Poverty in Cambodia: Its effect on school-aged children

Rock quarry at mount Kraing Dey Meas, Kampong Chhnang province. (Photo Keo Pech Metta, RFA)

A young girl (middle) is breaking up rock into smaller pieces for sale (Photo Keo Pech Metta, RFA)

Children in Kampong Chhnang dropping out of school because of poverty

05 March 2006
Keo Pech Metta
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by KI-Media

Poverty has forced many Cambodian children in the village of Trea Cheung, Sre Thmey commune, Rolea Pha-ear district, Kampong Chhnang province, to drop out of school to work at a rock quarry to get rock to sell to help their family livelihood.

Older women and young girls can be found among those who manually break the rock into pieces near the foothill of mount Kraing Dey Meas in the commune of Sre Thmey. Among them, a 15-year-old girl, Sam Lieng, is resting on a pile of rocks which had just been broken into smaller pieces. She told RFA that she struggle with school up to 7th grade, but now, she has dropped out of school for a few months already because her family is too poor and too needy. She has 9 siblings, in addition to an invalid grandmother, and both of her parents went to work in Thailand and have not returned back home yet.

Another 11-year-old boy, Hong, told us that he still go to school and he is in 4th grade, but his schooling is not steady as he is absent from school more often than being in school. He is too busy coming to the mountain rock quarry with his mother to obtain rock to sell in order to buy rice and food for the family. Because of his frequent absence, he cannot catch up with classes, and he had decided to drop out of school completely.

Another woman carrying her infant on her, Tep Sopheap, is standing next to a fresh pile of big rock pieces she is preparing to break into smaller pieces. She told us that Hong whom we talked to earlier is her son, he is the oldest of her six children, that is why he has to attend school intermittently only so that he can help with finding and digging rocks from the mountain and break them into pieces for sale.

She said that even if she work this hard, she cannot earn enough for living, that is why she decided to have her son to drop out of school [to help her].

Hun Sat, the Trea Cheung village chief, told us that there are about 30 families in his village working in the rock quarry, they are poor, and therefore, none of them can afford to send their children to school because of that.

Furthermore, he said that children who dropped out of school are those who live with their mothers or grandmothers only, their fathers usually went to work as laborer in Thailand, that is why these children are forced to help their mother at the quarry.

Regarding the children dropping out of school, Ung Leang Huor, the deputy-director of the department of education of Kampong Chhnang province, told us that this happen often in poor families that is why his department and the ministry of education and youth is planning to ask for community development in education in order to encourage and return numerous children back to school.

Ung Leang Huor said: “… in each school, there is a supporting committee for each one of them. I will contact the local level and work with the education department to find solution to help all these children.”

U Eng, the deputy-director of the department of the ministry of education and youth stressed that every year, the department always provide stipends for needy students, in particular to young girls in primary schools so that they can reach middle schools. He said this year, his department had provided stipends to 3,855 children, 77% of whom are girls.

We note that in Kampong Chhnang, there is a national level seminar on education that is being organized in order to return back children in the entire country to school because the plan is for 2015, all children must attend school, and they must finish primary school and middle school.

As for this plan, there is no indication as to when it will be applied and whether it will be successful, but for now, there are many poor children who do not attend school, some of them had to drop out in the middle of schooling, just like that child from Trea Cheung village for example.