Address by H.E. Chhay Than, Minister of Planning
It gives me great pleasure to have this opportunity to make a presentation at this very important Education Round Table. As many of you will be aware, my Ministry has taken the lead in the preparation of the new socio-economic development plan (SEDP). The aim of SEDP is to create a balance in development, with the central aim of poverty alleviation.
The Ministry of Planning is responsible for monitoring program objectives and development strategies that give impact to poverty reduction, including education programs and strategic reforms. The pro-poor focus of education reforms reflects the main goal of the Government's policies and strategies.
Ladies and Gentlemen!
I would like to emphasise that MoP has a close collaboration with MoEYS in monitoring the implementation of education reform programs and their impact on poverty reduction. At the same time, I would like to make some brief proposals on how the Ministry of Planning and MoEYS can co-operate on poverty monitoring.
It is well known that the representation of the poor is much greater in the primary student population than in the secondary or tertiary student population. This is particularly true of Cambodia, where 20 per cent of primary students but only 2 per cent of upper secondary students are drawn from the poorest 20 per cent of the population.
In contrast, 61 per cent of the upper secondary students in the country come from the richest 20 per cent of the population. The representation of the poor in tertiary education is zero while the richest 20 per cent of the population accounts for 57 per cent of tertiary education. This means that public expenditure on upper secondary and tertiary education will benefit better off families in Cambodia, while spending in primary education will relatively benefit the poor. In other words, poverty correlates strongly with less education opportunity.
Through the SEDP process, my Ministry has helped to make sure that MoEYS planning groups link extensively with high-level fiscal, public administration and governance working groups, including a new poverty reduction task force. These key education reform policies are central to the Government's interim poverty reduction strategy paper (IPRSP), approved by the Council of Ministers in late 2000. In this way, the Government has been able to ensure that the plans set out in the ESP and ESSP are increasingly pro-poor.
Besides preparing the five-year SEDP, the Ministry of Planning is also responsible for preparation of the public investment program (PIP), which is developed on a three-year rolling basis. I am encouraged to note that the ESSP programming cycle also adopts this rolling approach. This should make it easier for the flexible updating of education program priorities within any revised PIP.
A critical component of both the IPRSP and SEDP II is the emphasis on regular monitoring of poverty impact of development programs, including education. I am particularly pleased to note that the MoEYS reform plans place strong emphasis on strengthening impact and progress monitoring capacity. I would strongly urge the international community to give priority to strengthening MoEYS monitoring capacity as soon as possible.
My Ministry strongly endorses the MoEYS principle that the budget should be seen as an instrument of policy implementation rather than for system maintenance. It is notable that the education budget has been restructured for 2001 to implement these principles. The Priority Action Programs (PAPs) and the PIP will also help to structure the budget in a more results-based format. These changes will help the Ministry of Planning and MoEYS to co-operate more effectively in monitoring the poverty impact of education reforms.
I am pleased to note that the ESSP program monitoring systems will not only look at the effectiveness of the program but also the broader impact on poverty reduction. I would like to raise the key questions on which our two ministries need to co-operate to assess real poverty impact :
¨ Is the participation of children from poor families, girls and ethnic minorities increasing as the education reforms take place?
¨ Is continuing with school leading to better income generating opportunities?
¨ Are there additional benefits for the poor sending their children to school, especially in terms of improved family health and nutrition and family planning?
¨ Is the sense of well-being amongst poor families getting better in terms of a reduction in food poverty and human poverty?
These are not easy questions to answer. This kind of monitoring will need effective co-operation between the Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport and Ministry of Economy and Finance. I would like to suggest that these 3 ministries and others begin to develop coordination mechanisms for sharing relevant information.
In particular, I would like to suggest that the data collection through the National Cambodia Socio-economic Survey (CSES) can provide key information for monitoring the impact of education reforms. This survey is the responsibility of the National Institute of Statistics of the Ministry of Planning. This help the other ministries, especially MoEYS, to co-ordinate easily and exchange information with each other. I feel that the system can be developed quickly based on this process of information exchange and can create integrated databases across Ministries.
In summary, I wish to congratulate the Minister and his team for their excellent work in planning these important pro-poor education reforms. I am confident that the proposed reforms will contribute significantly to broader poverty reduction strategies. I look forward to continued co-operation with MoEYS in both the planning and monitoring of the proposed reforms.
I would like to wish Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen good luck and success with this forum.