Subject: Cambodia - EDUCATION
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EDUCATION

Cambodia Table of
Contents

Public School System

Traditional education in Cambodia was handled by the local wat, and the
bonzes were the teachers. The students were almost entirely young boys,
and the education was limited to memorizing Buddhist chants in Pali.
During the period of the French protectorate, an educational system based
on the French model was inaugurated alongside the traditional system.
Initially, the French neglected education in Cambodia. Only seven high
school students graduated in 1931, and only 50,000 to 60,000 children were
enrolled in primary school in 1936. In the year immediately following
independence, the number of students rapidly increased. Vickery suggests
that education of any kind was considered an "absolute good" by all
Cambodians and that this attitude eventually created a large group of
unemployed or underemployed graduates by the late 1960s.

From the early twentieth century until 1975, the system of mass
education operated on the French model. The educational system was divided
into primary, secondary, higher, and specialized levels. Public education
was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, which exercised
full control over the entire system; it established syllabi, hired and
paid teachers, provided supplies, and inspected schools. An inspector of
primary education, who had considerable authority, was assigned to each
province. Cultural committees under the Ministry of Education were
responsible for "enriching the Cambodian language."

Primary education, divided into two cycles of three years each, was
carried out in state-run and temple-run schools. Successful completion of
a final state examination led to the award of a certificate after each
cycle. The primary education curriculum consisted of arithmetic, history,
ethics, civics, drafting, geography, hygiene, language, and science. In
addition, the curriculum included physical education and manual work.
French language instruction began in the second year. Khmer was the
language of instruction in the first cycle, but French was used in the
second cycle and thereafter. By the early 1970s, Khmer was used more
widely in primary education. In the 1980s, primary school ran from the
first to the fourth grade. Theoretically one primary school served each
village. Secondary education also was divided into two cycles, one of four
years taught at a college, followed by one of three years taught at a
lyc้e. Upon completion of the first cycle, students could take a state
examination. Successful candidates received a secondary diploma. Upon
completion of the first two years of the second cycle, students could take
a state examination for the first baccalaureate, and, following their
final year, they could take a similar examination for the second
baccalaureate. The Cambodian secondary curriculum was similar to that
found in France. Beginning in 1967, the last three years of secondary
school were split up into three sections according to major
subjects--letters, mathematics and technology; agriculture; and biology.
In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the country emphasized a technical
education. In the PRK, secondary education was reduced to six years.

Higher education lagged well behind primary and secondary education,
until the late 1950s. The only facility in the country for higher
education before the 1960s was the National Institute of Legal, Political,
and Economic Studies, which trained civil servants. In the late 1950s, it
had about 250 students. Wealthy Cambodians and those who had government
scholarships sought university-level education abroad. Students attended
schools in France, but after independence increasing numbers enrolled at
universities in the United States, Canada, China, the Soviet Union, and
the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). By 1970 universities with a
total enrollment of nearly 9,000 students served Cambodia. The largest,
the University of Phnom Penh, had nearly 4,570 male students and more than
730 female students in eight departments--letters and humanities, science
and technology, law and economics, medicine, pharmacy, commercial science,
teacher training, and higher teacher training. Universities operated in
the provinces of Kampong Cham, Takev, Batdambang; and in Phnom Penh, the
University of Agricultural Sciences and the University of Fine Arts
offered training. The increased fighting following the 1970 coup closed
the three provincial universities.

During the Khmer Rouge regime, education was dealt a severe setback,
and the great strides made in literacy and in education during the two
decades following independence were obliterated systematically. Schools
were closed, and educated people and teachers were subjected to, at the
least, suspicion and harsh treatment and, at the worst, execution. At the
beginning of the 1970s, more than 20,000 teachers lived in Cambodia; only
about 5,000 of the teachers remained 10 years later. Soviet sources report
that 90 percent of all teachers were killed under the Khmer Rouge regime.
Only 50 of the 725 university instructors, 207 of the 2,300 secondary
school teachers, and 2,717 of the 21,311 primary school teachers survived.
The meager educational fare was centered on precepts of the Khmer
revolution; young people were rigidly indoctrinated, but literacy was
neglected, and an entire generation of Cambodian children grew up
illiterate. After the Khmer Rouge were driven from power, the educational
system had to be re-created from almost nothing. Illiteracy had climbed to
more than 40 percent, and most young people under the age of 14 lacked any
basic education.

Education began making a slow comeback, following the establishment of
the PRK. In 1986 the following main institutions of higher education were
reported in the PRK: the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy (reopened in
1980 with a six-year course of study); the Chamcar Daung Faculty of
Agriculture (opened in 1985); the Kampuchea-USSR Friendship Technical
Institute (which includes technical and engineering curricula), the
Institute of Languages (Vietnamese, German, Russian, and Spanish are
taught); the Institute of Commerce, the Center for Pedagogical Education
(formed in 1979); the Normal Advanced School; and the School of Fine Arts.
Writing about the educational system under the PRK, Vickery states, "Both
the government and the people have demonstrated enthusiasm for education .
. . . The list of subjects covered is little different from that of prewar
years. There is perhaps more time devoted to Khmer language and literature
than before the war and, until the 1984-85 school year, at least, no
foreign language instruction." He notes that the secondary school syllabus
calls for four hours of foreign language instruction per week in either
Russian, German, or Vietnamese but that there were no teachers available.

