The Drop Out Rate in Education in Cambodia

The Drop Out ordinate in procreation in CambodiaIntroductionThe egress of students who drop come in give lessonsing in the staple fibre development level is still precise extravagantly although the brass and the some other stakeh unrivalled-time(a)ers drive been striving to cut smooth on number. It is very substantiate that in that respect ar number of occasions which execute those children to abandon their studies. It is, however, still a skeptical whether the demand side or the supply side which has the just about influence on this phenomena. The establishment activity of Cambodia has considered the electrical capametropolis shape uping and human resource development as priority. In the rectangular Strategy of the magnificent Government of Cambodia has emphasized several(prenominal) points related to the breeding lumber improvement at all levels. Like stated in the policies and strategies in ESP ( statement Strategic Plan) 2006-10, there ar a hooking of re dramatis personaes set out been made in order to reach the Millennium organic evolution Goals.The six EFA Dakar goals 1- Expanding and improving comprehensive early childhood anguish and reproduction, especially for the close vulner adapted and disadvantaged children. 2- Ensuring that by 2015 all children, specially girl, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, perk up entre to, and complete, free and irresponsible primary education of good timber. 3- Ensuring that learning inescapably of all young people and adults atomic number 18 met through equitable opening to appropriate learning and life-skills computer platformmes. 4- Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable entry to basic and inveterate education for all adults. 5- elimination gender disparities in primary and secondhand education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, wit h a focus on ensuring girls full and access to and achievement in basic education of good quality. 6- Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes argon achieved by all, especially in literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.Source UNESCO (2000 b), as cited in FE of IFL, pp 66-67In those re formulates, there take aim to a fault been the beef up tasks with other partnerships between the public and private sectors. These important tasks are genuinely applicable for implementing the development goals for the betterment of the quality of education. Without doing the reforms, it is not effective form for the implementation because the concept or the social context does not suffice to the strategical plan. The strategic plan and the resource of mobilization and utilization place not be cut off from the the concord from the context or it will be failed to implement. (MoEYS, (2006) Education strategic plan 2006-2010).The objectives of the Ministry of Education, the implementers received the commands from the Royal Government of Cambodia, are to conduct the holistic development within the Kampuchean youths. Young people are considered as bamboo shoots which potty replace the old and dying bamboo, so building up the capacity among them is compulsory. The development of understanding among young people inquires to be do for all sectors. In addition, the Ministry of Education attempts to contribute and engender a sense of nationalism and civic pride because it is very essential for them to determine their own identities. It also strives to pass on the concept of high standards of morality and ethics in order to build up a good country that people can perish in harmony. According to this stance, three main concludes shed been tack. The first purpose is the equitable access to education that indicates that all Cambodian children guard remediate to receive educat ion at least 9 years (finished association 9). They receive education for free of focal point in which the Ministry of Education remembers for to sanction this prestigious opportunity for all young Cambodians. Secondly, promote the service quality and efficiency of education so for the Ministry strives to promote the quality of education in all levels especially the humbled level of education. It has created more than supporting programs. In that the establishment of inform materials is also paid the utmost care. Third, the Ministry intends to introduce the the desire of capacity building for decentralization in which new curricular has been rear to manipulate this concept within young Cambodians through lesson of decentralization. The curriculum has been set by focusing much on the expansion of decentralization (Education strategic plan 2006-2010).According to the strategies and policies that the Ministry has set and determined above, it is not uncertain to full understan d what can be the things that have come as constraints to manufacture students at basic level stop study. A long with the stimulants that the government have distributed, the families have to have near involvements to retain students remain in take aim. The government has continuously conducted reforms to find and to determine the weak points. Thus, this paper is to explore for the deep understanding on the hardships on the demand side and the capacity of distribution of the supply side. We also study to find out how the government of Cambodia manipulates with these challenges.Challenges That Lead to Dropping OutThere are several important challenges which hunt to the dropping out among children. Some challenges are ignited by the supply sides while the other is caused by the demand sides. There have been several researches revealed the challenges that lead to the dropping out. The world Bank, in 2004, did stress the problems that lead to the drop out. Each year there is high rate of enrolment at basic level, but they sluicetually abanthroughd the school. These phenomena were caused by just about factors. First, there is the increase of child labor at the very young age children were exploited by several means without getting each care from the society or it is lack to be care by the related individuals. Second, there was late enrollment of the children and after a hardly a(prenominal) years in school they felt embarrassed because they saw themselves as medium- life-sized eventually, they quit. Third, there was lack of readiness for the enrollment at the startle of the enrollment the families have the appearance _or_ semblanceed to have talent to send them to school and later on it was impossible to do, so they stop. Fourth, there is the monumental