Cambodia’s teachers will report to their schools as usual on Thursday, but instead of calling their classes to order, they will fan out to hang posters explaining why they are going on strike.
And they will stay on strike “as long as necessary,” union organizers said Tuesday.
Rong Chhun, president of the newly formed Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said as many as 80 percent of the nation’s roughly 80,000 teachers will go on strike Thursday, dwarfing the last teachers’ strike two years ago.
That strike involved high schools in at least 12 provinces, as well as the Royal University of Phnom Penh, while this strike will extend into the elementary schools as well, Rong Chhun said.
Teachers, whose salaries average between $20 and $30 per month, say they cannot survive on such low wages. They are seeking a raise to $100 per month.
Rong Chhun said the government cannot expect to improve teacher quality without paying living wages.
“I would like to appeal to police and soldiers to join us in the strike because the pay raise should not only benefit teachers, but police, soldiers, civil servants and retired people,” he told Agence France-Presse.
In a last-ditch effort to head off the strike Tuesday, officials from the Ministry of Education and provincial education offices reportedly visited several schools, including the Hun Sen Secondary School in Sa’ang district, Kandal province, where Rong Chhun teaches math.
Rong Chhun said officials went to Hun Sen school Tuesday and warned teachers that they would be fired if they went on strike. The officials told the teachers they will remain in the school around the clock from now until the end of February to monitor activities, Rong Chhun.
After the warning, “the teachers still stood firm,” Rong Chhun said. “They asked us to bring them more poster supplies.”
Education officials denied that teachers were being harassed and said they were not aware of a visit by education officials to Hun Sen school.
Man Khy, a teacher at Prek Taduong Junior High School in Koh Thom district, said he heard the deputy chief of the Kandal provincial education office ask administrators at the school for a list of teachers likely to strike, and told them to draw up a list of teachers who could be hired to replace them.
School administrators said they are wary about what will happen Thursday.
“We don’t know yet” how many teachers will take part, said Chet Yam, director of the Tuol Tumpong High School in Phnom Penh. “We will just wait and see.”
Tep Sokun, deputy director at the city’s Sisowath High School, said administrators oppose the strike because they think it is being manipulated by political parties. “This strike will affect poor students only,” he said.
Rong Chhun denied that. “We are independent, and we don’t favor any political party,” he said. “I know that political parties want to take advantage of this event, but we won’t allow that.”
Members of CITA, meeting Tuesday at a Phnom Penh hotel, said they will strike despite fears they may lose their jobs or be attacked or harassed by police or other authorities.
“Our lives are miserable in the provinces,” said Tet Theany, who has taught math, physics and English for 13 years at the Moha Samaky Secondary School in Kompong Chhnang.
While some teachers make ends meet by taking $0.05 or $0.10 per day from their students, he said, “if I took money from students, I would be dismissed.”
Hem Sophos, who has taught for nine years at the Bori Bo Secondary School in Kompong Chhnang, said, “My child needs to go to the hospital, and it’s not free.” He said his daily wage is about $0.75, while gas alone costs him from $0.50 to $0.75 daily.
Teacher Suong Huot said many of his colleagues must work second jobs as mototaxi drivers or sell snacks in schools in order to feed their families.
The fledgling CITA union has grown in the past month, from about 400 members to about 550. Rong Chhun said it is gaining strength even though it has no money and is run by volunteers.
Officials at the much larger Khmer Teachers Association, which claims more than 80,000 members (including retirees), could not be reached for comment on the planned strike.
(Reporting by Ana Nov, Ham Samnang and Jody McPhillips)
