About 14,378 out of 100,000 vulnerable children in 10 provinces at risk of dropping out of primary school received full education support from World Vision International projects and have been reinstated in school.
The organization learned that poverty was the main reason why these children risked dropping out of school at a young age.
The project was conducted in Kampong Chhnang, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Takeo, Kampong Thom, Kratie, Preah Vihear, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap and Battambang provinces, World Vision International said on August 8.
It said some children were able to go to school but did not enroll while some enrolled but did not go to school, including children in difficult situations. There were others who dropped out of school at a young age – six to 14 years old.
Mat Somit, senior project manager of World Vision International in Cambodia, said Cambodian children drop out of school at a young age as their parents usually migrate due to family problems. When they are older and have the opportunity, they are embarrassed to go to school. There is also a lack of schools and teachers.
The main issue being poverty, causing parents to migrate or move frequently, thus they are not able to study consistently or end up dropping out.
The number of children who gained full education support through World Vision can be considered a success but it was still a small number, as there are 150,000 children in the 10 target provinces. Seventy eight percent or more than 100,000 children experienced various problems, including dropping out of school. But due to limited resources, the organization was not able to support all of them yet.
“The 14,000 children enrolled in this project is a small portion as we still lack financial resources, so we couldn’t support all the children,” Somit said. “There are many children facing dropout from school even though they’re in school, especially those in the second and third grade.”
The project called “Cambodian Consortium for Out Of School Children” (CCOSC) is aimed at promoting equitable access to quality education for children in 638 primary schools in 10 provinces for three years from 2023 to 2025.
It focuses on providing key learning materials, bicycles, school building and building the capacity of primary school teachers to promote children’s learning and support for slow learners with financial support from Educate A Child Fund by Education Above All of Aide et Action and World Vision.
However, children under World Vision’s full education support continue to face the risk of dropping out as their parents have to migrate far away for work.
“All the children we registered are poor and vulnerable,” Somit said. “But, we face a challenge now. We registered them but some still gave up, especially children who followed their parents to work outside [the country], such as Thailand.”
One of them was Hos Saloeut in Svay Chek district, Banteay Meanchey, who acknowledged that many children risk dropping out of school at a young age, especially children whose parents are migrant workers.
In fact, her three granddaughters almost dropped out of school when they were less than 10 years old because they followed their parents who went to work in Thailand three years ago.
“Their parents migrated to work in Thailand and brought the children with them but I thought it was not good, so I brought them to stay with me and also sent them to school for three years,” Saloeut said. They are aged 11 and 12 and are in fifth grade, while the youngest is eight years old and is in second grade, she added.
Due to poverty they have to miss some classes because they have no money and have to walk around two kilometers to school. “When I can’t find money, they don’t go to school and they don’t have a ride to school,” Saloeut said.
The 43-year-old farmer observed that other children in the village are not highly educated too because their parents stayed far away. She worries about the future of children in the village who dropped out at a young age because their parents are forced to migrate to work in Thailand.
She said not having a proper education or being illiterate means that they would be easily cheated. “They will also face danger when they go to work in another country and at a young age, they could face health problems,” she added.
Mean Veasna from Kirivong district, Takeo province, said children dropping out of school continued to occur in his area, mostly due to poor income which forces students to leave school and help their parents.
“Children do not want to study when they see their parents struggling, so they stop going to school,” he said.
Principal of Sangkroh Vichea Primary School in Takeo province, Nget Thorn, said poor students in his school received support from World Vision’s project, including bicycles and school supplies. However, the dropout rate remains a concern, albeit with a small decline, he shared.
The dropout rates were low because his school only had a small number of students but some large schools had bigger dropout rates.
Thorn saw that most of the students who dropped out came from poor or migrant families and violent families where children are forced to earn money. Some children asked the authority to “raise their age in birth certificates” in order to work in factories when they are in sixth grade.
“Vulnerable children come from poor families or are experiencing domestic violence. Some parents migrate to other countries, so they leave their children with the grandparents and their children drop out of school,” he said.
The principal also mentioned the risk of dropping out at a young age could make their families poorer in the future due to their lack of specific skills.
Expressing her concerns over the dropout rate, Ouk Chhayavy president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) said a decline in education was a “national crisis”.
“A country with a high dropout rate and declining education sector means that there’s a serious crisis with regards to living and the economy,” she said.
Chhayavy called on the government to pay more attention to people’s lives and improve the education sector to ensure people gain a higher education.
“We urge the government to ensure that people live a decent life, without any crises,” she said. “Thus, the government should help improve the education sector and livelihood crisis of migrant people.”
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport spokesperson Khuon Vicheka said there are support policies for primary and kindergarten students, such as school meals and scholarships to students holding level one and two ID Poor cards. They receive subsidies to support their studies from grade one to nine.
As of the 2023-2024 school year, nearly 150,000 students nationwide were given scholarships.
“Scholarships not just encourage them to attend school when they are six years old, but it is a way to help them complete their education,” she said.
In the same school year, more than 400,000 children received formal education, an increase nearly four percent compared to the 2022-2023 school year.
In May, Prime Minister Hun Manet urged the ministry to extend two extra hours and full day classes to 50 primary schools in Cambodia to strengthen the foundation for children and soft skills from the elementary level.
Accordingly, there were 19,341 general schools and kindergartens operating in the 2023-2024 school year. Of that, 8,891 are kindergartens, 8,252 primary schools (854 private), 1,342 secondary schools (99 private), and 897 high schools (316 private).
