CDC - Presentation by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports

ENABLING POVERTY REDUCTION: THE EDUCATION REFORM PROGRAM Consultative Group Meeting, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, June 2002 Presentation by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) welcomes the opportunity to present a paper at this important meeting. The purpose of the presentation will be to highlight how the ongoing education reforms will contribute in both the long-term and medium-term to the Governments broader poverty reduction strategy. In 2001 the MoEYS with donor and NGO partners formulated an Education Strategic Plan (ESP) and Education Sector Support Program (ESSP) which was broadly endorsed by the international community at an Education Round Table in late June 2001. These reform plans are guided by a long term vision of Education For All (EFA) by 2015. This vision is guided by the principle of equal opportunities for all, independent of wealth, geography, gender and ethnicity. The thrust of the education reform strategy and plan is determinedly pro-poor. The overarching policy framework is to enhance the well being of the Cambodian people by using education as the bridge between economic growth and balanced social development. This thrust is derived from the guiding principles of the Socioeconomic Development Plan (SEDP II). The Government and MoEYS recognises that raising the quality of the workforce is a key factor in improving Cambodia economic development as part of broader poverty reduction strategy. At the same time, providing equitable access to education and training is an important dimension of improving opportunities for the poor in accessing paid employment and enabling other income generating activities. In this way, the medium and long-term education reforms are a key component of improving Cambodia’s regional and international competitiveness. The broad policy direction of education reform is that we must reduce the cost burden on the poor for education, through a combination of new poverty focused strategies and programs and also revised education financing policy. At the same time the reforms are based on a principle of growing public/private partnership in the governance, management and financing of education, especially beyond the first nine years of basic education. The Ministry would like to use the CG forum to highlight how our education reforms are designed to reduce the poverty trap for education. Firstly, it has been agreed by Government and partners that the financing of education will continue to give highest priority to achieving 9 years of high quality basic education for all. Our target is to maintain at least a 70% share for basic education. It is at basic education levels that the students from the poorest families are better represented and such students can benefit directly from Government, donor and NGO support. The Ministry’s reforms also accord great importance to increasing the participation of the poorest families in both primary and secondary education. Without such access gaining fulltime paid employment is difficult. The ESP includes a number of strategies to achieving these policies. Firstly, the abolition of start of the year parental contribution in 2001 is having an immediate impact on increasing enrolment of less well off students. Primary enrolment has increased from 2.38 million to 2.70 million in 12 months and secondary enrolment from 0.38 million to 0.46 million. We consider most of this growth is from poor families. Providing additional facilities for both underserved rural communities and overcrowded urban schools is therefore an immediate priority. A second strategic priority is to help retain these students from poor families in the schools. Without financial assistance, there is a danger of increased drop out. The ESP reforms, therefore include specific incentives for the poor, girls and ethnic minorities at primary and lower secondary levels. At primary level incentives consist of school feeding programs in the poorest communes. At secondary level, support for transport, uniforms and school materials will be provided. The Ministry’s intention is to dramatically expand these programs over the next five years. The Ministry is pleased to report that we are receiving increased donor interest in this kind of targeted assistance. Nevertheless, additional assistance is required. The Ministry is very aware that continued targeted support will be needed to encourage poor families, both urban and rural, to retain their children in upper secondary education and higher education and WET studies. Without some continuity in support, there is an acute danger that the system will lose students at the end of grade 6 or grade 9, especially for girls. For these reasons, the Ministry intends to extend its incentive and support program through grade 12 and further studies. One strategy will be to expand the incentive program to grade 10-12, along side selective secondary school boarding allowances and dormitories in some rural and remote areas. The Ministry is also examining new strategies for scholarships for the poor and dormitories for higher education and TVET. The intention will be to select students on the basis of inability to contribute to the costs of study and evidence of high student performance and commitment. We consider this expansion as a priority area for donor support. Alongside these targeted programs, we recognise the need to ensure equity in access to quality primary and secondary education. The ESP