Education officials trumpeted increases in enrollment and spending on primary schooling and a fledgling effort to decentralize school administration at a conference that ended Friday.
Enrollment in primary schools has increased 42 percent, to over 2.7 million in the last five years, said Hang Chuon Naron, deputy secretary general at the Ministry of Economy and Finance. He attributed the increase to abolition of informal school fees and administrative reforms known as the Priority Action Plan.
The ministry’s 2002 budget is 292 billion riel (about $73 million), which is 18.2 percent of Cambodia’s total public expenditures, Secretary of State Pok Than said at the conference Thursday. In 2003, the budget is expected to increase to over 330 billion riel ($82.5 million), or 19.5 percent of total spending, he said.
In his closing remarks, Prime Minister Hun Sen said government spending on education has tripled in previous years and would double again in the near future, though he did not specify when that would occur.
He also praised donors for becoming fuller partners in government education programs. “I see a changing of position from donors being owners of the donation to partner,” he said.
Minister of Education Tol Lah said that classroom teachers’ salaries have increased by more than 30 percent in 2002. The education ministry would like to see 70 percent of government spending to be on education, Tol Lah said Friday. But he acknowledged that there were delays in distribution of funds this year.
The decentralization program involves giving more power and responsibility to provincial education officials, easing the burden on the national ministry, Tol Lah said.
“We will implement decentralization for education the same way the Ministry of Interior did, which means we will share some power with the provinces, districts, communes and individual schools,” he said.
Decentralization would allow local and national officials to cooperate to improve the education sector, he said. Provincial governors and directors of provincial education departments also attended the conference.
But decentralizing education administration doesn’t do anything for Cambodia’s teachers, said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association.
In fact, it could make their lives more difficult by increasing the power principals wield, he said. “Many principals will be confused about the power that is given to them, so they will put more pressure on the teachers,” he said.
Rong Chhun said only raising salaries could improve education.
But Tol Lah said that, with no possibility of a budget increase for the ministry, decentralization was an alternative solution.
“It’s not only the teachers who earn small salaries. The government workers’ salaries are also small,” he said. “To increase salaries, we need more funds.”
Under a new program, provincial authorities will be charged with monitoring budgets and schools, he added.
(Reporting by Richard Sine, Pin Sisovann, Saing Soenthrith and Yun Samean.)
