Three regions with chronic education problems secured the highest pass rates in this month’s national lower secondary school exams, Ministry of Education officials said last week.
Preah Vihear province, Pailin municipality and Stung Treng province battled it out for top place in students passing ninth grade this year, with only several percentage points between them. The remote and impoverished regions have some of the most limited educational facilities in the country, according to 2001-02 Ministry of Education statistics.
The results could be due to an institutionalized falsification of students’ results, Va Savoeun, head of the examinations office at the ministry’s Department of General Secondary Education, said Tuesday.
When ministry officials “see an unsuccessful student, they ask the teacher to improve their grade,” Va Savoeun said. “Sometimes they add the mark.”
The results could be explained by the fact that students in some regions could pass with a lower score on the exams than others, Va Savoeun said. But Preah Vihear, Pailin and Stung Treng were not granted such concessions, the exam results show.
Critics say boosting the marks of individual students undermines educational standards.
Preah Vihear came in first, with 92.9 percent of students passing the public exams. Schools in Preah Vihear are so few and in such a state of disrepair that some secondary school students travel to Laos to study instead, provincial and NGO officials said recently.
Pailin, the former Khmer Rouge stronghold, took second place, with a 90.9 percent pass rate, the ministry reported. Pailin has only one school that goes as high as grade nine, and no specialized teachers for English or French, ministry statistics show. Ninth-grade students study one of the languages, Va Savoeun said.
Stung Treng took third in the exams, with 90.7 percent of students passing. Two of Stung Treng’s four grade nine schools did not receive teachers’ guides for the four main exam subjects, Ministry of Education statistics show. An average school in the province has 147 students and four teachers.
The passing score required for students in Preah Vihear, Stung Treng and Pailin was the same as in Phnom Penh. But Phnom Penh came ninth in the exams. Va Savoeun acknowledged that Phnom Penh has a higher education standard than the provinces.
Officials in Preah Vihear and Pailin Wednesday denied falsification of the results. “I dare to proudly announce that no one threw answer sheets and no one cheated,” Preah Vihear Governor Preap Tann said.
Pailin’s results “were unbelievable,” Tang Theara, director of Pailin’s Education Department, said. Students in the municipality supplemented their public education with private classes, he said. “They work hard,” he said. “We did not need extra marks.”
Ministry of Education Secretary of State Im Sethy declined to comment on the results.
Academic experts voiced surprise at the three provinces’ success. “That’s very hard to believe,” Richard Geeves, education specialist at the NGO World Education, said Tuesday.
To achieve a passing grade in Phnom Penh, students had to score 250, while students in Kratie province could pass with a score of 210. “We understand [the difficulties] in the provinces, so we drop the score,” Va Savoeun said. Nonetheless, Kratie placed at the bottom.
The ministry wants 70 to 80 percent of students nationwide to pass their grade nine exams, Va Savoeun said.
Academic experts said it is important to try to get more students to pass their exams in the provinces so they can continue their education, and supported lowering the pass grade for different provinces. But they opposed the falsification of students’ scores.
“It’s reasonable to reduce the [pass grade] for the provinces, but not for individual students,” said Ian Kidd, outgoing Cambodian Australian National Examinations Project chief technical adviser. “Everybody who sits an exam should have an equal chance.”
Rong Chhun, Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association president, voiced strong criticism of the way the ministry conducted and graded the exams.
Rather than falsifying students’ exam results, the ministry should focus on improving standards by raising teachers’ salaries, he said. He described the ministry’s results as “a lie to tell donors.” Accurate indicators of educational problems in the provinces could help the ministry develop solutions, he said.
There is less malpractice in the national exams each year, Kidd said. But “in a place like Cambodia, where [teachers’] salaries are not enough to live on, there is corruption and cheating in the exams…. It’s a long, slow process,” he said “There needs to be more transparency to ensure that cheating does not take place.”
Va Savoeun defended the ministry’s measures to ensure that rural students pass their exams. The ministry is keen to pass students in the provinces so they can remain in the education system and find jobs in their provinces, he said.
“When they pass, they are human resources so they can work for their homeland.” Passing underachieving students helps train teachers to work in the provinces, he said. “When we ask teachers from Phnom Penh, they always ask to transfer back.”
There are only two national public exams in Cambodia: Grade nine and grade 12. Passing grade nine allows students to enter upper secondary school.
This year, of the 85,575 students who took the grade nine exams, 77.32 percent passed. Students aged 14 to 19 took the exam, with students tending to be older in areas in the country with less access to education, education experts said. The exams took place Sept 9 and Sept 10 and covered 10 subjects, including math, physics, chemistry, biology, English and French.
Impoverished provinces coming in at the top of the university exams is not a new phenomenon in Cambodia.
Last year, isolated Ratanakkiri province had the highest pass rate, followed closely by Banteay Meanchey. Pailin came third.
This year, the national pass rate was more than 4 percent higher than last year.
