The only way to increase the salaries of Cambodia’s poorly paid teachers is to cut their numbers and use the money saved to boost the incomes of those who remain, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday.
But such an action would spawn further illiteracy in Cambodia, the prime minister said during a graduation ceremony for Buddhist monks at Phnom Penh’s Chaktomuk Theater.
“The words shouted by the opposition always call for an increase in salaries for teachers,” Hun Sen said.
“It, therefore, would be very easy to increase if we reduced the current amount of teachers and kept only 10,000, and we kept only 500,000 students. But we dare not do that because the number of illiterate people will increase,” he said.
Though it has more than 90,000 teachers on the payroll, the Ministry of Education says some 20,000 more are needed.
Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association Deputy President Heng You said Wednesday there were not enough teachers to meet the demand and many were in need of a long-overdue pay rise.
“Teachers have been living with low salaries for too long,” she said, adding that reducing the number of teachers in order to increase salaries is not an acceptable policy.
“The government should find a way and a strategy to increase salaries for teachers,” Heng You said. “It needs to be solved immediately.”
With average class sizes of some 50 students, there is also a need for the government to hire more teachers, she said.
“It is bad for both students and teachers,” she added.
