Literacy in a post-conflict state: Cambodia’s success

EDUCATION | 07.06.2011

Many still cannot read signs like this one in Cambodia

Scarred by four years of destruction and killing, Cambodia started to rebuild after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979. Education and literacy were main areas of focus and remain so three decades later.

Cambodia’s Minister of Education Im Sethy remembers 1979 well. That was the year Pol Pot’s murderous Khmer Rouge regime was driven from power and Im Sethy returned to work at the Ministry of Education. Two million people had died in less than four years of Khmer Rouge rule – one fourth of the total Cambodian population. Attention quickly focused on rebuilding the shattered country.

Im Sethy, who had worked as a teacher in the 1960s, says only around 20 percent of his colleagues survived. The Khmer Rouge targeted for execution anyone with an education as well as people who had worked for the previous government. He adds that most of the schools had been demolished, as well. “Maybe 10 percent of the schools remained from the destruction, from the massive bombing, from the fighting. So we started from scratch.” He describes the situation as “very sad and very tragic.”

The Khmer Rouge regime killed most of the country's teachers and destroyed most of the schools

The ministry started with a basic but successful nationwide effort to teach literacy and numeracy. In 1996 the UN cultural organization UNESCO calculated that two-thirds of Cambodians could read and write. By 2008 that number had risen to nearly 78 percent. Im Sethy says that the fight is not over: though a lot has been done already, “we still need support from outside.”

Among the organizations working to boost literacy is SIPAR, a non-governmental organization that runs a fleet of half a dozen mobile libraries from its base in Phnom Penh. Every day each minivan stocked with books and writing materials visits two villages, where SIPARS’s educators read to the children. The youngsters return books and magazines borrowed the previous week, and borrow new ones. SIPAR educators also read stories like the “Powerful Ghost Boss” to children at the community centre in Koak Trap village, about 25 kilometers outside Phnom Penh. The book is one of dozens published by SIPAR.

Filling school and prison libraries

Cambodia's literacy programs are making progress

Director Hok Sothik says since SIPAR started operating two decades ago, it has opened 210 school libraries nationwide. Earlier this year it opened a prison library in Phnom Penh. He says very few books were initially available in the Khmer language. SIPAR changed that by importing Thai and English books, and translating and publishing them.

“In ten years we published about 80 titles and around one million copies,” says Hok Sothik, adding, “the big majority of them are in the libraries – in 210 school libraries, in mobile libraries, and in commune libraries in the provinces. And some of them we try to sell.”

Not an easy task

There are added complications with learning Khmer. For a start, the alphabet has four times as many letters as English. And words are joined together in sentences and phrases, unlike English, where each word stands apart. There are practical challenges too: 80 percent of Cambodia’s population lives in rural areas.

Minister of Education Im Sethy says the government’s focus in boosting literacy involves building more schools in rural areas. One hundred were constructed last year, and another 400 should be finished in three years’ time. As primary school enrolment continues to rise, the proportion of Cambodians able to read and write is expected to keep climbing.

Author: Robert Carmichael
Editor: Sarah Berning

Tribunal Judges Refuse To Re-Investigate Case 003

Tuesday, 07 June 2011
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

Photo: AP International prosecutor Andrew Cayley, (2010 file photo)

Investigating judges at the Khmer Rouge tribunal on Tuesday rejected an appeal from the UN prosecutor, who had requested they continue investigating a controversial third case at the court.

The prosecutor, Andrew Cayley, said in an earlier submission to the investigating judges that they had failed to investigate key crime sites and had not interviewed the two suspects of the case, No. 003.

The judges, Siegfried Blunk and You Bunleng, said in a public statement Tuesday that Cayley’s requests were “invalid.”

The rejection was one in a line of contentious statements shared between the two parts of the court, following the two judges’ announcement in April they had concluded their investigation. The judges have also ordered Cayley to retract portions of a public statement involving Case 003, claiming he had divulged confidential court information.

Schools Helping Schools Sends Students to Cambodia

Schools Helping Schools Club finds international solutions locally.

By Janie Rosman | Email the author | 9:04am

This summer, Scarsdale High School students Natalie Sun, Kailyn Amory and Sam Gallager will escape the summer heat with cool plans – a trip to Southeast Asia.

“They’re going Cambodia through Schools Helping Schools Club,” said Elisabeth Huh, co-president of the club. “We started the club three years ago to raise money for a school that was destroyed by an earthquake in Indonesia.”

Huh and co-president Laura Isby – who visited Cambodia last summer – are guided by teacher advisor is Gwen Johnson, a World History and AP Comparative Government teacher at the high school.

Opposition Leader Prepares Suits Against Hun Sen

Tuesday, 07 June 2011
Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

Photo: AP Cambodian opposition party leader Sam Rainsy, stands in front of the municipal court in Phnom Penh, (file photo)

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy says he is preparing to file more complaints against Prime Minister Hun Sen, similar to allegations he has already made in a New York court.

