Theme:
Access & Quality of Education
Location:
180 communities in
Kampot, Kandal and Pursat Provinces, CAMBODIA
Duration:
2019-2021
Beneficiaries:
- Marginalized Children from poor communities, children who have dropped out of school and migrant children
- Parents and family members
- Commune Council members and Village Chiefs
- Local teachers/educators (including those from CSO networks)
- Local youth volunteers
- Educational authorities at provincial and district levels, Commune Councils, School Support Committees, technical staff and trainers from the Ministry of Education, NGOs working in the localities and other stakeholders
Background
Cambodia has seen significant social and economic transformation in the last decade. The country has embarked on a reform process of increased decentralization and de-concentration (D&D), aiming to create a sub-national governance system that operates with transparency and accountability and promotes local development and delivery of public services that meet the needs of its citizens.
Despite considerable progress made, this process has suffered some delays and is far from complete, also in the education sector (which has an annual budget of around 17% of the national budget over the last 10 years). Some remaining educational challenges include:
- completion rates in primary and secondary are still not satisfactory and drop-outs still all too common
- the number of primary school teachers in the country is decreasing rather than increasing
- public awareness of the importance of an education is still low, keeping demand for better access and quality in education limited
- persistent challenges in the enrolment of children in lower and higher secondary education
- continuing inadequate and insecure school environments
- restricted gender equality
Research and evaluations in the education sector have increasingly recognized that capacity development interventions in the Cambodian education sector have not been sufficient to bring about comprehensive and sustainable improvement because they focus mainly on individual department functions without sufficient attention to the local authorities and communities. This is the challenge we aim to help overcome with this project.
Our Actions
With this project, we help strengthen the capacity, performance and accountability of local communes in planning and delivering community development services. We also improved the access of educationally marginalized groups to quality educational services. Key in all this is enhancing the Community Centers role as a local mechanism for ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. Our activities include:
- Building the capacity of commune councils in designing and managing education development initiatives (e.g. training on needs and means assessment, strategic planning, devising education development plans, managing and monitoring new educational services of community centers)
- Implementing tailored educational services based on each commune needs and constraints:
- Reinforcing literacy and numeracy, and promoting reading as essential to learning
- Positive Parenting Education
- Setting up Community Pre-Schools to ensure Early Childhood Education
- Awareness campaigns around a culture of peace, non-violence, and global citizenship
- Providing inclusive education for persons with disabilities and children in vulnerable situations
- School Re-entry programs for drop-outs and migrant children.
- Needs-based Scholarships
- Development of youth volunteerism
Donor: European Union