Education in Cambodia is controlled by the state through the Ministry of Education in a national level and by the Department of Education at the provincial level. The Cambodian education system includes pre-school, primary, secondary education, higher education and non-formal education.Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. Education Statistics and Indicators . Link retrieved on 12.30.2012. The education system includes the development of sport, information technology education, research development and technical education. School enrollment has increased during the 2000s in Cambodia. USAID data shows that in 2011 primary enrollment reached 96% of the child population, lower secondary school 34% and upper secondary 21%.USAID in Cambodia. Education . Link retrieved on 12.30.2012.
The Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI) finds that Cambodia is fulfilling only 68.2% of what it should be fulfilling for the right to education based on the country's level of income. HRMI breaks down the right to education by looking at the rights to both primary education and secondary education. While taking into consideration Cambodia's income level, the nation is achieving 86.2% of what should be possible based on its resources (income) for primary education but only 50.4% for secondary education.
Education in the constitution The Constitution of Cambodia establishes that the state shall protect and upgrade citizens' rights to quality education at all levels, guaranteeing that all citizens have equal opportunity to earn a living (Article 66).Constitution of Cambodia. Phnom Penh, 21 September 1993. Constitution.org, link retrieved on 12.30.2012. The state shall adopt an education program "according to the principle of modern pedagogy including technology and foreign languages," as well as the states controls public and private schools and classrooms at all levels (Article 67).
History Traditional Buddhist education Before the 20th century, traditional education in Cambodia was handled by the local wat, and the monks and priests ("bhikku") were the teachers. The students were almost entirely boys, and the education was limited to memorizing Buddhist chants in Pali.
During the period of the French protectorate, an educational system based on the French model was inaugurated alongside the traditional system. Initially, the French neglected education in Cambodia. Only seven high school students graduated in 1931, and only 50,000 to 600,000 children were enrolled in primary school in 1936. In the year immediately following independence, the number of students rapidly increased. Vickery suggests that education of any kind was considered an "absolute good" by all Cambodians and that this attitude eventually created a large group of unemployed or underemployed graduates by the late 1960s.Federal Research Division. Russell R. Ross, ed. "Education". Cambodia: A Country Study. Research completed December 1987. 'This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.'
The French model
From the early 20th century until 1975, the system of mass education operated on the French model. The education system was divided into primary, secondary, higher, and specialized levels. Public education was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, which exercised full control over the system. It established syllabi, hired and paid teachers, provided supplies, and inspected schools. An inspector of primary education, who had considerable authority, was assigned to each province. Cultural committees under the Ministry of Education were responsible for "enriching the Cambodian language."
Primary education, divided into two cycles of three years each, was carried out in state- and temple-run schools. Successful completion of a final state examination led to the award of a certificate after each cycle. The primary education curriculum consisted of arithmetic, history, ethics, civics, drafting, geography, hygiene, language, and science. In addition, the curriculum included physical education and manual work.
French language instruction began in the second year. Khmer was the language of instruction in the first cycle, but French was used in the second cycle and thereafter. By the early 1960s, Khmer was used more widely in primary education. In the 1980s, the primary school ran from the first to the fourth grade. Theoretically, one primary school served each village.
Secondary education also was divided into two cycles: one of four years teaching at a college, followed by one of three years taught at a lyceum. Upon completion of the first cycle, students could take a state examination. Successful candidates received a secondary diploma. Upon completion of the first two years of the second cycle, students could take a state examination for the first baccalaureate, and, following their final year, they could take a similar examination for the second baccalaureate.
The Cambodian secondary curriculum was similar to that found in France. Beginning in 1967, the last three years of secondary school were split into three sections according to major subjects — letters, mathematics and technology; agriculture; and biology. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, the country emphasized technical education. In the PRK (People's Republic of Kampuchea), secondary education was reduced to six years.
Higher education lagged well behind primary and secondary education until the late 1950s. The only facility in Cambodia for higher education before the 1960s was the National Institute of Legal, Political, and Economic Studies, which trained civil servants. In the late 1950s it had about 250 students. Wealthy Cambodians and those who had government scholarships sought university-level education abroad. Students attended schools in France, but after independence, increasing numbers enrolled at universities in the United States, Canada, China, the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).
By 1970 universities with a total enrollment of nearly 9,000 students served Cambodia. The largest, the University of Phnom Penh, had nearly 4,570 male and more than 730 female students in eight departments— letters and humanities, science and technology, law and economics, medicine, pharmacy, commercial science, teacher training, and higher teacher training. Universities operated in the provinces of Kampong Cham, Takeo, Battambang. In Phnom Penh, the University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Fine Arts offered training. The increased fighting following the 1970 coup closed the three provincial universities.