“I have met my lawyer to prepare lawsuits against Hun Sen for killing many people on several occasions,” Sam Rainsy told VOA Khmer in an interview last week, without elaborating. “He was involved in these crimes, including crimes against humanity.”

Sam Rainsy alleges Hun Sen was responsible for the deaths of people sent to clear forests along the Thai border in the 1980s, where they met with malaria and other diseases and land mines.

“I would like to appeal to all people in Cambodia or overseas who lived through K5, who witnessed the events, or who fell victims themselves, to come together now,” he said.

There are no official figures on how many people died curing the K5 campaign. Sam Rainsy’s complaints follow victory for him in a French court in a defamation case brought by Foreign Minister Hor Namhong, who had alleged Sam Rainsy had unfairly claimed he had led a Khmer Rouge camp.

Sam Rainsy said his victory in that case “opens the way for me to file more complaints. This time not against Hor Namhong, but Hun Sen.”

Cambodian activist to visit Mercer Island | The might of many

By MARY L. GRADY
Mercer Island Reporter Editor
Today, 10:55 AM 

Tun Channareth, a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, is in Seattle to receive an honorary doctorate at Seattle University and gather support for his cause. Chad Coleman/Staff Photo Buy Photo Reprints

The man in the handcrafted wheelchair does not have legs to speak of. They were blown off when he stepped on a land mine in 1982 when he was a young soldier on patrol searching for signs of the Khmer Rouge.

But he is not visiting Seattle University or Mercer Island Presbyterian Church to talk of himself, or his long painful journey from that day. No. He is here to talk about Cambodia and how the stifling presence of perhaps millions of land mines, most set more than 30 years ago, still haunt his country and hold it back.

Channareth is in Seattle to accept a honorary doctorate degree this weekend from Seattle University for his 14 years as a volunteer at the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). ICBL won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Channareth was chosen to accept the award in Oslo on behalf of the organization along with the ICBL founder, Jody Williams.

The Cambodian man, 50, has a grade school education. He is thrilled by the honorary degree, he said, but wants the attention to be focused on the on-going effort by the ICBL to collect more signatures by individuals world wide to pressure world leaders including President Obama, who have yet to sign the treaty to do so.

“When you see the new buildings and big construction in the cities of my country, do not be confused,” he told students on campus last Friday. “To know what real life is in my country, go to Cambodia outside cities to see the real life of now,” he told them. “There you will see poor, poor people, people living day to day. Look at them to find out, he continued, or look at me,” he said, pointing to his legs.

The Cambodian’s long journey to Seattle started in 2007, when he met professor Le Xuan Hy of Seattle University who is an Island resident. Hy, a native of Vietnam, who held the Pigott-McCone endowed chair at that time, has championed the Cambodian and his mission.

Cambodia Refuses To Withdraw International Court Request

By Chun Sakada,
VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh 

Monday, 06 June 2011

Cambodian troops patrolling Preah Vihear temple in 2008.

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday Cambodia will not withdraw its request to the International Court of Justice for a decision clarification on land near Preah Vihear temple, following calls for a continuation of bilateraltalks by Thailand.

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Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was quoted Sunday saying Cambodia should withdraw its request from the court, which heard arguments on both sides last week in the Hague.

Cambodia says troops to remain on border

General: Outsiders directing Thai rebels

BANGKOK, June 7(UPI) — Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (pictured) has denied reports that he had agreed to a troop withdrawal from the disputed border with Thailand near the 11th-century Preah Vihear temple.

Thai media reported that Thailand Gen. Wichit Yathip and Sen met before hostilities broke out in February. They agreed both countries should withdraw troops from the disputed area and jointly manage the 1.7-square-mile overlapping border area.

Sen acknowledged that he met with Wichit while the Thai general was visiting Cambodia, attending the wedding of the son of a Cambodian defense minister in Phnom Penh. But Sen said no agreement was made, a report by China’s Xinhua news agency said.

Questions for Camko

Tuesday, 07 June 2011 
James O’Toole and Don Weinland 
Phnom Penh Post

Photo by: Sovan Philong

A view of Camko City yesterday in Phnom Penh.

A foreign bank facing a massive corruption probe is the primary backer of Phnom Penh’s Camko City development, prosecutors in South Korea have reportedly said, raising questions about the future of the US$2 billion project.

South Korea’s Joong Ang Daily reported yesterday thatprosecutors in the country had claimed that Busan Savings Bank, which faces a wide-ranging investigation that has ensnared its top executives, had set up a series of companies to fund the Camko City project. The Russei Keo district development is the planned home of the Cambodian stock exchange and is one of the largest foreign investments in the Kingdom to date.