Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday demanded that all education officials who cheated temporary teachers out of their wages return the money.
In provincial education centers, temporary teachers are sometimes promised full-time state teaching jobs, and are often asked for money to secure their civil service positions, Hun Sen said at a school inauguration in Kompong Cham province.
“There are some cheaters who said that they can make the contracted teachers become state teachers,” Hun Sen said.
“All cheaters have to refund the money to those contracted teachers,” he added.
The prime minister gave no ultimatum and made no threats, but said there are thousands of victims of the scam who together have lost as much as $500,000.
“If the cheaters don’t refund the money,” Hun Sen said, “when the teachers sue [in] court…I don’t know.”
He urged people who are interested in becoming state educators to apply the standard way—through pedagogy schools, “where they are needed to train two more years.”
Ministry of Education Secretary of State Pok Than said Tuesday that the premier should seek out the guilty and punish them.
“If Prime Minister Hun Sen knows about this corruption, he should punish those officials, or he can remove them from their position,” Pok Than said.
Hout Nonn, director of Kompong Cham’s provincial education department, said Tuesday that he was aware of the scam, and vowed to look into it.
“I will investigate these cases,” he said. “If I found out [who is responsible], I will punish them according to the law.”
Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said there are at least 700 contracted teachers in Kompong Cham alone who had been cheated out of their money with promises of state positions made by officials in the provincial education department. The standard fee paid was about $700, he said.
