2 Increased quality and efficiency of the education sector

As well as increasing student enrolment, Ministry has paid attention on strengthening the quality and efficiency of the education sector. MoEYS is revising the curriculum to respond to the educational situation in the country, region and worldwide. This includes improving student learning achievement standards, teacher and staff performance, teaching time, core textbooks, the pupil-teacher ratio and the pupil-class ratio.

There is also a policy to improve student flow rate an increased promotion rate with consequent reduced repetition and dropout rate and an improved transition rate from one level of education to another level, thus maintaining students in the system through more effective teaching and non-teaching staff deployment and through re-deployment of teachers.

2.1 Primary education » Up

Ministry's policy has paid attention to improving quality and efficiency in primary education, the base of accessing to secondary. In 2003-04, the promotion rates were as follows:

• Grade1: 64.8% (girls 65.4%) compared to the target of 86% (girls 86%),


• Grade2: 73.4% (girls 74.8%) compared to the target of 88% (girls 88%)


• Grade3: 77.3% (girls 78.9%) compared to the target of 87% (girls 88%).

These figures show that promotion rates are improving and that female promotion rates are now better than male promotion rates. However, the improvements are not sufficient to reach the targets.

In 2003-04, the repetition rates were also not achieving their targets as shown:

• Grade1: 23.6% (girls 22.4%) compared to the target of 7%,


• Grade2: 16.1% (girls 14.4%) compared to the target of 5%


• Grade3: 13.2% (girls 11.3%) compared to the target of 5%.

In the last five years, the transition rate to lower secondary has increased overall but this mainly due to a big increase in the year 2001-2002. It has been decreasing for the past two years. This is due to many students dropping out in grade 5 and grade 6, especially girls, students in disadvantaged, remote areas. In 2004-05, the transition rate to lower secondary was about 82%.

Primary school completion rate provides an indication of quality and efficiency as it measures the overall output of the primary cycle¹.

Between 1999-2000 and 2003-04 the rate increased from 40.9% to 46.7%.

2.2 Lower secondary education » Up

The efficiency of lower secondary education in this period again indicates that the MoEYS must ensure better student learning if the country is to achieve the targets set out in EFA 2015.

Again the promotion rates are lower than the targets set with the promotion rates for 2003-2004 being:

• Grade 7: 77.9% (girls 77.1%) compare to the target of 85%,


• Grade 8: 79.6% (girls 78.4%) compare to the target of 85%


• Grade 9: 60.1% (girls 63.8%) compare to the target of 85%.

In addition, the dropout rates in lower secondary did not achieve the targets set out in the ESP.

In the last five years, the transition rate to upper secondary increase until 2003-04.but in 2004-05 this rate decreased to about 56%.

The targets for transition are ambitious and the Ministry must consider whether these are realistic and applicable.

2.3 Upper Secondary education » Up

The policy objectives of the ESP are to improve access, quality and efficiency in upper secondary education, especially by increasing the number of Grade 12 graduates in rural and remote areas.

In general, the promotion rates in upper secondary have increased. In grade 12 they have increased from 36.3% to 45.5% with girls increasing from 42% to 54%. The dropout rates have decreased from 46% to 17.9% with girls decreasing from 44% to 31%.

2.4 Staff and teacher development » Up

In 2004-05, the pupil-teacher ratio in primary education is 53.5 compared to the target of 51 with the pupil-teacher ratio in urban areas being 40.3, in rural areas 56.9 and in remote areas 58.1. Inappropriate teacher deployment; a shortage of teacher and a shortage of facilities are the main factors.

In secondary education, the pupil-teacher ratio is also higher than the target. In lower secondary it is 27.7 compared to the target of 26 and in upper secondary 29.4 compared to the target of 28.

Some primary teachers have had no training with 4% in the remote areas, 3% in the rural areas and in the urban areas 1%. The most affected areas are Kampong Cham, SiemReap, Battambang, Kampong Speu and Otdar Meanchey provinces. Many teachers also have only primary education: in remote areas 34.5%, rural areas 6.4% and urban areas 4.2%

Ministry will pay more attention to unqualified teachers to improve their capacity, qualifications, and teaching methodology so they can provide an education service to all children with quality and efficiency.

2.5 Textbook provision » Up

The Ministry is also instigating the provision of free textbooks to children against the following norms:

• 1:1 in primary education,


• 2:1 in secondary education with 1:1 in remote and disadvantaged areas.

The Ministry also provides 1:1 core textbooks for teachers.

However, textbook provision and management is poor with in 2004-05, primary schools, apart from those in Kep which have not received any so far, receiving new textbooks as follows:

• 175,359 for grade1,


• 139,672 for grade 2,


• 145,485 for grade 3,


• 116,899 for grade 4,


• 57,608 for grade 5


• 39, 382 for grade 6..

Textbooks are collected from student for re-use with 87.1% collected in primary schools and 89.4% in secondary schools. Only 24.5% of primary school teachers received Teachers Guides for grades 1-6 and 2.6% of lower secondary schools. Schools at all levels face the problem of a shortage of Teacher’s Guides

2.6 Education facility development in 2004-05 » Up

The strategic objectives set out in the ESP are to ensure there is a primary school with 6 grades close to all people’s houses and to reduce the number of incomplete schools. As a result, in 2004-05, the number of incomplete primary school is down from that of 2003-2004 with1,934 (31.3%) against 2,179 (35.9%). Overall the figures are

• 6.5% with only grade1:


• 19.8% with only grade2:


• 21.9% with only grade3:


• 26.3% with only grade 4:


• 29.6% with only grade 5:

The situation with incomplete schools is worse in remote and rural areas with remote areas having 66.0% and rural areas 29.6% Particularly bad are the following provinces: Rattanakiri: 81.0%, Mondulkiri: 77.1%, Preah Vihear: 61.7%, Steung Treng: 58.4%, Koh Kong: 54.6%, OtdarMeanChey: 52.2%, Kampong Thom: 51.2%, Kampong Cham: 46.3% and Kratie: 43.5%.

The Ministry has also worked towards providing more classrooms and facilities for grades 7-9 and grades 10-12 in under-served or overcrowded areas.

The Ministry has gained significant experience and capability in managing capital programs, especially for school construction and capacity building technical assistance. It is anticipated that the management of these programs will be designed on a case-by-case basis, including greater decentralization of facilities development finance to the provinces. The Ministry will also investigate with potential donors the scope for developing pooled funding and management arrangements for facilities programs in order to optimize existing facilities management capacity within MoEYS.

This indicator can hide the impact of repetition and so should be used in conjunction with indicators for repetition and average length of time to complete primary cycle.