General Education or Professional Education for the Education of Teacher: Cambodia

Cambodian education is very unique in a sense of historical development perspective; to be more obvious, Cambodia has been through warring situations, namely the Pol Pot regime, followed by Vietnamese supervision during early 1980s. In attempting to recover and develop Cambodian education, basic education and teacher training (education) have been given priority since then (Duggan, 1996). Regarding with teacher education, the question might raise: what should teachers be provided/educated—general education or profession, even now? To answer this question, for Cambodian context, general education for teachers will still be demanding, due to some reasons and situations Cambodia is facing now.

To compare the good point of general education and profession in terms of self advancement, surely the profession trains them to be specialists and on the other hand it promotes the discipline; this kind of education has proved benefit for a highly developed and industrialized country. However, Cambodia is still under-industrialized country. On the other hand, recently Cambodia has financed 1.7% of its GDP and 14.6% of Government Spending on Education as a whole (World Bank, 2008) However, please be notified that teacher education is also considered as a tertiary level of education; then tertiary level of education as a whole shares the proportion of only 13.6% compared to Primary level, 64.6% (World Bank, 2008). Therefore, can Cambodia afford such education?

Regarding the quality of teachers themselves, it has been observed, believed, and notified that the quality of teachers in overall and at all level is poor. As it has been mentioned that Cambodia used to go through dark period, teachers have been selected from city streets and village pathways (Duggan, 1996). They were provided just a short training (ranging from three weeks, 1 or 2 months). Particularly, the courses were to broaden their general knowledge rather than teaching skills or pedagogy. Once again, as quoted by Duggan (1996), one senior ministry official noted that 55,000 out of 65,000 were unqualified.

Moreover, shortage of teachers is still a pressure for Cambodian education. After the genocidal era, 75-80% of the teachers and higher education students fled the country or died (Pellini, 2005). To be more obvious, “only some 87 of the 1,009 teachers in higher education prior to the Khmer Rouge period had survived (cited in UNESCO, 2008).” This implication is clear that before reaching the provision of profession to students from teachers, it still requires general education first. Additionally, there are 6,365 primary schools housing 2,461,135 students (MoEY, 2006), with 51,212 teachers (World Bank, 2008). As a result, the pupil-teacher ratio is 56 in 2003 and 50 in 2006 (World Bank, 2008). This ratio is very high compared to other low-income countries including Vietnam (21), Myanmar (30), Laos PDR (31), or Mongolia (33) (World Bank). This has implied that more numbers of teachers are still needed urgently at this level of general education.

According to the Education framework, vision and policies, as outlined in the Education Sector Support Program for 2006 – 2010, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEY) has set three objectives for its teacher develop programs. Furthermore, the program lists two targets and indicators. First, it is to recruit 5,000 new trainees per annum; and second, 3,000 primary teachers should be upgraded to become basic education teachers at six Regional Teacher Training Colleges [Centers] (RTTCs) by 2010 (UNESCO, 2008). This has implied that basic education teachers are still in need and focus.

This short report cannot embrace all other aspects besides looking at the shortage of finance, low quality and quantity of teachers as a whole. Moreover, looking at the priority of Cambodian education framework, vision and policies, it can be seen that general education for teachers is more pressuring and urgent than professional education for them. However, this does not mean that professional education for teachers is ignored or will be ignore; it is a matter of time, money, willingness and effort. This really requires firm cooperation from international and national bodies concerned. Internally, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of Cambodia perhaps is the most responsible though it also requires cooperation and collaboration from schools (principals, teachers), parents, students and all kind of people, in order that Cambodian Education system as a whole can be improved nation-wide, region-wide and world-wide.

Reference:

Duggan, Stephen J. (1996). Education, Teacher Training and Prospects for Economic Recovery in Cambodia. Comparative Education, 32:3, 361-376.
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (2007). Education Indicator 2003 – 2007. Phnom Penh: MoEY.
Pellini, A. (2005). Decentralisation of education in Cambodia: searching for spaces of participation between traditions and modernity. Compare, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 205-216.
Pich, S. (1997). Educational destruction and reconstruction in Cambodia (p. 43-49) in Educational Destruction and Reconstruction in Disrupted Societies. UNESCO.
UNESCO (2008). State of Teacher Education in the Asia-Pacific Region. UNESCO.
Word Bank (2008). Retrieved 24 July, 2008, from http://ddp-ext.worldbank.org/ext/DDPQQ/showReport.do?method=showReport