number of incomplete the secondary level school. Fifth, the lack of qualified teacher was identified as the spunk of the school abandon among the young children. Finally, the identification of the cause was the lack of health-environmental facilities much(prenominal) as playground and libraries (WB 2004).In fact the number of enrolment at primary level is quite bigger. The process of their studies can proceed nevertheless for a few years and after that the big number fashion sharper and smaller. There are numbers of complicated impedimentas for these drops out. According to the entropy conducted by EMIS, only 45 per cent of children who start primary school can eventually finish clique sixth and among them, there are only thirty-eight per cent can go to frown subsidiary school virtually of them didnt finish floor 9 in lower secondary school there are three years which most students can only reach fool 8. It is much(prenominal) a big number of drop out which will be foreseen as number that will be much downgraded to reach grade 9. With this high office of drop out, it takes 10.8 years for a child to complete his or her education in primary school (EBEP 2006-20 10).Recently, the Royal Government of Cambodia announced its applicative way in improving the education system. Also it proclaimed the spectacular achievements. In the contradict to this, there are still some big problems remain behind the achievement. The drop out rates is still high among primary school children and only small number that can fulfil grade 9. This phenomenon is a constraint for the Ministry in reaching its goal in stimulating the young people to receive basic education from grade 1 to grade 9 by the year 2015. Along with this, some constraints are identified by the Ministry of Education. In order to identify such problem, the Ministry created another department called Education Sector Support Program (ESSP) to fall upon and identify the problem. The challenges are found as follows i) low access to basic education, particularly lower secondary schooling, among children from poor families, girls, ethnic minorities, children with disabilities, and children who ar e maintenance in remote areas. ii) high dropout rates in basic education, with this most dropouts occurring in upper primary school before children have realised the full cycle. iii) uneven quality and standards in basic education (Benveniste 2008, p 15).In 2005 the domain Band wrote that the transition period is another main cause of the drop out. The drop out occurs when they finished grade 6, and they are awaiting to pursue to grade 7. The number of children about 75 percentage were able to go through from primary school and among that only 52 percent went on their studies to the secondary school and finished their basic education (from grade 1 to grade 9). During this interval, the decisions of the children as headspring as their parents are unawares changed for some reasons (World Bank 2005).Supply-Side FactorsSo far the Royal Government of Cambodia that has the Ministry of Education, spring chicken and Sports as an acting figure in implementing the educational policies has been disciplineing really hard to reduce the dropout rate among the basic education. The Ministry itself is looking for the the causes and it invests a people of m maveny in building facilities and instructional materials in recent years. Moreover, the government also set up policies to reduce the house whole monetary burdens by letting children to enroll school for free. A long with this the necessity for the children to study is also supported. However, this support is still not enough for the children.The signifi hypocrisy barrier for disadvantaged children is the direct cost. In recent year, the government commanded the removal of formal entry to enable them to enroll. Moreover, the Ministry strives to disseminate the information of free of charge enrollment for children. Some educational billboards about the grandness of enrollment have been displayed in public to draw the understanding among parents. Unexpectedly, when students have already enrolled, some problems sti ll occurred associated with the informal fees through providing the extra class to students or the similar. This phenomenon should be combated for it functions as great constraint that lead to the drop out (Benveniste 2008).another(prenominal) strategy to combat the dropout rate is to build up relationship with the community of interests so that they can understand they will support the enrolment and keep their children in school. In the citation of Education Strategic Plan 2006- 2010, there is the promotion of the relationship between homes and communities. The reasons of this expansion are to promote a shadow education which is considered as the important stimulant to achieve the objectives that have been launched. The ladder aims to disseminate the community- based information of holistic intervention at the early ages. The investments in early age among children has been increased from USD 0.19 million in 2006 to USD 0.3 million by 2010. The promoting program was supported by PAP (Priority military action Program) (Benveniste et al 2008).To ensure the stimulant package to upgrade within the children enrolment, the Ministry has also launched some other practical projects. In that, child friendly schools are seen significant to push the enrollment and to persuade children to remain in school. However, the campaign to spread the information about this project is not widely done so that parents do not fully understand the significance of it. If the parents write out that they will value and help to encourage their children to remain in school.World Bank (2005) addressed other kind of constraints that lead to the dropout is the quality among teachers. The record quality in here does not really focus on the familiarity of the responsible unresolveds, but also the art or talent of teacher to harmonize with the students. Teachers need to have psychological knowledge to call for the interest among students. Qualified teachers can help students to stay in sch ool more. In order to reform this, the project of quality improvement interventions program is also launched and a lot of money has been used to conduct this ability upgrading project. A long with student retention, promotion, and especially in student learning is done accompanying with teacher improvement. In the program of upgrading the quality of education, one dollar per pupil has been increased. The program also focuses on teacher planning and this prestige implementation lead to the increase in points the students get between 0.70 and 1.05. After the implementation, there is the observation of increase in literacy as well one dollar was invested in the upgrading policy, one percent was also excelled in student literacy. Another important task that the Ministry of Education pays its concentration in order to reduce the dropout is the investments in health care and skills training. Besides that, it goes to the the modernization of infrastructure.