1 Scope and Strategic Formulation » Up

The key strategic priority for ensuring more equitable access to basic education will be to continue to reduce direct and indirect costs to parents (the major access barrier for poor families) through a significant increase in performance-based teacher remuneration. This strategy is designed to help eliminate the need for informal parental payments to teachers. An associated strategy will be to significantly increase school operating budgets to offset these demands on parents, increasingly managed at provincial and school levels.

These strategies will help secure pupil and teacher attendance, improved progression rates and availability of basic education instructional supplies, as part of quality improvement measures. An associated strategy will be to take steps to improve the efficiency of staff deployment and use of education facilities in order to optimise resource use.

Another strategic priority will be to introduce new subsidy/incentive programs for the children of poor families to ensure access to primary and secondary school and post school training. The programs will be poverty indexed and merit driven, incorporating grassroots community involvement in student selection and management.

The key strategic priority for quality and efficiency improvement in basic education will be to secure an effective balance between wage and non-wage recurrent spending. The ESP anticipates that the majority of the quality/efficiency programs will be planned and reflected in the program allocations.

A further strategic priority will be to take measures that build up capacity for decentralized education service management. The fundamental strategy will be to build up the capacity of Government planning and management systems. Proposed measures include delegating greater responsibility to provinces and districts and schools/institutions for program planning, selective equipping and training programs, better information management and strengthening central and provincial monitoring systems. A program of legislation and new regulations to improve quality assurance and system performance monitoring will underpin these measures.

A final strategic priority will be to focus capital budget spending on enabling policy reforms. The main strategic priority will be rehabilitation of existing education facilities and targeted expansion for primary and secondary schools. Associated priorities are very selective capital investment in teacher training quality improvement and capacity building programs.

The overarching financing strategy is to achieve an effective mix of financing modalities that will secure implementation of the full range of policy targets. The ESP envisages that both Government and donor support will require a combination of budget support, capital investment and capacity building programs. As part of this strategy, a key short-term objective will be to capture all forms of donor and NGO support for education (e.g. project activities, technical assistance etc.) within the annual MoEYS budget process, including a clearer definition of what constitutes actual recurrent budget support.

The Ministry's approach is to use a rolling program of policy and program reform and adjustment taking account of the findings of a joint annual review of education sector performance by Government, donors and NGO's. This review process will assess the impact and cost-effectiveness of the broad program strategies outlined below.

2 Goals and Objectives » Up

The overarching EFA goals pertaining to Basic Formal Education within EFA framework can be summarised as follows:

(ii) Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education of good quality.

(iv) Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015, with a focus on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement in basic education of good quality;

(vi) Improving all aspects of the quality of education and ensuring excellence of all so that recognized and measurable learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially literacy, numeracy and essential life skills.

Complementary overall objectives associated with these goals for Cambodia, are summarized below:

» Universal enrolment of 6-year-old children

» Universal access to and completion of primary education or equivalent by 2010

» Universal access to and completion of lower secondary education or equivalent by 2010

» Enhanced efficiency of formal schooling

» Sustainable levels of public financing of basic education

» Universal achievement of measurable learning outcomes, especially functional literacy, numeracy and life skills

For more details with respect to quantitative targets over the period 2002-2015, see table 4.3.

3 Issues and Challenges » Up

Universal access to and completion of nine years of free, basic education of good quality as the 'priority of priorities' for Cambodia are more ambitious goals than the EFA Goal of UPE.

To achieve this, several inter-related challenges must be addressed. All children at age six need to be sufficiently mature to manage when they enrol at school. They need age-appropriate methods and materials to ensure that they enjoy their school experience, progress to the next grade without repeating, and do so for every grade until they complete primary school.

A further challenge is for all children to continue to and complete the lower secondary cycle. But here, the proportions of out of school children are very much greater, and a number of specific strategies have been put in place to encourage lower secondary enrolment and completion.

The encouraging trend of more children now progressing beyond primary schooling is creating an enrolment 'bulge' that will continue to severely strain resources. Nevertheless, despite recent gains, the proportion of children currently completing the lower secondary cycle before 15 years of age remains small. This is a formidable challenge, given the large numbers of children currently in the system.

ESSP planned expansion of multi-grade teaching in the primary schools that either do not yet have classes beyond grade 3, or have relatively small numbers of children in upper primary grades, will need to be phased and expanded carefully over the next five or so years, to ensure that teacher supply and necessary in-service training, materials and support are in place.

Multi-grade schools are considered a sound longer-term strategy for smaller communities, knowing that multi-grade schools in many countries have a long and valuable tradition, and a well-developed and comprehensive literature.

Policy-led decisions related to class sizes will need to be consonant with acceptable levels of learning achievement. ESSP programs will be annually reviewed to align with quality factors such as teacher competence, professional support and supervision, quality and availability of teaching and learning materials, class sizes, and instructional time.

