to the end of Grade 9 for districts
where there is no upper secondary school.
3.
Corruption
at all levels is hampering the reform process.
Recent, well publicised schemes in a number of areas to obtain illegal
payments for manipulating the deployment and promotion of teachers are a serious
concern. There is a gap between the
published national policy and the reality in schools and institutions. This
dichotomy results in unofficial payments to teachers, charges for additional
lessons that students are pressured to attend, payments for jobs, places in
university and exam passes etc. These
informal costs adversely affect individuals' access to education and
particularly discriminate against the poor.
Unofficial payments also jeopardise relationships between school staff
and the community so that those staff who wish to act professionally, and
therefore with the greatest potential to implement reform, are the ones most
likely to leave the education sector. Achieving
quality improvement and eliminating unofficial fees is not possible without
realistic teachers' salaries.
Recommendations:
·
Regulate and thereby utilise
unofficial payments so that they can be effectively and transparently
redeployed to provide services to vulnerable children and to pay teachers.
·
Review teachers’ salary
improvement projections with the prospect of providing an acceptable level of
payment in the medium term (see 1. above)
4.
The production of
national ESP, ESSP, EFA and NPRS has been commended in the first section of the
report. However there is now a
proliferation of plans, goals and documents and a large number of monitoring
activities set up to follow these processes which appear to cover the same
ground. These need to be
prioritised into concrete and
realistic action plans.
Recommendation:
·
Harmonise, integrate and
prioritise the various plans and fund them adequately
(expenditure rather than allocation only) so that there is consistency
in goal setting and implementing educational priorities and strategies.
·
Co-ordinate and rationalise
the monitoring processes
5.
Models
of good practice have been highlighted in the first section of the report.
There is a growing body evidence that some educationalists at the
grassroots are developing effective strategies for school management and better
quality teaching and learning. These
initiatives are sometimes undermined by a lack of understanding on the part of
officials at divisional, provincial and national level of successful school
improvement procedures. Decision
makers at all levels should be selected on the basis of technical competence
rather than on seniority or preserving existing practice.
Recommendation:
·
Ensure that officials at all
levels are aware of current initiatives, that they have experience of
observing best practice and are willing to constructively support improvement
strategies through positive encouragement.
·
Select the best school and
classroom practitioners for decision making posts in schools and the system in
general.
6.
The NPRS highlights once again the need for a high quality tertiary
sector, both to improve the weak teaching capacity throughout the sector and to
spearhead the development process in Cambodia. Increased access through
proliferating, unregulated private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) is not
the answer. Students/parents pay hard-won tuition fees for unclear quality
and value, and public HEIs remain unsupported by government and are required to
accept 50% free students
Recommendations:
·
Clarify the respective roles of the MoEYS/Dept of Higher Education and
the newly created Accreditation Committee of Cambodia regarding the Royal Kret
of March 2002.
·
Government/Donors/NGOs should work in collaboration to address key
quality and regulatory issues as well as create long-term policy on
scholarships, institutional autonomy, merit-based salaries, research, etc
As NGOs working in education in Cambodia, we see ourselves working in partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to address these recommendations; they are offered in a spirit of partnership and with our willingness to work together for the good of the children of Cambodia.
[1]EMIS
- Education Statistics and Indicators 2002-2003
[2]Gender
appraisal of ESSP 2002/2003 Performance, May 2003
[3]MoEYS/Donor/NGO
meeting Sept 2003
[4]National
Poverty Reduction Strategy 2003-2005
4
National Poverty Reduction
Strategy 2003-2005
[5]
EMIS - Education Statistics and Indicators 2002-2003
For
further information on the issues raised in this paper, please contact: |
The
NGO Education Partnership (NEP), NEP@online.com.kh
, #023 987 114 |
Board of Directors: |
Kila Riemer, projdev@icc.org.kh |
Kou
Boun Kheang, kheang@SCN.online.com.kh
|
Kurt
Bredenberg, kape.cambodia@online.com.kh
|
Regina
Pellicore, mkskhmer@online.com.kh
|
Richard Geeves, geeves@online.com.kh |
EDUCAM Dr. Luise Ahrens, mkskhmer@online.com.kh |