2/02/2009

Teacher’s Salary and International Cooperation Get Cambodian Education Better

Cambodia has been facing many crises, including natural disasters, population growth, poverty, illiteracy, diseases, and suburb-urban disparities. These crises are mainly consequences caused by negative impacts from the country past history (Neau, 2004). For instance, during the Democratic Kampuchea or so-called Pol Pot regime (April 17, 1975 to January 7, 1979), Cambodia was in year zero (Ponchaud, 1978). Everything including education, economy, religion, infrastructure was complete destroyed.


These social and economic issues are enormous to be solved at once with one solution. But, one of the main solutions to these is education, which involves with all kind of people in the life-long learning; without education, Cambodia finds it hard to stand in an international arena. However, Cambodian education per se has also undergone critically dark period so far. Educational quality, facility, qualified teachers, curriculum, as well as school attrition rates are out of doubt (Pak, 2001).


Recently, many school buildings have been built and restored; educators at all levels have been and have trained. These have been done under the donation and financial support of national and international organizations and institution. Yet, despite this much effort, one main problem among others still needs solution badly.


This problem clearly results in dropout of school of children as Pok (cited in Barton and Sam, 2006) said that, “teachers taking money from students is also another key reason causing children to drop out of schools.” Teachers financially are in crisis to get survival; thus they are forced to betray their professionalism and conscience; they have to ask extra money from their pupils, besides taking official teaching time to work a second or third job. This ‘informal fee’ has leaded many pupils to quit class. This point of this case can be seen from an example of a girl named Pich Dy, living in Sangkat Chbar Ampov (Phon Penh); “The teacher asked me to stand up, … sometimes I was ordered to stand up for 30 minutes, because I did not have money” (Launey, 2007). Finally, at the age of 14, she was forced to drop out of school and it is unlikely that she can return to school back (Launey, 2007).

One anonymous teacher in Phnom Penh also said that the salary is not enough to pay for electricity or water basically, let alone on anything else (Launey, 2007). She also added that her colleagues and she took money from students for the test papers, course materials, or simply for attending the class. Likewise, another case from teacher’s side can be heard from another teacher in Kandal province. His extra income came from driving a motor taxi and he thought that ‘informal fee’ is as simple as a matter of survival (Launey, 2007).
This story happens in Phnom Penh city and it is no doubt that this will happen in all poor community all over Cambodia. This demanding for ‘informal fee’ is forcing Cambodian children to drop out of school because their parents cannot afford to pay.

One of the solutions to this problem is likely to be the enough amount of salary for the teachers. Rung, a president of the Cambodian Independent Teacher’s Association, believes that the quality of education as a whole will be improved if teacher’s salary is increased (Barton and Sam, 2006). If the teachers can survive with their salary, ‘informal fee’ will not be implemented. Therefore, the salary should be increased to a certain level that can be enough to pay for the expenditure. Teacher salaries are set to increase 15 percent annually, but the increases are hardly enough. According to Cheang (2008), at present, the primary school teachers are paid about 140,000 riel ($35) a month, lower secondary teachers get 200,000 riel ($50), and upper secondary teachers 240,000 ($60), while Vietnamese teachers get 150 US$ and Thai teachers get 200 US$ (KI MEDIA, 2006). However, teachers still find it hard to survive with this amount of salary due to the increasing price of goods in the market. So what is needed more?

