Primary school students in a class. KT/Chor Sokunthea

Gerald Flyn
30th August 2019

.. for the academic year 2018 to 2019, some 218,357 students were enrolled in 1,222 private schools nationwide, ranging from pre-school to grade 12.

Inequality has long defined the Kingdom’s societal makeup as a wealthy elite rumble through the roads of Phnom Penh in luxury imported cars while the rural majority of the population struggle to survive.Last month’s country briefing from the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHDI) revealed that 37.2 percent of Cambodians live in multidimensional poverty.

Key indicators on the Multidimensional Poverty Index are measured in both years of schooling and school attendance, but an element that goes unrecorded in this methodology is the quality of education. The index also includes nutrition, child mortality, access to fuel, decent housing and assets.

“You could say that it’s a free market for kindergarten to grade 12 – there’s room to grow, anyone is welcome to come in and take over that chunk of the economy, because it’s booming, it’s open, it’s free,” says Oknha Dr Mengly J Quach, founder of MJQ Education – a private education provider best known for the American Intercon Schools and Aii Language Centres.

“So you can find all kinds of hells and heavens in Cambodia. Often they’re next door to each other,” he says, citing the contrasting literacy rates and school attendance in rural and urban areas. “Right now the gap between rich and poor is getting larger and larger.”

Full https://capitalcambodia.com/private-edu ... lassrooms/