Projected efficiency gains, and an unusual short-to-medium-term decrease in the projected populations of children of primary, then lower secondary ages, will combine to reduce national primary grade enrolments for a critical number of years until projected population increases push enrolments beyond current levels. This short-to-medium term 'window' provides a unique and timely opportunity to ensure that quality components are comprehensively addressed in data-based annual review processes.

Addressing quality of schooling is a fundamental and ongoing challenge for basic education in Cambodia. Experiencing a life-relevant, high quality, basic education remains the goal for all Cambodia's children. Schooling through a formal system using public funds is the process chosen to achieve this. It is realised that, in the years to come, the children and families will reflect on the quality of their schooling, not on its budgets, borrowings, administrative networks, or efficiency. This will be reflected in annual review efforts.

Quality-linked components to be systematically addressed will need to include:

» Reducing class sizes, especially in initial grades, below current planning levels earlier than 2010, with budget offsets potentially available from anticipated increases in private sector enrolments (currently less than 1%), and further efficiency gains.

» Reducing reliance on double-shifts to ensure that every child has minimally 875 contact hours per year (i.e. all schools operate for at least 35 weeks per year, and children receive at least five hours of teaching per day, for five days per week).

» Making schools more 'child-friendly' and gender-responsive in facilities, teaching / learning approaches, environments, school planning and governance.

» Increased use of cluster-level in-service education opportunities

» Continuous monitoring of essential learning competencies, linked to ongoing remediation.

» Enhanced pre-service education, that encourages instructors to adopt methods in their teaching that they wish their students in training to adopt as teachers.

» Regular 'educational audits' (standards moderation) at key points within the system;

» Strengthening the inspectorate and providing adequate funds for school-support visits to ensure that all teachers, including those working in adverse and isolated situations, develop professionally.

» Building further on Cambodia's experience with clusters to ensure that all teachers benefit from regular professional exchange and interactions.

» Maintaining and possibly expanding the current school breakfast program that is currently supported by WFP with monitoring and technical support from MoEYS and NGO partners.

» On-going analyses of EMIS and budgetary data at every level in the system to ensure equitable deployment, timely allocations of funds, and increased flexibility for local level adjustments, as intended under decentralisation policies.

4 Operational Strategy: Access and Efficiency Improvement » Up

Parental Cost-reduction and Regulation Strategies for basic education, alongside targeted cost sharing for post-basic education services

» Internal efficiency improvement strategies at all levels, with the priority for improvements in grades 1 - 6

» Targeted education facilities development focusing on securing complete grade 1 - 6 and 7 to 9 schools in currently under-served areas

For Parental Cost-reduction and Regulation, the main strategies and targets are as follows:

» Reduction in average parental contributions for basic education through abolition of start of year school charges and provision of school operating budgets by Government.

» Establishing regulations for the transparent collection and accounting of parental contributions to education and training costs, alongside waivers and other measures that ensure that no student will be excluded due to inability to pay.

» Provision of poverty targeted subsidies/scholarships to children from the poorest families for grades 4 - 9 linked to new grade 4 - 6 re-entry programs.

» Provision of subsidies/scholarships to all students for teacher training institutions, with eligibility based on increasing use of grade 9 and grade 12 examinations.

For Internal Efficiency Improvement, the main strategies and targets are as follows:

» Increased use of local materials including improved utilization of existing infrastructure out of the school (such as pagodas) in order to increase access and capacity for new students.

» Increased student progression rates across grades 1 - 6 and transition from grade 6 to grade 7, through a combination of remedial teaching in grades 1 - 6, strengthened measures for better students and teacher's attendance and a more flexible annual school calendar.

» Reduced dropout rates across grades 1 - 9 through subsidies/scholarships for the poorest students and a range of complementary targeted incentive strategies (e.g. school feeding programs and school health care, in partnership with NGO and other stakeholders).

» Improved regulation of entry into grade 1 and increased opportunities for re-entry for out of school students in grades 4 to 6, through introduction of grade 1 reception classes nationwide and expansion of re-entry programs.

For Expanded Public/Private Partnerships, the main medium term strategic priorities and targets are as follows:

» Preparation of a cross-cutting policy and strategic plan for public private partnerships in various education sub-sectors and programs including ECCE and NFE.

» Promotion of expanded private provision at all levels through clearly defined legislative, regulatory and quality assurance arrangements.

» Increased student transfer and progression between public and private institutions at basic education level, through new accreditation and credit transfer arrangements between private and public providers.

For Targeted Education Facilities Development, the main strategies and targets are as follows:

» Provision of new and additional classrooms, alongside selective multi-grade teaching in villages and communes without a complete grade 1 - 6 primary school.

» Provision of additional classrooms and multi-purpose practical rooms in all communes/clusters without a grade 7 - 9 school facility.

» Provision of additional classrooms for grades 1 - 6, as well as grades 7 - 9in currently or projected overcrowded schools.