The 1917 Law on Education passed by the French colonial
government introduced a basic primary and secondary education system
modelled loosely on that of France. However, that new system was
fundamentally elitist, reaching only a very small per cent of the
indigenous population and functioning mainly as a means of training
civil servants for colonial service throughout French Indochina.
As soon as they had come to power in 1975 the Khmer Rouge
abolished education, systematically destroying teaching materials,
textbooks and publishing houses. Schools and universities were closed
and their buildings put to other uses. During this period large numbers
of qualified teachers, researchers and technicians either fled the
country or died.
Cambodia’s higher education institutions currently
include the Royal University of Fine Arts (reopened 1980), the Institute
of Technology of Cambodia (1981, formerly the Higher Technical
Institute of Khmer-Soviet Friendship), the Royal University of
Agriculture (1984, formerly the Institute of Agricultural Engineering),
the Royal University of Phnom Penh (1988-1996, now incorporating
Faculties of Pedagogy, Law and Economic Sciences, Medicine, Pharmacy and
Dentistry and Business) and the Vedic Maharashi Royal University in
Prey Veng Province (1993). In 1995 the Royal School of Administration
was re-established under the control of the Council of Ministers.
Cambodia still has a low participation rate in higher
education, with just 1.2 per cent of the population enrolled, compared
with an average of 20.7 per cent in all the ASEAN countries.
Cambodia Table of
Contents
Public School System
Traditional education in Cambodia was handled by the local
wat, and
the bonzes were the teachers. The students were almost entirely
young
boys, and the education was limited to memorizing Buddhist
chants in
Pali. During the period of the French protectorate, an
educational
system based on the French model was inaugurated alongside the
traditional system. Initially, the French neglected education in
Cambodia. Only seven high school students graduated in 1931, and
only
50,000 to 60,000 children were enrolled in primary school in
1936. In
the year immediately following independence, the number of
students
rapidly increased. Vickery suggests that education of any kind
was
considered an "absolute good" by all Cambodians and that this
attitude eventually created a large group of unemployed or
underemployed
graduates by the late 1960s.
From the early twentieth century until 1975, the system
of mass
education operated on the French model. The educational system
was
divided into primary, secondary, higher, and specialized levels.
Public
education was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Education, which
exercised full control over the entire system; it established
syllabi,
hired and paid teachers, provided supplies, and inspected
schools. An
inspector of primary education, who had considerable authority,
was
assigned to each province. Cultural committees under the
Ministry of
Education were responsible for "enriching the Cambodian
language."
Primary education, divided into two cycles of three years
each, was
carried out in state-run and temple-run schools. Successful
completion
of a final state examination led to the award of a certificate
after
each cycle. The primary education curriculum consisted of
arithmetic,
history, ethics, civics, drafting, geography, hygiene, language,
and
science. In addition, the curriculum included physical education
and
manual work. French language instruction began in the second
year. Khmer
was the language of instruction in the first cycle, but French
was used
in the second cycle and thereafter. By the early 1970s, Khmer
was used
more widely in primary education. In the 1980s, primary school
ran from
the first to the fourth grade. Theoretically one primary school
served
each village. Secondary education also was divided into two
cycles, one
of four years taught at a college, followed by one of three
years taught
at a lycée. Upon completion of the first cycle, students could
take a
state examination. Successful candidates received a secondary
diploma.
Upon completion of the first two years of the second cycle,
students
could take a state examination for the first baccalaureate, and,
following their final year, they could take a similar
examination for
the second baccalaureate. The Cambodian secondary curriculum was
similar
to that found in France. Beginning in 1967, the last three years
of
secondary school were split up into three sections according to
major
subjects--letters, mathematics and technology; agriculture; and
biology.
In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, the country emphasized a
technical education. In the PRK, secondary education was reduced
to six
years.
Higher education lagged well behind primary and secondary
education,
until the late 1950s. The only facility in the country for
higher
education before the 1960s was the National Institute of Legal,
Political, and Economic Studies, which trained civil servants.
In the
late 1950s, it had about 250 students. Wealthy Cambodians and
those who
had government scholarships sought university-level education
abroad.
