Left behind in the northeast

Brooke Lewis and Mom Kunthear

Phnom Penh Post

THREE-quarters of girls in Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri provinces spend fewer than two years in primary and secondary education, far more than the national average of 12 percent, according to a report to be released in Phnom Penh today that identifies northeast Cambodia as one of 20 regions worldwide facing “acute education deprivation”.

The 2010 Education for All Global Monitoring Report, titled “Reaching the Marginalised”, was produced to assess progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for education.

To meet that goal, Cambodia must facilitate universal access to nine years of basic education, a target that the report suggests is a long way from being achieved.

“In Cambodia’s most disadvantaged provinces, young women average just 1.8 years of school, compared with 3.2 years for young men,” the report reads, referring to Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri.

And enrolment is not the only area in which Cambodia is coming up short. National literacy rates for 15-to-24-year-olds are projected to reach 89 percent for females and 93 percent for males by 2015, falling below the MDG target of 95 percent for females and 100 percent for males.

Sun Lei, an education specialist for UNESCO in Phnom Penh, said on Sunday that although girls are disproportionately affected by limited education resources, all students in remote provinces – and especially in Ratanakkiri and Mondulkiri – face barriers to learning.

“Most of the children out of schools are from remote areas, and many are ethnic minorities,” she said.

Sao Vansey, executive director of Indigenous Community Support Organisation, a local NGO, said many factors contribute to low attendance in
the two provinces, which have the highest concentration of indigenous people in Cambodia, many of whom live in extremely remote areas. These include poverty, distance from schools and cultural values that don’t prioritise formal education, he said.

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