The answer is international cooperation. Even though Cambodia has already depended on overseas assistance technically and financially for about half of the national budget, it is high likely believed that the best way is to raise teacher’s pay. It is high probable that if the pay is high, the teachers may not ask for extra money from their pupils; then the dropout rate might decrease; the quality of teaching and learning might be assured. The fact can be seen in a case of one school in Prey Veng province, Cambodia. There, a Japan family has helped improved the teaching and learning condition, and teachers in particular, by paying extra money more for teachers. Obviously, we acknowledge that this kind of assistance will help only in a short period of time. However, in the mean time, it is really a great remedy for this problem; that is “something is better than nothing” (IICD, 2007).
Therefore, beyond the provision of extra pay, the donors can provide the training too in order to guarantee the sustainability of the development and improvement. Another way which international cooperation can help is that the assistance can be used to conduct a weekly or monthly training workshop or seminar on capacity building which is useful in their profession including the mastery subject and pedagogical skills. From this, the teachers can not only get extra pay but also increase their knowledge and skills useful for their career and quality of education as a whole. Teachers are willing to join and they said they just wait to be called for workshop or training (Neau, 2004). This case in point can be seen in some international projects such as The Flemish Association for Development Co-Operation and Technical Assistance (Belgium), Agdar University College (Kristiansand, Norway), and Belgian Technical Cooperation (Provincial Teacher Training College Siem Reap, 2005). One component of these projects, though in different educational levels, ecologies, or setting, is to build teacher capacity. These are just a few examples only, not mentioning about JICA, whose assistance is tremendous in terms of fund. In short, besides guaranteeing the sustainability of capacity development, this kind of international cooperation is an urgent need for Cambodian education, particularly teachers at all levels.

As it has been mentioned above, in the mean time, through international cooperation, what can effectively contribute to solve the problem of teacher salary is to go to the place directly and immediately take action. The two suggested solutions, which are to pay for the teachers more and at the same time to train them both in content and pedagogical skills, will possibly be the effective remedy to this problem. However, to solve this problem more effectively and sooner, it actually needs not only international cooperation, but also national cooperation and the contribution from all kinds of institutions and people concerned. This process is challenging one and will not be achieved overnight, but will be a long-time effort, based on mutual and continual understanding, trust, respect and support.


References
Barton, C, Sam, R (Jul, 28 - Aug, 10, 2006) Corruption and poverty get school dropout blame। Phnom Penh Post. 15/15. Retrieved January 18, 2008, from
http://phnompenhpost.com/%20TXT/current/stories/1515/corrup.htm.
Cheang, S. (December 14 – 28, 2007A). ADB approves $27 million secondary education grant. Phnom Penh Post. 16/25. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from
http://sroeu.wordpress.com/category/adb/
Chhin, S. (2007). Developing Graduate Programs in Teacher Education: The Royal University of Phnom Penh, Paper Presented at UNESCO-APEID Hiroshima Seminar on “Innovation and Reform in Teacher Education in Asia and Pacific Region”, Hiroshima University, Japan, 4-9 December, 2007.
Dy, S. S. (2005) Basic Education For All in Cambodia: Policies and Strategies for Quality Improvement. Doctor Dissertation, Hiroshima, Hiroshima University.
Dy, S. S., and Ninomiya, A. (2003, December 18). Basic Education in Cambodia: The impact of UNESCO on policies in the 1990s, Education Policy Analysis Archives, 11(48). Retrieved [Date] from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v11n48/.
Institute for International Cooperation and Development. (2007). Something Is Better Than Nothing. Retrieved January 18, 2007, from (
http://www.iicd-volunteer.org/page_view.%20php?page=482&title=Something%20Is%20Better%20Than%20Nothing.
KI MEDIA (2006). Rong Chhun: The Teachers’ Voice. KI MEDIA, Retrieved January 18, 2008, from
http://ki-media.blogspot.com/2006/12/rong-chhun-teachers-voice.html.
Knight, K., & MacLeod, K. (2004). Education for all in Cambodia: Teacher status, social dialogue and the education sector. International Labor Office Publications. Retrieved January 18, 2008 from http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/papers/educa- tion/teachers-voices.pdf.
Neau, V. (2004). Ongoing Professional Development for In-service Cambodian Teachers of English in Secondary Schools: Contemporary Issues, Needs, and Future Direction, Doctor Dissertation, Hiroshima, Hiroshima University.
Pak, Th. (2001). Cambodia in the 21st Century: In Quest of World Class Development, Democracy, and Education, Doctor Dissertation, Ann Arbor: Fielding Graduate Institutes.
Provincial Teacher Training College Siem Reap (2005). Retrieved January 18, 2008, from
http://www.pttcsrp.com/coop_eng.html.

1 件のコメント:

匿名 さんのコメント...

hey guy, you've been writing good reviews, in a way as a real scholar as i know. keep up the good works.
cheers