Work!

I think it’s time I write something about my work here. My job title is Community Assistant and I support the work of the Provincial Office of Education as they try to encourage greater involvement from children, families and communities in their schools. It is hoped that this will improve enrolment and drop-out rates in the province, as well as making the schools more child-friendly. Another of VSO’s objectives is to give people a stake and a voice in their local services and to develop a culture in which people are better able to hold their public services to account. Currently, there is very little accountability at all levels of public governance (even at the highest level – Hun Sen has been prime minister for 31 years, the leader of the opposition is currently in exile in France, and most of the press is government-controlled, so there is no real opposition to the government) and, although improving this situation is a long-term project, empowering people to become involved is a useful start.

As I had been told to expect, work is slow here, especially compared to my last two years of PGCE and NQT year. So far I have been visiting the seven primary schools and one secondary school in Sen Monorom district, to begin to develop a working relationship with the school directors and to identify what we can do to help. Charlotte, the previous volunteer, worked with the same schools so we are also continuing some of the projects she started. It has been interesting to learn about some of the barriers to education that result in a situation where Grade 1 enrolment has risen to around 87% whereas very few students make it to the end of primary school. Some students live too far from school and have no transport; some are needed to work in order to help their families feed themselves; many from the Punong group (Mondulkiri’s largest ethnic group) don’t understand Khmer which is the language used in all government schools; many can’t afford books and stationery; informal payments to teachers are common, excluding those who cannot pay; there is virtually no provision for (or even recognition of) special educational needs; lack of water or toilet facilities at schools discourage students from coming; many teachers are not sufficiently trained in child-friendly teaching methods and so lots of students don’t enjoy school; poor hygiene spread illness which also affects children’s attendance. Another major problem is that the district’s only secondary school  has just one boarding house for students whose families don’t live in the town, so children from the rural primaries tend to drop out at Grade 3 or 4 because they know they will not been able to attend secondary school anyway.

These are my initial impressions of the context of my work, although usefully we had a meeting last month between VSO and the Provincial Office of Education to make a specific plan for our work this year. We have been told to focus on one primary school and one secondary, to set up a student council and an effective school support committee in each that the POE can then use as a model for other schools. In addition, we will also work with the other schools on various other community projects, such as well improvements, developing school libraries or vegetable gardens.

After six weeks of visiting schools and making plans, this week we actually had some work to do, as on Tuesday we ran a workshop with 24 students from the secondary school on setting up a student council. We had discussed this in advance with the deputy director of the school, and it was agreed that two students from each class would attend the training, and then be responsible, with support from their teachers, for organising the election process within their own classes.

It was good to work directly with kids again (it reminded me of how much I missed the students from St Gregory's!): they were a really nice group, and they produced some good ideas. Overall, though, I was disappointed by how it went although I think I have learned a lot about how to do it more effectively next time. The main problem was insufficient planning and cooperation between us and the deputy director. It turned out, for example, that he had already organised voting, so the 24 students had already been elected to the student council – this made our sessions on organising an election process completely redundant, and the final hour of the workshop was an embarrassment as he and we were working to different agendas. I do think it is very important that someone from the school is fully involved in delivering the training and that was what we wanted from the beginning, but as they hadn’t been interested and had asked us to do it all, it was frustrating that he intervened so much on the day. In particular, we organised sessions to enable students to produce their own ideas about what the student council could do, being careful not to give too many suggestions of our own. (I don’t think this is very common in Cambodia as all the workshops I have attended have involved a trainer telling participants all the answers.) Each time we did this, he would very quickly fill in these gaps, telling the students what to think, which was, incidentally, quite a limited view of the role of a student council - I think some of the students left thinking that it was little more than a cleaning agency.

It was a frustrating day but a useful one: we’ve learnt to clarify roles and expectations better, and to cooperate more effectively on planning.

Anyway, apart from work it’s been a busy few weeks. I have been to Phnom Penh twice, once to see the doctor for an eye infection and once to learn how to edit the volunteer magazine, as me and Sam are taking over from the next edition. We are also making plans for Christmas and New Year and I’m enjoying the parcels I’ve received – thank you! We are going to Kratie for Christmas and are having baked beans and cheese and red wine. I never thought I’d be so excited about beans.

Here are some of the photos from the workshop:

And here is the roast dinner which we cooked last night in Jeltje's oven: