Cambodia is in the process of rebuilding its education system, effectively shattered since the Khmer Rouge regime. Progress has been made over the last decade with the assistance of international agencies, but there is still considerable improvement needed, particularly in the areas of quality of education and gender equality. This paper will examine the current state of education in Cambodia, with a focus on girls’ education. Barriers that affect attainability and quality of education for girls, including constraints on education and later career attainment are explored. Actors who have the greatest influence on girls attaining education are considered. This paper provides an argument for a different, cooperative approach between the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and external actors to advance educational quality and opportunities for women in Cambodia.

Realizing education’s potential to spur growth is a priority for Cambodia. The country’s National Strategic Development Plan and Rectangular Strategy call for creating a competitive economy through knowledge and innovation. To lay a strong foundation, the Education Strategic Plan (ESP) focuses on two key issues: achieving universal access to high-quality basic education and promoting equal educational opportunities to increase income and employment.

This report reviews the issue of informal fees in Cambodian primary and lower secondary schools, where public education is, in principal, free for all. Informal fees are defined as fees “not officially sanctioned, approved, and/or collected by the state or local government as a prerequisite for school attendance”. This report focuses on two main types: fees for private tutoring and fees for specific educational processes. Fees for private tutoring consist of payments to teachers in exchange for tutoring organized by the school or the class teacher to supplement regular class instruction. Private tutoring as it has emerged in Cambodia may be considered a form of informal fee, given the current legal framework endorsing free education for all. Fees for specific educational purposes cover items such as handouts and examination work sheets, along with better evaluations and even advancement from Grade 9 to Grade 10.

This paper examines the politics of teaching Khmer Rouge (KR) history from 1979 to 2012—the conditions of which fluctuated through the political regimes and atmospheres in Cambodia. The paper also briefly examines the background of the Cambodian education system since 1979, which has strong implications on the teaching of KR history. Past attempts at teaching KR history reveal a gradual transition from a politically-charged KR history curriculum to one that emphasizes an objectivity that is predicated on accuracy and the absence of political bias. Immediately after the collapse of the KR regime in 1979, KR history was taught as propaganda. The teaching of KR history disappeared during the 1990s as a compromise for national reconciliation, political stability, and peace. In the early 2000s, the teaching of KR history was marginalized by political conflicts. From 2007, the teaching of KR history has turned toward an emphasis on objectivity genocide education, in which the teaching of KR history emphasizes national reconciliation, peace building, and genocide prevention. This paper examines the social, economic, political, and pedagogical challenges to teaching genocide in Cambodia over the past three decades since the fall of the KR regime in 1979. It also explores how history, politics and political conflicts determine and/or influence how post-conflict countries like Cambodia teach genocide.

Following the July 2013 election where the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) gained a surprisingly narrow victory over the opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party (CNRP), the newly formed government led by the ruling CPP promised a raft of new reforms. In one such reform effort, the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport (MoEYS) increased the monitoring of the annual national high school examination, which took place on August 4-5, 2014. About 90,000 high school students nationwide sat for the exam. With the increased monitoring, the passing rate fell to 25.7 percent from last year’s 86 percent. The low passing rate prompted MoEYS to announce a second exam scheduled for October 13-14. The introduction of MoEYS’ reform effort drew media debate over whether or not the increased monitoring was positive for both the government and for the improvement of education in Cambodia overall. In order to gauge public opinion, The Asia Foundation conducted a snap poll, which took place between September 13 and 19, 2014.

On October 5, 1966, UNESCO and ILO published the Recommendation Concerning the Status of Teachers. In 1994 UNESCO proclaimed that October 5th would be celebrate as World Teacher’s Day; a day on which the contributions of those working in the field of education would be recognized all over the world. The theme chosen for World Teachers Day 2012 was “Take A Stand for Teachers”, this theme was used by teachers’ unions around the world to address issues that affect teachers in within their education sectors. In Cambodia, the Cambodian Independent Teacher’s Association (CITA) organized national celebrations to recognize World Teachers Day 2012. CITA was established in March 2000 and formally registered with the Ministry of the Interior (MoI) in July 2001. CITA is the only independent, nonpartisan, non-profit, non- governmental teachers’ union in Cambodia, and represents close to 10,000 teachers through 21 branches across the country. Through national and international campaigning, CITA advocates for the improvement of the condition and status of teachers, and lobbies the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to recognize teachers’ rights.

This report on ‘Education and Fragility in Cambodia’ is part of a larger research project of the INEE Working Group on Education and Fragility involving three other country case studies – Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Liberia. The aim of these ‘Situational Analyses of Education and Fragility’ was to strengthen the evidence for understanding education’s role in exacerbating and/or mitigating fragility and, ultimately, to lead to the development of recommendations for policy, planning, and programming strategies and best practice, both at country level and beyond. The purpose of the present report is to examine the impact of education on fragility in Cambodia, both through a review of the drivers and dynamics of fragility, and an analysis of the ways in which education interacts with these drivers and dynamics.