Destruction of the education system by the Khmer Rouge
During the Khmer Rouge regime, education was dealt a severe setback, and the great strides made in literacy and in education during the two decades following independence were obliterated systematically. Schools were closed. Educated people and teachers were subjected to, at the least, suspicion and harsh treatment and at the worst, execution. At the beginning of the 1970s, more than 20,000 teachers lived in Cambodia. Only about 5,000 of the teachers remained 10 years later.
Soviet sources report that 90 percent of teachers were killed under the Khmer Rouge regime. Only 50 of the 725 university instructors, 207 of the 2,300 secondary school teachers, and 2,717 of the 21,311 primary school teachers survived. The meagre educational fare was centred on precepts of the Khmer revolution; young people were rigidly indoctrinated, but literacy was neglected. An entire generation of Cambodian children grew up illiterate.
After the Khmer Rouge were driven from power, the education system had to be re-created from almost nothing. Illiteracy had climbed to more than 40 percent, and most young people under the age of 14 lacked any basic education.
Development History
Education began making a slow comeback, following the establishment of the People's Republic of Kampuchea. In 1986 the following main institutions of higher education were reported in the PRK: the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (reopened in 1980 with a six-year course of study) the Armchair Dang Faculty of Agriculture (opened in 1985) the Kampuchea-USSR Friendship Technical Institute (now Institute of Technology of Cambodia (TIC)) (which includes technical and engineering curricula) the Institute of Languages (Vietnamese, German, Russian, and Spanish are taught) the Institute of Commerce, the Center for Pedagogical Education (formed in 1979) the Normal Advanced School the School of Fine Arts.
Writing about the education system under the PRK, Trickery states, "Both the government and the people have demonstrated enthusiasm for education ... The list of subjects covered is little different from that of prewar years. There is perhaps more time devoted to Khmer language and literature than before the war and, until the 1984-85 school year, at least, no foreign language instruction". He notes that the secondary school syllabus calls for four hours of foreign language instruction per week in Russian, German, or Vietnamese but that there were no teachers available.
Martin describes the education system in the PRK as based very closely on the Vietnamese model, pointing out that even the terms for primary and secondary education have been changed into direct translations of the Vietnamese terms. Under the PRK regime, according to Martin, the primary cycle had four instead of six classes, the first level of secondary education had three instead of four classes, and the second level of secondary education had three classes. Martin writes that not every young person could go to school because schooling in towns and in the countryside required enrolment fees.
Civil servants paid (in 1987) 25 riels per month to send a child to school, and others paid up to 150 riels per month. According to Martin, "Access to tertiary studies [was] reserved for children whose parents work[ed] for the regime and [had] demonstrated proof of their loyalty to the regime." She writes that, from the primary level on, the contents of all textbooks except for alphabet books were politically oriented and dealt "more specifically with Vietnam." From the beginning of the secondary cycle, Vietnamese language study was compulsory.
Buddhist education
Before the French organized a Western-style education system, the Buddhist wat, with monks as teachers, provided the only formal education in Cambodia. The monks traditionally regarded their main education function as the teaching of Buddhist doctrine and history and the importance of gaining merit. Other subjects were regarded as secondary. In this way schoolboys — girls were not allowed to study in these institutions — were taught to read and to write Khmer, and they were instructed in the rudiments of Buddhism.
In 1933 a secondary school system for novice monks was created in the Buddhist religious system. Many wat schools had so-called Pauli schools that provided three years of elementary education from which the student could compete for entrance into the Buddhist lyceums. Graduates of these lyceums could sit for the entrance examination to the Buddhist University in Phnom Penh. The curriculum of the Buddhist schools consisted of the study of Cali, Buddhist doctrine, and Khmer, along with mathematics, Cambodian history and geography, science, hygiene, civics, and agriculture. Buddhist instruction was under the authority of the Ministry of Religion.
Nearly 600 Buddhist primary schools, with an enrolment of more than 10,000 novices and with 800 monks as instructors, existed in 1962. The Preach Samaritan Buddhist Lyceum —a four-year institution in Phnom Penh founded in 1955— included courses in Tali, in Sanskrit, and in Khmer, as well as in many modern disciplines. In 1962 the student body numbered 680. The school's graduates could continue their studies in the Preach Sihanouk Haj Buddhist University created in 1959.