reforms and ESSP program therefore give high priority to providing a complete primary education close to home, through additional facilities and deployment of more and better qualified teachers, including the expansion of multi-grade teaching. Easier access to primary schooling will help the poor through reducing the costs of transport and meals. The Ministry intends to adopt a similar strategy for secondary education. The Ministry’s facilities program will include the provision of lower secondary education in most communes, along side expansion of upper secondary education where there is strong demand. Once again, providing secondary education close to home will reduce the cost burden on the poor. This strategy will again be linked with specific incentives to deploy more experienced teachers to remote and disadvantaged areas to guarantee that students receive a high quality education. Expanded support for secondary education facilities development is another key priority area for external assistance. The Ministry recognises that it cannot fulfill all community expectations for education on its own. For this reason, our policy for post basic education is based on enabling an equitable public/ private partnership for post basic education. This policy will be driven by improvements in the governance and management of higher education and TVET. In particular, we are determined to improve the transparency of spending by Government, private sector and parents in order to demonstrate that all contributions have been spent wisely and effectively. The Ministry therefore accords the highest priority to seeking assistance for formulation of appropriate education legislation, regulation and sector performance audit systems. At the same time, the Ministry recognises that poor families in both urban and rural areas will continue to find it difficult to meet these costs. An associated financing reform strategy will be to provide performance based incentives to poor students and construct girls dormitories in order to remove many of the cost and social barriers on attendance. As the grade 12 examination becomes more rigorous and reliable, students will be selected on the basis of grade 12 examination results, reducing the costs to families of extra entrance tests. Once again, the Ministry is looking for early donor support to implement these policy, financing and institutional reforms. A great concern for the Ministry has been the high rates of repetition and drop out in grade 1 to 9. Repetition puts an extra cost burden on families and often leads to early drop out. At the same time, dropping out of schools after 3 or 4 years represents a waste of money spent by parents and Government. This situation is exacerbated by the late entry to school of many children from the poorest families. The Ministry is pleased to report that its program to improve progression, through vacation time remedial classes, appears to be having immediate impact. We can report that at primary level, student progression through the grades has now reached around 90%. This is saving significant amounts of money for poor families. Associated strategies will include a program to encourage enrolment at age 6 years, alongside selective expansion of community based early childhood education. The Ministry attaches the utmost importance to forging a fair and effective partnership in education. The Ministry reform program recognises that if private and parental contributions are to be encouraged, it is critical that all concerned get value for money. In particular, if poor families are to make sacrifices to keep their children in school, they need to know that high quality education is being provided. For this reason, the ESP reforms will give increased attention to making information available on education standards and accreditation at all levels. The ESP and ongoing EFA planning process recognise that education can contribute to poverty reduction in other ways. It is well known that better educated parents is strongly linked to sending their children to school, better family health, improved family nutrition and family planning. This link is particularly strong if girls are educated up to lower secondary or beyond. ESP therefore accords high priority to equal opportunity for girls and minority groups. At the same time, the Ministry will be expanding the capacity and coverage of its school health education and HIV/AIDS awareness program in the coming years. Achieving these poverty focused reforms in education will require strengthening and sustaining the education partnership between Government and the international community. The Ministry is pleased to announce that the second joint review of our reforms is planned for early September 2002. A key objective of this review will be to assess the impact of the education reforms on the poor, through a poverty impact monitoring study. The Ministry is confident that the findings of the ESSP joint review and the study will be a significant contribution to the broader PRSP planning process. The Ministry also welcomes the planned Public Expenditure Review (PER) exercise scheduled to begin in June 2002. A key objective of the PER process should be to review the extent to which current education spending policies and programs can be made more pro-poor. The Ministry hopes that any early findings of the PER process can feed into education plans within the SEDP and the annual budget planning process. We would propose that these PER findings need to be incorporated into the planned ESSP joint review.