Teach Cambodian/Khmer Language to Foreigners (part 1)

My findings

Why Is Student Achievement in Rural Areas Low?

Dramatic increase of NER is a positive sign for RGC to achieve MDGs and EFA goals by 2015. Commonly, the rapid expansion of educational access may shrink its quality in both developed and developing nations. During the period of rapid expansion of the school system for the last decades, the educational partners put their interests on the reasons of dropout, how to increase the number of enrollment in basic education and gender disparity in education rather than the achievement of those children. It is important to notice that there were only a few studies have been done on student achievement in Cambodia so far, but those studies primarily focused on urban and their project-piloted areas. Their result cannot be generalized to other areas, particularly the rural area where more than 80% of Cambodian people are living. However, the large-scale studies done by CESSP of MoEYS in 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2010 and by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 2005 covered all areas. Still, their main focuses of their studies were error analysis and curriculum development rather than what caused the variation of student achievement.

It is also important to highlight that the student achievement was found to be one of the factors that forced students in rural areas to leave schools early than expected in the late studies done in Cambodia (Ang, 2011; MoEYS, 2008; No, 2009; Sam, 2010). Consistently, in other contexts like Pakistan, New Zealand, Honduras and America, the lower achieving students were most likely to leave school earlier than their counterparts (Bedi & Marshal, 2002, Finn, 1989; King et. al, 2008; Maani & Kalb, 2005). As can be seen in Figure1.1, the percentage of students who finished primary education level was still low in rural Cambodia. One of the causes of this problem may be the low achievement. Therefore, it is crucial to rise up the realization on determinants of the student achievement in Cambodia.

http://www.chea.edu.kh/dl2014/soeung_sopha.pdf