Original report from Phnom Penh
05 August 2008
As high school exams entered their second day Tuesday, students and controllers both say cheating, corruption and other irregularities plague the process.
Students pass money to teacher administrators, called controllers, to allow for cheating, copying and having answers checked by other students. Some students take tests for others. In some cases, students know the answers to the test ahead of time.
"I hope that I will pass, because I could copy from my friends," a student named Vecheka, 19, said following her exams at Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh. "The teachers were not really strict after we collected money for them."
But cheating is a violation against the next generation, corrupting students when they are young, said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association.
The high school cheating has become an annual event, but at least one controller said this year, the habit was so ingrained, he could be hurt if he didn't take a bribe.
"I know this is a kind of corruption," said one controller at Boeung Trabek High School, "but if I did not accept it, I can have a security concern after I leave the school."
This year about 79,000 students took exams nationwide.
The Ministry of Education does not recognize the cheating as a widespread problem.
But another controller said the custom was proverbially widespread.
"The collection of money from students has become a usual habit; if pey goes, tro also goes," [KI-Media note: pey and tro are Cambodian traditional music instruments] said the controller, from Phnom Penh's Tuol Tompoung High School, quoting a proverb about two musical instruments that must be played together.
Students pass money to teacher administrators, called controllers, to allow for cheating, copying and having answers checked by other students. Some students take tests for others. In some cases, students know the answers to the test ahead of time.
"I hope that I will pass, because I could copy from my friends," a student named Vecheka, 19, said following her exams at Sisowath High School in Phnom Penh. "The teachers were not really strict after we collected money for them."
But cheating is a violation against the next generation, corrupting students when they are young, said Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association.
The high school cheating has become an annual event, but at least one controller said this year, the habit was so ingrained, he could be hurt if he didn't take a bribe.
"I know this is a kind of corruption," said one controller at Boeung Trabek High School, "but if I did not accept it, I can have a security concern after I leave the school."
This year about 79,000 students took exams nationwide.
The Ministry of Education does not recognize the cheating as a widespread problem.
But another controller said the custom was proverbially widespread.
"The collection of money from students has become a usual habit; if pey goes, tro also goes," [KI-Media note: pey and tro are Cambodian traditional music instruments] said the controller, from Phnom Penh's Tuol Tompoung High School, quoting a proverb about two musical instruments that must be played together.
5 comments:
Hun Sen must act on this plague. How do you expect to build a strong country with so low quality students.
If the student is not qualified for university, they must learn a technical career. Send only the bright ones to university.
These students are not qualified at all.
Hun Sen need to reform the eduction system.
This is normal and how cambodia educational system function. To produce low - level unskilled workers and to get the students to pay for teachers salary.
I don't see anything wrong with Hun Sen education system. A country full of literate people???? Hun Sen couldn't finish 3rd grade and he had to buy his Ph.d Those students are doing what their leaders did.
maybe the cambodia education system needs to be overhauled or something as it is too rigid, especially in the grade school level. there should be teachers to speciallize in each subject area like geography, math, science, literature, etc... it is too difficult for teachers to teach in every subject. in the USA, teachers in grade schools i.e. first grade to junior high are taught by teachers with special training in the subject area of their major in college. in cambodia, this system is not in place, thus one teacher in the grade school level is teaching every subject from math to science, to literature to geography, etc... i hope gov't will reform the school system, especially in the grade school level. high school and higher seemed ok. it is the grade school level that needs reforms. god bless cambodia.
Any teacher that is caught accepting money should be fired and student who bribe teacher should be kick out.
These students are the future of the country. They are so incompetent and mediocre that their will be no future at all for this country.
Simply consider all these aspects:
1-Everyone knows the teachers take bribe from students in any forms or force students to pay for private lesson during daily class hours. The reasons are the teachers cannot survive on the salary paid by the government; and they have to pay for their children who go to school the same. ISN'T THIS CONDUCT ROUTINE OR MOVING IN CYCLE????
2. It doesn't mean that any principals at schools do not know, Yet IT IS THE ROUTINE OF DAILY LIFE, THE SOCIALIZING IN THE DESIGNED CORRUPTED SYSTEM GIVING BENEFITS AND POWER TO THE TOPS. TEACHERS HAS TO PAY SOME SHARES OF MONEY TO THE PRINCIPALS OR DURING STATE EXAMINATION, THEY PAY TO THE HEAD OF THE FACILITY. IT'S THE ROUTINE!!!!!!!
-The government has no political or personal will to fight or curb the widespread of CORRUPTION!!!! What it cares most are: As long they can stay in power for their whole life and let their clans for generations to come to live happily and comfortably on the suffering and hardships of its own people; and Any other negative impacts or consequences in the short or long-term run would not matter or trouble them at all!!!
This is the NATURE OR THE ROOT POLICY OF THE CURRENT LEADERS!!!!!
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