04/12/2011 - Damaged Schools delay the education of thousands of students across Cambodia; disruption could impact drop-out rates and meeting MDGs.
Cambodia’s worst flooding in decades has resulted in damaged infrastructure across the country, including schools. Such damage means that rebuilding may take months, delaying the start of school for thousands of students.
According to aid workers and government officials, as of late October, 323 schools out of 1,400 damaged ones were closed. Although some of these schools have reopened, there are reports that 77 of them need to be rebuilt entirely, and efforts are still underway to pump water out of some of the affected schools.
Reports from the Ministry of Education are that some estimated 20,000 children remain out of school.
These numbers are concerning for many teachers, who are warning that such a long absence from school could have a larger impact on dropout rates for students. As well, not only has flooding impacted infrastructure, but it has also exacerbated the already chronic shortage of books and supplies in many schools.
The president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association stated that some schools simply opened their doors in October with no teaching materials.
Education in Cambodia was already precarious even before the floods. According to IRIN, the country's progress on the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for primary school education is mixed: 94 percent of primary school-age children were enrolled for the 2009-2010 school year; 83 percent of students enrolled in primary school completed the 2008-2009 year.
However, according to a UN report, Net Primary Enrolment Rates are within reach of the MDG target of universal enrolment by 2015. However, lower secondary education goals cannot be achieved by 2015 at the current pace.
The UN report does not reflect what the fallout of the flooding will be on enrolment rates.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEPF) is therefore calling on the government to ensure that the existing guidelines to make up lost school hours are enforced, which could hopefully work to mitigate the risk that the floods may derail progress on primary education.
Progress for the welfare of children has been positive for the most part in Cambodia, although it still has among the highest rates of child mortality in the region of Southeast Asia, and maternal health remains off track for meeting the MDGs in 2015.
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1856: King Ang Duong apprise Mr. de Montigny, French envoy in visit to Bangkok, through the intermediary of Bishop Miche, his intention to yield Koh Tral to France (cf. “The Second [French] Empire of IndoChina”).
1863: Establishing the Protectorate of Cambodia, France annexed Kampuchea Krom, made a French colony out of it, and named it “Cochinchine”.
May 25, 1874: Koh Tral (Phu Quoc) which belonged to Cambodia (under the reign of King Ang Duong) was placed under the administration of the Governor of Cochinchine, i.e. under the administration of France, by the French Protectorate.
June 16, 1875: Koh Tral is attached to the inspection district of Hatien which was colonized by France. One needs to recall that in 1855, King Ang Duong reminded Napoleon III [first French President (1948-1852), later French Emperor (1852-1870)] that “the territories annexed by Vietnam located between the Western branch of the Mekong [River] and the Gulf of Siam (Hatien area) were “actually Cambodian land” (cf. A. Dolphin-Dauphin-Meunier – “History of Cambodia”, pg. 99). Therefore, Koh Tral always remains a Cambodian island, even though it is under the administration of colonial France.
January 31, 1939: the “Brévié Line” which is not a maritime border demarcation, but rather a line dividing the police and administrative authority “on the islands along the Gulf of Siam” [was established]. By this act, Koh Tral was placed, as it did in 1875, under the French colonial administration of Cochinchine. Brévié himself specified that “the territorial dependence of these islands (including that of Phu Quoc) remains entirely reserved”.
June 04, 1949: In spite of Cambodian protests and the Deferre Motion [the Deferre Motion has been part of the Bill of Transfer of French Cochinchine to Vietnam which spelled out specific rights of the Khmer Krom people], France voted a law allowing the attachment of the Cochinchine territory (Khmer territory) to Vietnam.
April 24, 1954: at the Geneva Conference, Cambodia still continued to protest against the unjust and uneven transfer of her Cochinchine lands to Vietnam by France, and reserved her right to litigate the case at the United Nations.
12:00 pm and 12:05pm, your history is boring. Let's confront the contemporary.
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