Students attended schools in France, but after independence
increasing
numbers enrolled at universities in the United States, Canada,
China,
the Soviet Union, and the German Democratic Republic (East
Germany). By
1970 universities with a total enrollment of nearly 9,000
students
served Cambodia. The largest, the University of Phnom Penh, had
nearly
4,570 male students and more than 730 female students in eight
departments--letters and humanities, science and technology, law
and
economics, medicine, pharmacy, commercial science, teacher
training, and
higher teacher training. Universities operated in the provinces
of
Kampong Cham, Takev, Batdambang; and in Phnom Penh, the
University of
Agricultural Sciences and the University of Fine Arts offered
training.
The increased fighting following the 1970 coup closed the three
provincial universities.
During the Khmer Rouge regime, education was dealt a
severe setback,
and the great strides made in literacy and in education during
the two
decades following independence were obliterated systematically.
Schools
were closed, and educated people and teachers were subjected to,
at the
least, suspicion and harsh treatment and, at the worst,
execution. At
the beginning of the 1970s, more than 20,000 teachers lived in
Cambodia;
only about 5,000 of the teachers remained 10 years later. Soviet
sources
report that 90 percent of all teachers were killed under the
Khmer Rouge
regime. Only 50 of the 725 university instructors, 207 of the
2,300
secondary school teachers, and 2,717 of the 21,311 primary
school
teachers survived. The meager educational fare was centered on
precepts
of the Khmer revolution; young people were rigidly
indoctrinated, but
literacy was neglected, and an entire generation of Cambodian
children
grew up illiterate. After the Khmer Rouge were driven from
power, the
educational system had to be re-created from almost nothing.
Illiteracy
had climbed to more than 40 percent, and most young people under
the age
of 14 lacked any basic education.
Education began making a slow comeback, following the
establishment
of the PRK. In 1986 the following main institutions of higher
education
were reported in the PRK: the Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy
(reopened
in 1980 with a six-year course of study); the Chamcar Daung
Faculty of
Agriculture (opened in 1985); the Kampuchea-USSR Friendship
Technical
Institute (which includes technical and engineering curricula),
the
Institute of Languages (Vietnamese, German, Russian, and Spanish
are
taught); the Institute of Commerce, the Center for Pedagogical
Education
(formed in 1979); the Normal Advanced School; and the School of
Fine
Arts. Writing about the educational system under the PRK,
Vickery
states, "Both the government and the people have demonstrated
enthusiasm for education . . . . The list of subjects covered is
little
different from that of prewar years. There is perhaps more time
devoted
to Khmer language and literature than before the war and, until
the
1984-85 school year, at least, no foreign language instruction."
He
notes that the secondary school syllabus calls for four hours of
foreign
language instruction per week in either Russian, German, or
Vietnamese
but that there were no teachers available.
Martin describes the educational system in the PRK as
based very
closely on the Vietnamese model, pointing out that even the
terms for
primary and secondary education have been changed into direct
translations of the Vietnamese terms. Under the PRK regime,
according to
Martin, the primary cycle had four instead of six classes, the
first
level of secondary education had three instead of four classes,
and the
second level of secondary education had three classes. Martin
writes
that not every young person could go to school because schooling
both in
towns and in the countryside required enrollment fees. Civil
servants
pay 25 riels per month to send a child to school, and others pay
up to
150 riels per month. Once again, according to Martin, "Access to
tertiary studies is reserved for children whose parents work for
the
regime and have demonstrated proof of their loyalty to the
regime."
She writes that, from the primary level on, the contents of all
textbooks except for alphabet books was politically oriented and
dealt
"more specifically with Vietnam." From the beginning of the
secondary cycle, Vietnamese language study was compulsory.
Buddhist Education
Before the French organized a Western-style educational
system, the
Buddhist wat, with monks as teachers, provided the only formal
education
in Cambodia. The monks traditionally regarded their main
educational
function as the teaching of Buddhist doctrine and history and
the
importance of gaining merit. Other subjects were regarded as
secondary.
At the wat schools, young boys--girls were not allowed to study
in these
institutions--were taught to read and to write Khmer, and they
were
instructed in the rudiments of Buddhism.
In 1933 a secondary school system for novice monks was
created within
the Buddhist religious system. Many wat schools had so-called
Pali
schools that provided three years of elementary education from
which the
student could compete for entrance into the Buddhist lycées.
