EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents

I need more Child-Friendly Schools in my District

Chrey Sam Ean

As a Director of Thmar Pouk District Office of Education, I am proud to be working in partnership with VSO Cambodia. We work hand- in-hand promoting inclusive education and child-friendly schools within our district. We have a joint action plan for school leadership and management workshops. We trained school directors and teachers on inclusive education and child-friendly methodologies.

First, we have chosen four primary schools (two urban and two rural schools) to pilot the implementation of Inclusive Education/Child-Friendly Schooling in Thmar Pouk district. The schools were chosen due to the strong leadership, positive attitudes, commitment to learning and change. We encouraged teachers and students to develop Child-Friendly learning materials from resources available locally.

Day-by-day, we can see the changes happening in classrooms and schools. The classrooms are more attractive and lively, the schools' environment is clean and green. The children enjoy coming to school and participate fully in the lessons. The teachers are more enthusiastic in their work and so are the children. Things have changed remarkably within one year of the Mainstreaming Inclusive Education project.

The pilot schools are a good resource for teacher training. We do not have to travel to another province to see good teaching, which meets the needs of all our children. We now have some good examples in Thmar Pouk. We are starting to encourage children with disabilities to come to school. Now our teachers are able to help many children.

To make these changes sustainable we have a plan to monitor and evaluate the current and future progress. We have our own support groups to help each other to ensure ongoing progress and sustainability in the future. The schools will need to be monitored carefully and consistently.

As a result of a strong collaboration between VSO Cambodia and the District Office of Education, we have an increase in the number of child-friendly classrooms and schools. We have made firm commitments to have more child-friendly schools in our district. We are very pleased with what we have achieved so far.

Mr. Chrey Sam Ean, Director of Thmar Pouk District Office of Education, Banteay Meanchey Province, Cambodia

EENET asia Newsletters : Fourth issue June 2007 Contents