(World Bank Quality Basic Educa tion for All 2005)The followings are the components that can be used to stimulate the aspect of pushing the students to remain in school. The practical ways of encouraging students to remain are to enlarge the service to be available such as building up more school houses so that students are easy to get to school. This should be done in both primary and secondary school. Next, there should be the expanding of operate budget for these two levels. To do this can also lead to the body waste of gathering the illegal money. Thirdly, the development of remedial classes must be done. Fourth, the instructional material must be available to improve the quality of instruction and make the learning enjoyable for students. Sometimes it is hard for students to understand the filch concept, so the use of teaching material can help students to form pictures in mind they can understand better (World Bank 2008).Demand-Side FactorsElimination of loose fees.Unofficial fees are the significant co nstraint that make students families cant afford education for their children. In fact, under the support of the government, students do not pay for registration at the beginning of the new donnish year. Surprisingly, students need to pay like bicycle position fees it is not a compulsory pay but students need to do unavoidable because they dont know where to park. The parking fees are thought to be too high sometime. Other unofficial fees are the fees students pay for the extra class. Students are not put pull directly, instead they are put pressure indirectly through, for instance, giving low mark. Extra classes are reported in only 6-7 percent of small rural schools, but in more than 40 percent of large urban schools. Fees also vary considerably from less than R300 per class in small rural school to more than R500 in big urban schools (Araujo 2008. p. 58).Some other problems are identified for the demand side. These problems are the obstacle to miss persuading the students to r emain in school.The primary education, especially the repetition of grade 1, 2 and 3 and the drop out of grade 5 and 6 still has some issues which have to be solved timely such as a/Documents related to Child Friendly School program are not widely available. b/ PB budgets cannot be accessed at the start of the financial year, this impacts negatively on conducting activities and the achievement of targets. c/ The teaching hours and school calendar are often curtailed. d/ Insufficient access to textbooks reduces the quality of education and coverage of the curriculum. e/ Insufficient infrastructure, including latrines, sources of water and sanitation, libraries in many schools in remote and disadvantaged areas impacts on students attendance and performance. f/ There are insufficient teachers in rural and remote areas undermining the quality of education and learning in these areas. g/ The capacity of District prepare and Management Teams (DTMT) in all provinces and capital city is no t salutary enough to help the teachers and school directors improve school performance (National Education Congress Summary Report-Academic Year 2008-09 p.4)Work forceThe number of dropouts in the rural areas is higher than in the urban. In rural areas, children are subject to do works such as looking after oxen in the fields besides that, those children need to do more chores like carrying water from ponds, wells nearby, and firewood to supply home. That is a great burden for them to roll in the hay time to study. When they are so busy with this kind of work, they seem to have no feeling to read books (Dy 2004).What the Government Should Do to Reduce the Dropout investIn order to reduce the number of dropouts, the government should do several jobs such as provide training, funding, evaluating, facility providing, setting clear policies, and other program monitoring.As stated in the Congress Report (2009), staff training is important in lessen the dropout rate for it helps stu dents to gain their knowledge quite well. It also relates to the quality of education. When students get good academic achievement, their families as well as themselves feel really proud so that they have strong commitment towards education. Sometimes, the academic achievement can insult students and their families and in the end student can quit their studies.Another important thing for the government to do is to finance especially on building more school building quite near to their home. The government has to ensure that one village there is one primary school. Besides the school buildings, financing on teaching materials is also important to achieve the effective academic result. Moreover, the government should provide more money for teachers. If teachers have high salary, it is clear that they spiritually have committed to their teaching and their teaching will have good result.Setting up clear indicators as well as other policies related education is extremely significant. Dy (2001) stressed the importance of clear policies making. Prioritizing the policies making is to pave the way clearly that the Ministry could access their goals. The Ministry of Education that has administrators to implement the policies should particularly focus on primary education by conducting special training for all teachers as well as the school principals.ConclusionIt has been observed that the dropout rate is still remaining high even though the government has been striving its works to eliminate or to reduce. The areas that are considerably indicated as high are in rural. The problem is that in those remote areas really face many difficulties for children while the urban areas students seem to use most of their time in learning. In contrast to the city children, rural children use most of their time to do house work and other non-academic affairs. Although these problems occur, the government is the one which has significant function to stimulate the reducing process of the dropout among children in lower education.