Education in Cambodia and Philippines, the Long and Rough Road Ahead

By Sou Sophorn Nara from Cambodia and Maria Aurora Fajardo from the Philippines

 

“Everyone has the right to education.”

— Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights

 

The sun perfectly rises both in Cambodia and the Philippines, driving thousands of tourists to both countries yearly.

But the two South East Asian nations now face a looming concern clearly linked to their countries’ bright future – the growing number of children and youth staying out of school because of inaccessible public education especially to the poorest families.

One of these is 19-year-old Tit Pove of Saang District in Cambodia. He no longer went back to school after finishing primary school in 2009 because he needed to immediately work to support his poor family.

He now works as a waiter in a restaurant in Phnom Penh, making USD 50 per month to support his family.

He is not the only out-of-school in the family. His younger sister, now aged 17, dropped out from the same school when she was 15 to work in a garment factory. Both their incomes would help their family who merely depend on vegetable farming.

“I don’t want to continue to study anymore…My family is poor and we don’t have money,” he said, adding that he could not concentrate in studying because he wanted to help his poor family.

In the eastern Manila city of Marikina in the Philippines, going to school for eight-year-old

Lawrence Legaspi depends on whether his mother, a single parent of three, has money on her pocket for a day.

“Sometimes I go to class. If Mama has no money for the day for my fares or school project, I just stay at home,” says the Grade 2 student at the Marikina Elementary School.

The school is approximately three kilometers from Lawrence’s home, and he just walks to and from school if he has no fares but needs to go to school for exams.

“Of course I hope to graduate from high school someday and go to college,” says the boy, “but it all depends if Mama has money to send me.” His father, he says, already left them for another family and his mother has no regular work.

Norma Pinero, 48 years old, still dreams of having at least one of her six children graduate from college. But the dream is becoming more and more elusive, because she only earns about USD 121 monthly as household helper, a pittance in today’s high school and college education fees.

Three of her children are already contented with finishing high school because they had to work as well to augment income. Three are still in school – one in high school and two in colleges.

“I take on double jobs just to earn the yearly tuition. We have only our determination and hope,” she says.

Pove and his younger sister, Lawrence, and Norma’s children are among the growing number of children in the same situation mainly because of lack of support from both governments to improve access especially by the poorest families.

Government education statistics in Cambodia in 2011-2012 show that two thirds of two million children enrolled in primary school could not reach secondary school. The whole kingdom only has about 7,000 primary schools and 45,000 teachers, of whom 500 never received training on teaching pedagogy.

A 2009 report of the international non-government organization (NGO) Save the Children said the Cambodian government still lacks 30,000 teachers yearly – some have already retired, passed on, or simply quit their jobs for more lucrative opportunities in other offices.

The situation is no better in the Philippines. In 2011, the lone party list representing the youth in the Philippine House of Representatives, the Kabataan Party List, gave a stark picture on the survival of children and youth in Philippine schools today: Out of 100 students entering Grade 1, only 21 will graduate from college, but are still not sure if they would land a job.

The 79 others usually become laborers, contractual workers, informal vendors, or worse, social outcasts such as drug addicts or prostitutes, said the party list in its statement.

Even the data from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for both countries are not as enticing, but clearly tell that something could be and should be done immediately.

UNICEF says that in Cambodia, access to primary school remains a pressing dilemma as poverty drives many children into labor and away from school. Limited access to quality instruction, inadequate facilities and high dropout rates still undermine the kingdom’s education sector, UNICEF adds.

UNICEF in its report then gives a clearer picture: One in four primary school children are aged 11 or older and struggle to keep up with their younger peers. About a fourth of Cambodia’s primary schools have no full six grades, and in the schools that do, fewer than half enrolled in Grade 1 are expected to finish primary education.

UNICEF says that in the Philippines, most out-of-school youth lack interest in studying and would rather work to augment income of their poor families.

Every school year opening here is met with issues on shortage – of classrooms, teachers, textbooks, buildings, chairs, and safe roads to schools, yet one million new children enter the education system each year, UNICEF says.

Poverty, as UNICEF already points out, keeps children in both countries away from school, as well as teachers from staying in their jobs.

Keo Sarath, Education Manager of Save the Children in Cambodia, says teachers with low incomes or benefit packages often use their spare time to do extra work instead of preparing lesson plans and focusing to provide quality teaching.

Low salaries of teachers (average of only USD 50 to 100 monthly) and poor living conditions also contribute to the teacher’s lack of motivation to provide quality teaching, says in the Save the Children report published in 2009.

Tol Savoeun, a primary school teacher of government’s Boung Trabek primary school in Phnom Penh says she wanted to quit job and find other better way for living. She says her USD 70 salary could not support her two children for food and study. She has to go on private extra classes for children to make more money to survive.

“Before, I could earn much from teaching in extra classes but now no more money  because rich and middle class family send their children to private schools instead of sending them to my extra classes,” she says. She says only poor children remain in the school who no money to pay for her extra classes.

Poor parents, like that of Pove’s, often need their children to help earn extra income. Children of poor families often drop out or repeat lessons because they usually miss classes just to help their families earn a living.

“When people are not educated, they do not have critical skills to think wise and they could not change their mindset. This creates big consequences for the next generation,” Sarath says.

In the Philippines, high incidents of child labor are also directly linked to poverty in rural and urban areas. In central Philippines, for instance, children as young as six years old provide extra help for a poor sugar farm worker’s family either by selling charcoal or helping do some back breaking work such as cutting sugar cane and carrying them to trucks for milling.

“Going to school now becomes a luxury for these poor families. They would rather have their children work with them rather than go hungry,” says Jose Noel Olano, executive director of the Philippine Agrarian Reform Fund for National Development (PARFUND), an NGO which provides scholarships for selected children of sugar farm workers.

