A happening place in the beautiful hills of Mondolkiri ... School
Opening Ceremony was held on November 1st
, 2015.
It’s hard to believe that 2 months ago we
had the Closing School Ceremony to mark and celebrate the end of another school
year. Now, the celebration of another
'brand' new school year is about to emerge.
This
year, the School Opening Ceremony was held at Hun Sen Sen Monorom High
School. Unlike, the closing ceremony,
where some elementary children had fainted from exhaustion, had collapsed from standing in their
respective line for more than two hours in the hot sun, we were pleasantly surprised
to find that the Education Complex staff were well aware of their students’
needs and had provided shade for
both high school and elementary students for this important occasion: They had equipped students with canopies, they
own water bottles and chairs to comfortably sit in their respective line –
grade, to enjoy the ceremonial dance presented by 7 high school girls, to listen to the many speeches, to witness high school students receive their certificates of achievements and more. Could it be that we had planted a
seed, to suggest that children needed to be in a shaded spot for a long
ceremony?
 |
| Ceremonial dance to welcome the new school year |
Added to this delight, students from remote villages, throughout the beautiful hills of Mondolkiri, and who graduated from grade 6, are now boarding behind the Education complex in Sen Monorom Town. Students are also attending high school full time - and, with luck, they will graduate from grade 12 with an intent of furthering their education.
Other enlightening news, well into the first week of school, elementary teachers and school directors from various schools in Mondolkiri, attended a very important conference, conducted by the MoEYS staff (from Phnom Penh), with a focus on strengthening the teaching profession. At the same time, the teaching staffs were also tested for their teaching and management skills in and out of the classroom. Savy, my translator, told me that this strategy was meticulously put in place a year ago when the Ministry of Education cracked down on the grade 12 national exams where students were being closely monitored, where the grade 12 students agreed that the ‘crackdown on cheating was a good thing for the Kingdom of Cambodia.’ Savy added, that the ministry is now stepping up to the plate to cultivate teachers’ professional development: to ensure that teachers are being trained, regularly, to deliver a better teaching curriculum. Further, he felt that there was indeed a link between good teaching and the early years: that the primary core of education – good teaching practices first begins in the primary classroom to prepare students, the builders of the future, for success!
Elsewhere in the school districts, the first week of November, after the school enrollment campaign, we followed up at several schools for a number of new students who had enrolled at school. At Sre Y Village School, 21 grade 1 students enrolled: 14 boys and 7 girls.
Other enlightening news, well into the first week of school, elementary teachers and school directors from various schools in Mondolkiri, attended a very important conference, conducted by the MoEYS staff (from Phnom Penh), with a focus on strengthening the teaching profession. At the same time, the teaching staffs were also tested for their teaching and management skills in and out of the classroom. Savy, my translator, told me that this strategy was meticulously put in place a year ago when the Ministry of Education cracked down on the grade 12 national exams where students were being closely monitored, where the grade 12 students agreed that the ‘crackdown on cheating was a good thing for the Kingdom of Cambodia.’ Savy added, that the ministry is now stepping up to the plate to cultivate teachers’ professional development: to ensure that teachers are being trained, regularly, to deliver a better teaching curriculum. Further, he felt that there was indeed a link between good teaching and the early years: that the primary core of education – good teaching practices first begins in the primary classroom to prepare students, the builders of the future, for success!
Elsewhere in the school districts, the first week of November, after the school enrollment campaign, we followed up at several schools for a number of new students who had enrolled at school. At Sre Y Village School, 21 grade 1 students enrolled: 14 boys and 7 girls.
During that same week, students created posters. What it means to be at school? The poster was divided into 3 categories: Why go to school? Why stay at school? What would you like to be when you grow
up? Grades 1 – 3 drew pictures for each
category. Grades 4 -6 took it up to a higher level and added a
story to their categorized illustrations.
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