Martin describes the educational system in the PRK as based very
closely on the Vietnamese model, pointing out that even the terms for
primary and secondary education have been changed into direct translations
of the Vietnamese terms. Under the PRK regime, according to Martin, the
primary cycle had four instead of six classes, the first level of
secondary education had three instead of four classes, and the second
level of secondary education had three classes. Martin writes that not
every young person could go to school because schooling both in towns and
in the countryside required enrollment fees. Civil servants pay 25 riels
per month to send a child to school, and others pay up to 150 riels per
month. Once again, according to Martin, "Access to tertiary studies is
reserved for children whose parents work for the regime and have
demonstrated proof of their loyalty to the regime." She writes that, from
the primary level on, the contents of all textbooks except for alphabet
books was politically oriented and dealt "more specifically with Vietnam."
From the beginning of the secondary cycle, Vietnamese language study was
compulsory.

Buddhist Education

Before the French organized a Western-style educational system, the
Buddhist wat, with monks as teachers, provided the only formal education
in Cambodia. The monks traditionally regarded their main educational
function as the teaching of Buddhist doctrine and history and the
importance of gaining merit. Other subjects were regarded as secondary. At
the wat schools, young boys--girls were not allowed to study in these
institutions--were taught to read and to write Khmer, and they were
instructed in the rudiments of Buddhism.

In 1933 a secondary school system for novice monks was created within
the Buddhist religious system. Many wat schools had so-called Pali schools
that provided three years of elementary education from which the student
could compete for entrance into the Buddhist lyc้es. Graduates of these
lyc้es could sit for the entrance examination to the Buddhist University
in Phnom Penh. The curriculum of the Buddhist schools consisted of the
study of Pali, of Buddhist doctrine, and of Khmer, along with mathematics,
Cambodian history and geography, science, hygiene, civics, and
agriculture. Buddhist instruction was under the authority of the Ministry
of Religion.

Nearly 600 Buddhist primary schools, with an enrollment of more than
10,000 novices and with 800 monks as instructors, existed in 1962. The
Preah Suramarit Buddhist Lyc้e--a four-year institution in Phnom Penh
founded in 1955--included courses in Pali, in Sanskrit, and in Khmer, as
well as in many modern disciplines. In 1962 the student body numbered 680.
The school's graduates could continue their studies in the Preah Sihanouk
Raj Buddhist University created in 1959. The university offered three
cycles of instruction; the doctoral degree was awarded after successful
completion of the third cycle. In 1962 there were 107 students enrolled in
the Buddhist University. By the 1969-70 academic year, more than 27,000
students were attending Buddhist religious elementary schools, 1,328
students were at Buddhist lyc้es, and 176 students were enrolled at the
Buddhist University.

The Buddhist Institute was a research institution formed in 1930 from
the Royal Library. The institute contained a library, record and
photograph collections, and a museum. Several commissions were part of the
institute. A folklore commission published collections of Cambodian
folktales, a Tripitaka Commission completed a translation of the Buddhist
canon into Khmer, and a dictionary commission produced a definitive
two-volume dictionary of Khmer. No information was available in 1987
regarding the fate of the temple schools, but it is doubtful that they
were revived after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime.

Private Education

For a portion of the urban population in Cambodia, private education
was important in the years before the communist takeover. Some private
schools were operated by ethnic or religious minorities--Chinese,
Vietnamese, European, Roman Catholic, and Muslim--so that children could
study their own language, culture, or religion. Other schools provided
education to indigenous children who could not gain admission to a public
school. Attendance at some of the private schools, especially those in
Phnom Penh, conferred a certain amount of prestige on the student and on
the student's family.

The private educational system included Chinese-language schools,
Vietnamese-language (often Roman Catholic) schools, French-language
schools, English-language schools, and Khmerlanguage schools. Enrollment
in private primary schools rose from 32,000 in the early 1960s to about
53,500 in 1970, although enrollment in private secondary schools dropped
from about 19,000 to fewer than 8,700 for the same period. In 1962 there
were 195 Chinese schools, 40 Khmer schools, 15 Vietnamese schools, and 14
French schools operating in Cambodia. Private secondary education was
represented by several high schools, notably the Lyc้e Descartes in Phnom
Penh.

All of the Vietnamese schools in Phnom Penh and some of the Chinese
schools there were closed by government decree in 1970. There was no
information available in 1987 that would have indicated the presence of
any private schools in the PRK, although there was some private
instruction, especially in foreign languages.

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Source: U.S. Library of Congress