Low salaries and benefits for Filipino teachers also make the job less attractive at the cost of providing quality education. Similar to their Cambodian counterparts, many elementary school teachers especially in the provinces take on extra jobs just to earn income, such as selling food and gift items or insurances.

Inability for children to stay in school is not only linked to poverty, but also to the quality of education they receive there.

Low quality of education forces children to drop out, says Sarath of Save the Children, citing teachers and children’s lack of manuals and text books. The Ministry of Education and NGOs print volumes of books every year but still failed to completely address the need of teachers and children, especially those who live in remote areas, he says.

“Both teachers and students need teacher manuals and student text books in all grade and all subjects. They rotate the books so that everyone can have opportunity to use them,” he says.

On the other hand the contents and the length of present text books have not met the minimum requirement of children to learn about what is relevant to their real life situation, he adds.

In the Philippines, national achievement tests continue to post low scores, thus indicating a problematic quality of education, says UNICEF.

One good thing despite the gloomy picture, though, is that the governments of both countries are committed to two important initiatives of the United Nations (UN), where both are member states: the Education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), both of which are concluding in 2015.

EFA and MDG are two important frameworks which UN member states adopted pertaining to education. EFA’s six goals aim to improve access to primary education, while MDG No. 2 calls to provide universal basic education also by 2015.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines basic education as the education considered as the “foundation of lifelong learning” for children, youth and adults.  It is now considered equivalent to ‘elementary’ education. Basic education takes 12 years in the Philippines, and nine years in Cambodia.

Chan Sophea, Department Manager for primary education in Cambodia’s Ministry of Education, says 96 per cent of school-age children are enrolled this year in public primary schools. The figures may rise if those registered in private schools are included, he says.

“I hope the government will achieve the EFA goals by 2015. We now almost reached our targets,” says Sophea.

In the Philippines, the Department of Education (DepEd) continues to promote private-public partnerships to further improve quality of and access to education in public schools.

In 2011, DepEd Secretary Armin Luistro issued Department Memorandum No. 35 emphasizing the need to address resource gaps in public schools through improved and expanded partnerships between the public and private sectors through the department’s Adopt-A-School Program (ASP).

“Education is indeed for all. Hence, it is just right to ask for everybody’s support to achieve EFA target of the department,” Luistro said in a statement issued February 2011. The department’s public-private partnership through ASP, he said, will benefit the country’s 44,000 public schools and help the department deliver quality education services.

Part of its ASP is Brigada Eskwela (School Brigade), a DepEd project that engages parents, local government officials, civil society and business groups to collaborate in making schools “more conducive” to learning, the department said. The project has already won an award from a private publishing firm for its contribution to education.

Some NGOs are trying to fill in, if not, collaborate with governments to fast-track reforms towards better access to primary education.

In the Philippines, for instance, the NGO Foundation for Information Technology Education and Development (FIT-ED) has been working for several years now to contribute in EFA goals by “harnessing information and communication technologies within communities for learning”.

In 2007, it collaborated with DepEd and a popular cola drink company to launch the program Education for All Radio (EFAR), tapping the radio as an “effective medium for expanding access to education” especially in the remote and marginalized areas.

FIT-ED says in its website that EFAR since its launching has already reached 400 schools in 11 school divisions nationwide, engaging elementary school science and math teachers and also community leaders, women’s and youth groups and grassroots organizations. DepEd, in particular, organized face-to-face training teacher workshops and community discussions.

“Providing basic education for all in a country like the Philippines…where resources for the achievement of various development goals are limited is a great challenge,” says FIT-ED in its official website. “This program focuses on the use of information and communication technologies – including radio…more expanding access to basic education services especially for children, youth and adults in poor, remote and conflict-afflicted areas, and those with special needs.”

Save the Children, UNICEF and other education partners are working to promote access to basic education by assisting the government to construct more schools, train teachers, improve education school management, provide text books, develop and improve school curriculum and provide students and teachers with credit schemes.

The two countries continue to face uphill challenges – both in implementing their own plans and in responding to non-government calls — all geared towards improving access to basic education.

The Ministry of Education in Cambodia has developed a five-year education strategic plan (2009-2013), for instance, to reach MDG on universal education by 2015, exactly three years from now.

The strategic plan involves, among many others, (a) constructing more schools in remote areas to nationwide to bring schools closer to where people live; (b) improving the quality and efficiency of education services by using all forms of capacity development for teachers in learning and teaching methodologies at all education levels; and (c) improving and modernizing curriculum and textbooks, and achieving the 1:1 pupil-textbook ratio.

The Ministry also aims to promote education efficiency by reducing repetition and dropout rates and increasing completion rates at all education levels through enrolment campaigns (announcing free-of-charge education) and campaigns to raise the awareness of education value among parents.

Reforms such as these would eventually increase people’s trust on public education system in Cambodia and address recruitment of primary school teachers, Sophea of the Ministry of Education points out.

Calls for education reforms in the Philippines, meanwhile, continue to come not only from NGOs but even from lawmakers themselves.

In April 2012, Senate Education Committee head Edgardo Angara said in news reports that increasing state spending for education, not adding two more years in the education cycle, would help reform the country’s education system.

He was among several legislators from both chambers of the Philippine Congress raising apprehensions over the K-12 program which began in June 2012, adding two more years in school reportedly to improve quality of education.

With the K-12 program, says the Kabataan Party List and other critics, the DepEd is cooking its own “recipe for disaster” because it still needs about PhP 140 billion (USD 3.3 billion) just to wipe away the age-old shortages in classrooms and textbooks and to accommodate the growing number of children and youth not in school.

For school children like Lawrence from the Philippines, meanwhile, going to school for now all depends on fate.

“Maybe tomorrow, Mama has enough money. That means I could go to school again.”