The Government Must Increase Teachers’ Salary

Monday, April 21, 2008
Editorial by Khmerization
Originally posted at http://khmerization.blogspot.com

“The teachers are the vanguards of Cambodia’s progress and prosperity. Good salary attracts good and bright students to enter the field of teaching. This will lead to quality education which would then lead to producing quality graduates to serve Cambodia.”

The skyrocketing of the price of goods and the soaring price of fuel have put a strain on many battlers, who are striving to make ends meet in the face of low wages, high costs of living and limited opportunity. The demands by the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association for their pay increases on par with the inflation index is not unreasonable and the government must not ignore their demands (read about the teachers' demands here).

The teachers are the educators of our future generations and the next leaders of Cambodia. It is imperative that the government realise about their importance and look after them well so that they can put 100% commitment to groom our next generations of leaders. By saying this, I appeal to the government to meet their demands and increase their salary.

The teachers are the vanguards of Cambodia’s progress and prosperity. Good salary attracts good and bright students to enter the field of teaching. This will lead to quality education which would then lead to producing quality graduates to serve Cambodia.

During the Sangkum Reastr Niyum and, to a certain extent, the Khmer Republic regime, teachers were held in high regard and their salaries were the best among the public servants. They were the most incorrupt people in the land. Teaching, then, was the most respectable profession and everywhere they went people respected them.

Today’s teachers are among the most hated people in the land, not because they are bad by nature, but they are corrupt by circumstances and by faults of government. While prices of commodities have risen to record high, the government is still refusing their repeated demands for pay increases. With their meagre salary, coupled with skyrocketing prices of commodities, the temptation to commit corruption are too hard to resist. As a result, many teachers have immorally pressurised their students to attend their outside of school hour classes and charge them extortionate amount for private lessons.

The government has repeatedly refused the teachers’ demands for pay-rises, using the pretext that the government simply does not have the money to fund their pay increases. This is simply not true. The money to fund the teachers’ pay-rises can be found by eliminating corruption. All lost incomes through corruption from illegal logging, land concessions, Angkor Wat ticketing concessions, the sales of state properties, which the World Bank has estimated to have cost Cambodia’s national budget to the tune of US$500 million per year, would be more than enough to fund the pay increases, if they are collected and deposited in the state treasury, instead of going to the pockets of the corrupt officials.

The national budget can be saved further with the streamlining of government’s unnecessary appointments. The government can further save millions of dollars if the thousands of Hun Sen’s shadowy advisors are struck off the government’s payrolls.

In the past three governments post-UNTAC, the governments have never reduced governments’ appointments in order to save money. Instead, the governments have consistently made many unnecessary appointments to further strengthen their grips on power at the expense of the hapless and lowly paid public servants, such as the teachers. This is an act of corruptly squandering national budget for one’s own political interests.

One would hope that the next government would cut the inflated and unnecessary appointments so that money can be saved to fund the pay-rises for low-ranking public servants such as the teachers, the police and the army. I hope.