EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents

One by One

Jenelle Thornton

The office where I work is in the middle of a small field with a dirt floor, no electricity supply and minimal resources. As I sit at my desk, it is not unusual to be greeted by a water buffalo popping its head through the open window. All this is a far cry from Melbourne, my home city. I am a Primary School teacher from Australia, recruited for two years to work as an Education Adviser in two districts in the remote north-west of Cambodia, as a volunteer with VSO [Voluntary Service Overseas], working on a project called ‘Mainstreaming Inclusive Education’, which aims to improve the quality and accessibility of basic education in six rural provinces of Cambodia, paying particular attention to girls, children with disabilities and ethnic minorities.

My initial school visits left my head whirling with a kaleidoscope of impressions and questions. Why were ‘children’ aged 18 in the grade three classroom? How many times had they heard the same lesson? Why were they not being promoted into the next grade? Why did some of the students have a pencil and books to write in and others had nothing? Why did the teacher continue to ask the boys in the class to answer questions from the textbook? The girls often seemed invisible as did the the few children from ethnic minorities. How many children with disabilities were being kept at home due to lack of wheelchairs or crutches, or hidden away because of shame? Why was blackboard work - pages and pages of copying from the blackboard - the main learning activity for the day? Who were these school-aged children outside the classroom hanging through the windows? Why were they not in school? It was overwhelming to say the least. ‘One by one’ is a Khmer saying - essentially, it means working in small, manageable steps. It’s important to remember that sustainable development takes time, careful implementation and patience.

Reflecting on the past year it is impressive to see the steps that have been taken by the Khmer authorities towards achieving the project’s aim. A major component has been the training of teachers in ‘Child-Friendly’ methodologies, including Classroom Management techniques for teachers to help them manage crowded classrooms constructively; helping schools to use their local environments to find resources to aid learning - for example, showing teachers different ways of using stones and sticks in Mathematics, or using recycled wood and the skills of local villagers to build an outdoor library accessible to all the students.

Leadership and Management training has been invaluable for the local educational leaders and School Directors. We have discussed ways of using Ministry funding to support the development of their schools, and how to build relationships with parents and the local community to promote the value of education and the importance of school attendance. ‘School Mapping’ is a technique being used that involves input from the community in order to map the location of all houses in the local area where school-aged children are known to live. The schools, together with the community, can seek to find ways in which they can support the families to get these children into school. Once in school, strategies can be put in place to help prevent them from dropping out again. We have learnt together how to target NGO support in order to supply wheelchairs, bicycles, hearing aids, breakfasts, eye tests or storybooks - and the skills necessary to access these resources without our support meaning that the schools can continue their strive towards inclusion also after our project ends.

Cambodia is a country whose recent history has been tragic, from the massacres of teachers and other professionals by the Khmer Rouge, through the subsequent lengthy civil war to the poverty experienced by much of the rural population. The re-development of education within Cambodia is gradual - many teachers have received little or no training during those difficult years. VSO Cambodia, with its professional volunteers working with counterparts at all levels of the system, from the Ministry to the Teacher Training Colleges to the schools, is taking steps to bridge this gap by sharing skills and changing lives - ‘one by one’....
This project is funded by the Japanese Social Development Fund [through the World Bank], the European Union and VSO. The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of VSO and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the World Bank or the European Union.

Ms. Jenelle Thornton is an Australian Volunteer with the VSO Programme in Cambodia. She can be reached via email: jenelle70@hotmail.com or: VSO Programme Office, PO Box 912, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents