Hallelujah. Progress!

Where did the time disapear to … ?  February was filled with a constellation of events and activities.

Singing the National Anthem

In early February we had The Annual Congress Conference where all directors from the 5 districts together with Education NGO’s gathered to share their findings for the year.   The three common denominators:  provide more money for schools, improve road conditions and encourage regular attendance both from teachers and students.   That is everyone seemed to agree that more money was needed in the rural schools to improve the quality of education in resources and in training.  Build better roads for easier access to schools -to reach the teachers and children.  Added to this, everyone felt that it was necessary for the ministry of education (from top down) to take serious measures with attendance.  In other words to continue to encourage both teachers and students attend school regularly – especially those teachers who teach in schools that are in isolated areas and are hard to reach. 

The Minister of Education addressing the directors

Ironically, a week after the Annual Congress Conference took place, the Minister of Education (from Phnom Penh) came to visit one of the ‘model’ schools in the village.  He also came to talk to directors about the new ‘5 -year strategic education plan’ to improve the quality of teaching throughout Cambodia.  He promised that more money would be spent on Education and that teacher’s salaries will be raised over a period of 5 years.  Another key issue that the minister of education raised was the relevancy for the Multilingual Education programme that is presently being implemented in Mondolkiri and Ratanakiri Provinces.  He wanted to ensure that there was a continued focus on ‘minority inclusion’ in the two main northern eastern domains.

Other news, The Chinese New Year was a big event throughout Cambodia.  Here in MDK everyone was busy with their comings and goings in preparing for the big day.  The two Korean girls who occasionally share the office with us (6 colleagues and I) prepared a big dinner for us all – the education staff.  The main meal consisted of ‘Kimchi’  a traditional fermented Korean main dish made with vegetables and a variety of seasonings described as spicy and sour.  We also had Chinese rice wine to greet the New Year in.

A new teacher who teaches with her baby

Kevin and Tralore went south, to Sihanoukville, to enjoy the warmer weather. (Tralore had a week off holiday with her school and Kevin joined her for the week).   As for me, we conducted more workshops, this time with directors, at the main education complex.  We also had follow-ups and observations in the school villages.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that teachers from a new set of village schools, who were trained a few weeks ago, were present and prepared, even when we came unannounced!  Teachers welcomed the feedback that we gave them.  They appreciated the comments as well as the guidance and even asked for more.  They said that the feedback was extremely useful for their own professional development and with their teaching  ...   Hallelujah. Progress!    

Others however, were absent.  One school was closed.  I was disappointed. 

More to come at a later date ….