Graduates
of these lycées could sit for the entrance examination to the
Buddhist
University in Phnom Penh. The curriculum of the Buddhist schools
consisted of the study of Pali, of Buddhist doctrine, and of
Khmer,
along with mathematics, Cambodian history and geography,
science,
hygiene, civics, and agriculture. Buddhist instruction was under
the
authority of the Ministry of Religion.
Nearly 600 Buddhist primary schools, with an enrollment
of more than
10,000 novices and with 800 monks as instructors, existed in
1962. The
Preah Suramarit Buddhist Lycée--a four-year institution in Phnom
Penh
founded in 1955--included courses in Pali, in Sanskrit, and in
Khmer, as
well as in many modern disciplines. In 1962 the student body
numbered
680. The school's graduates could continue their studies in the
Preah
Sihanouk Raj Buddhist University created in 1959. The university
offered
three cycles of instruction; the doctoral degree was awarded
after
successful completion of the third cycle. In 1962 there were 107
students enrolled in the Buddhist University. By the 1969-70
academic
year, more than 27,000 students were attending Buddhist
religious
elementary schools, 1,328 students were at Buddhist lycées, and
176
students were enrolled at the Buddhist University.
The Buddhist Institute was a research institution formed
in 1930 from
the Royal Library. The institute contained a library, record and
photograph collections, and a museum. Several commissions were
part of
the institute. A folklore commission published collections of
Cambodian
folktales, a Tripitaka Commission completed a translation of the
Buddhist canon into Khmer, and a dictionary commission produced a
definitive two-volume dictionary of Khmer. No information was
available
in 1987 regarding the fate of the temple schools, but it is
doubtful
that they were revived after the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime.
Private Education
For a portion of the urban population in Cambodia, private
education
was important in the years before the communist takeover. Some
private
schools were operated by ethnic or religious
minorities--Chinese,
Vietnamese, European, Roman Catholic, and Muslim--so that
children could
study their own language, culture, or religion. Other schools
provided
education to indigenous children who could not gain admission to
a
public school. Attendance at some of the private schools,
especially
those in Phnom Penh, conferred a certain amount of prestige on
the
student and on the student's family.
The private educational system included Chinese-language
schools,
Vietnamese-language (often Roman Catholic) schools,
French-language
schools, English-language schools, and Khmerlanguage schools.
Enrollment
in private primary schools rose from 32,000 in the early 1960s
to about
53,500 in 1970, although enrollment in private secondary schools
dropped
from about 19,000 to fewer than 8,700 for the same period. In
1962 there
were 195 Chinese schools, 40 Khmer schools, 15 Vietnamese
schools, and
14 French schools operating in Cambodia. Private secondary
education was
represented by several high schools, notably the Lycée Descartes
in
Phnom Penh.
All of the Vietnamese schools in Phnom Penh and some of
the Chinese
schools there were closed by government decree in 1970. There
was no
information available in 1987 that would have indicated the
presence of
any private schools in the PRK, although there was some private
instruction, especially in foreign languages.
Education in
Cambodia was traditionally offered by the 
After independence a
universal education system was established, complemented by the
development of a network of vocational colleges such as the School of
Health (1953), the Royal School of Administration (1956), the College of
Education (1959), the National School of Commerce (1958) and the
National Institute of Judicial, Political and Economic Studies (1961).
However, apart from a Buddhist University established in 1954 to provide
education for monks, Cambodia had no public institution of higher
education until 1960s when the Khmer Royal University was founded. In
1965 this institution became the Royal University and in the same year
six more tertiary training institutions were created – the Royal
Technical University, the Royal University of Fine Arts, the Royal
University of Kompong Cham, the Royal University of Takeo, the Royal
University of Agronomic Sciences and the Popular University. These were
followed in 1968 by the Royal University of Battambang.
When the new
Cambodian government came to power in 1979 it had to completely
reconstruct the entire education system. Pre-school, primary and
secondary schools were first to reappear, followed by non-formal
education for adults and a network of colleges and universities.
The education system
in Cambodia continues to be beset by many difficulties, including an
acute shortage of qualified teaching staff, poor morale due to low
salary levels and lack of suitable teaching materials. Attendance at
school remains limited in rural areas since children are often expected
to stay at home and help their families in the fields. In the 1998
Census adult literacy rates were estimated at 76.25 per cent for men and
45.98 per cent for women.