Community Participation in Education: A Case Study in the Four Remote Primary Schools in Samlot District, Battambang Province, Cambodia

Abstract

<p>This study was conducted to investigate the nature of community participation in education in a remote district in Cambodia. A case study approach was used to explore the issue and employed mixed research methods for data collection. Epstein‘s participation and Bray‘s degree of community participation were used as analytical frameworks. The study contributes to a wide body of literature in participation in education, but which is under-researched for rural Cambodia. The study focussed on the forms and processes of participation by parents, community members and education stakeholders in primary schools in remote areas. The study discovered a range of social practices in community participation in education. The degrees of participation varied depending on the types of participation and the participants. Parents had direct participation in their children‘s learning at home, and indirect participation through resource contribution for school development. In addition, the community participated in education through their main representatives, the School Support Committees (SSCs). SSCs were found to possess power in the decision-making processes in school and education development. The most common type of participation was collaborative resource contribution for school development. This practice reflected the traditional culture of participation of Cambodian society but there was also a sign of behavioural change to focus more on children‘s learning. Teachers and School Support Committees were the drivers in bringing community and parents to participate in education. They were the facilitators, communicators, network connectors and mobilizers for school and education development. This case study suggests that a shift in focus (on the part of the government, non-governmental organizations and education stakeholders) to support parental involvement in children‘s learning, rather than the traditional resource mobilisation, may better promote children‘s learning. Further research on parental involvement in children‘s learning could be conducted.</p>

Guidelines to enhance community participation in community learning centers in the kingdom of Cambodia

“…The fifth one is literacy with skills development, which is noticed to surpass poverty. Still, it is challenging to achieve since many disadvantaged youths and young people with insufficient or no schooling and the people who are too old to be accepted by the traditional schools (Thompson, 2005). The sixth is a supplementary non-formal education program to enable the children to benefit from the program.…”

“…Department of Non-Formal Education (2018c); UNESCO (2017a) has recommended all relevant stakeholders revise the teaching curriculum in some CLCs, which are still conventional and cannot respond to the learning needs. The CLCs should provide a conducive environment and sufficient facilities to practice their knowledge and skills (Hager, 2001;To, 2016;UNESCO, 1999). It is crucial for the department of nonformal education considering extending the scopes of their training programs in the CLCs by not just solely focusing on non-formal and information education, but on the environment, business, tourism, market, and other life skills to attract more learners to attend in the CLCs (Broadbent et al, 2006;Uia et al, 2010).…”

Guidelines for stakeholders' accountability in Cambodian students' reading literacy: MSEM with dyadic data

“…Along with, parents or care givers do not only participate in one or more school associated activities, such as parent-teacher meetings, volunteering at school, support their children's accessibility to education, pertained information about their children's learning progress from teacher and helped children with their daily schooling workhomework, reading, writing and other literacy skills-but also take a role in communicating with their children with the aim of having a healthy relationship with them, so that the process of encouraging, mentoring, leading and inspiring may be genuine (Loeurt, 2016;Ntekane, 2018;Steven, 2007;Yun & Kusum, 2008). Through reforming this system, the learning outcome of student had significantly increased while the total enrollment rate of female for the whole country was 49.3 % (rural area 49.3% female) and completion rate of primary school was absolutely 79.87%, lower secondary school at 42.57%, and 20.16% for upper secondary education .…”

“…Thirdly, the lack of annual operation planning and budgeting, policy implementation and strengthening, and capable technical officers in statistics, monitoring and evaluation at sub national especially school level limited the annual plan implementation of MoEYS with only 23.6% completed, 61.8% on going and 14.5% not yet take any action in academic year of -2016. In addition, education management strategy should be taken more action especially on its implementation at school level in order to bring the reform programs and send a clear and consistent message to all stakeholders of this (Naron, 2017).…”