So many schools with ... highly underpaid teachers and the highest adult literacy rate in SE Asia

Cambodia proud with increase of educational institutions

May 11, 2010
Xinhua

While the census showed the adult literacy rate has shown a fairly good increase during 1998-2008, Cambodia is the lowest in the Southeast Asia region after Laos.

Cambodia has recorded a large increase of educational institutions at all level across the country, the government report showed Tuesday.

In the report filed by Ministry of Education said up to date, there are 11, 706 educational institutions or schools and as many as 3,471,867 students are enjoying their education.

The report said, of the total figure, there are 3,410 kindergartens with 186,086 school children, 6,664 primary schools with 2,239,794 students, 1,172 junior high schools with 585,151 students, 383 senior high schools with 323,583 students, and 77 higher educational institutions with 137,253 students.

Cambodia's education has been increased year by year due to the country's development in all fields.

Last year, Cambodia's new census showed that literacy rate in the country was impressively risen over the past ten years.

The census results received showed that "the number of literate population aged 7 and more in the country has spectacular risen from about 5.78 million to 8.96 million during the ten-year period, registering a decadal growth rate of nearly 55 percent as against the population growth rate of about 17 percent."

It said the general population literacy rate, which is the percentage of literate population to total population aged 7 and more, has increased from 62.80 in 1998 to 78.35 in 2008.

The urban literacy level has increased from 78.51 to 90.17 percent and the rural literacy rate has gone up from 59.07 percent to 75.33 percent.

While the census showed the adult literacy rate has shown a fairly good increase during 1998-2008, Cambodia is the lowest in the Southeast Asia region after Laos.

It is also observed that the number of children aged 6 and more attending school or educational institution have increased from 36.27 percent during 1998-2008, but the proportion of females attending school continues to be less than the corresponding proportion for males both in the urban and rural areas.

The 2008 population census results showed that the Cambodian population has increased by 1.96 million over the last 10 years from 11.4 million in 1998 to 13.4 million in 2008.