Starting anew

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."

Success

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

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