Saturday, 26 September 2009

Cambodia Marks ‘30 Years of Education Development’

Written by DAP NEWS -- Friday, 25 September 2009
(CAAI News Media)

Cambodia on Thursday marked the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the formal school day in Cambodia.

The anniversary, September 24, 1979, was an opportunity to review the state of education and progress made in striving for universal public education. Future plans to further strengthen the quality of education and quantity of students attending the school day for each year to eliminate illiteracy by 2015 were also revealed.

“If we look back over the past 30 years, it seems that everything is new for us,” Men Sam On, permanent deputy prime minister to the Cabinet, said at a ceremony at the National Institute of Education attended by hundreds of education experts, pedagogical experts, school teachers, headmaster, and students from across the kingdom.

“At that time we had only one high school in the country. And we now we have 22,098 teachers and 900,000 students across the country, even though only 15 percent of teachers survived from the Pol Pot regime,” she said. “We created the Education Ministry on February 15 and September 24 was the start of school days for our people. It is a historic day for our country after we left the Pol Pot regime.” She said that the Cambodian Government “has strengthened our education system by considering their experience in the past and push forward to reduce illiteracy and completely eliminate illiteracy by 2015.”

“We also have to tighten our higher education for future jobs at both the domestic and international levels,” she said, suggesting reforms so that university degrees can be internationally recognized.

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