While the school system needs to be changed it will not happen over night. It may not even happen during the time your child is at school.
Thus, your options seem dependent on, quite simply, do you, or do you not, want your child to grow up an illiterate bumpkin?

A decent education here is going to cost money. It's a simple fact of life. Now, the more pertinent question to ask yourself is, how much value do you place on a good education?
This is a valid point, whether you are in Phnom Penh or out in the boonies. If you are in PP then shop around as there are some decent schools around at the approx $5k/year/child mark, if you are in the boonies then your options will be more limited but you will have some. The common denominator across all these options is that they cost money. Which brings me back to my original point....what value do you place on the education the child receives?

IraHayes wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:40 pm While the school system needs to be changed it will not happen over night. It may not even happen during the time your child is at school.
Thus, your options seem dependent on, quite simply, do you, or do you not, want your child to grow up an illiterate bumpkin?

A decent education here is going to cost money. It's a simple fact of life. Now, the more pertinent question to ask yourself is, how much value do you place on a good education?
This is a valid point, whether you are in Phnom Penh or out in the boonies. If you are in PP then shop around as there are some decent schools around at the approx $5k/year/child mark, if you are in the boonies then your options will be more limited but you will have some. The common denominator across all these options is that they cost money. Which brings me back to my original point....what value do you place on the education the child receives?

Money, or the effort of home schooling.... Or a combination like in my case.

newkidontheblock wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 8:03 pm Don’t pay it and be known in the village as the barang who is so cheap that he wouldn’t even pay for his kid to get a good education at school.

By good, do you mean suspect and deficient?
I've lowered the bar in my expectations since 2018, and wonder now whether I just need a longer shovel.*


I'd call it a spade, but maybe the colonials would be looking for Danny Glover, so lets not go there.

Phnom krom, I do wholeheartedly feel and understand your angst.

Just this year, start of the school year, day one was child registration, which we thought had already happened the week before.
Day 2 was child registration. Huh? For the children whose parents didn't turn up on day one. Those who turned up on day one were excused day 2. We discovered this on day 2.
Day 3 was a teacher's meeting.
Day 4 was learning what room everyone should be in, and what books the parents should have supplied.
Day 5 was a play day, apparently.
Day 6 was a day buying stuff that the kids promptly lost or destroyed on day1 of next week...


There's no fixing this without a revolution, but those don't seem to go too well, either. the other option is to pay a little, and hope for the best?

Curiously, I did ask a local teacher for a cash for lessons, just for me. 1hr per week. She declined. some funny hand wavy gesture...

Kammekor wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 11:56 pm

IraHayes wrote: ↑Mon Aug 15, 2022 9:40 pm While the school system needs to be changed it will not happen over night. It may not even happen during the time your child is at school.
Thus, your options seem dependent on, quite simply, do you, or do you not, want your child to grow up an illiterate bumpkin?

A decent education here is going to cost money. It's a simple fact of life. Now, the more pertinent question to ask yourself is, how much value do you place on a good education?
This is a valid point, whether you are in Phnom Penh or out in the boonies. If you are in PP then shop around as there are some decent schools around at the approx $5k/year/child mark, if you are in the boonies then your options will be more limited but you will have some. The common denominator across all these options is that they cost money. Which brings me back to my original point....what value do you place on the education the child receives?

Money, or the effort of home schooling.... Or a combination like in my case.

Ah, yes. Home schooling. My bad for forgetting that major option..

2 of my wife's sisters kids are now in public schools; each month they are asked to pay 10,000 riel each for....
Its little money

What concerns me more, they are 10 an 12 an attend school from 7:30-12 and thats it
many weeks they only attend 4 days
HOW will they ever get enough education to proceed to university in 12 years of school?
when they attended private school in Kampot, ( $250/kid/month) they went to school 8-4 every day>

in the west ( and international schools) kids are in school 8- 3/ 3:30 ( with 30 minutes out for lunch) min 180 full days/year

IraHayes wrote: ↑Tue Aug 16, 2022 6:00 am

Ah, yes. Home schooling. My bad for forgetting that major option..

I 'home school' my kid an hour a day, from 3-4pm, seven days a week. I teach basis primary school curriculum plus our language: Dutch. I have done so since my kid went to kindergarten at the age of three. That's seven years times an hour a day of more or less decent education. It makes a big difference. Materials I use I buy in my home country but I also use some online materials I have bought a subscription for.

For me it's not a major pain in the @ss to do it. My work is pretty flexible and out of the hour I maybe only teach 15 minutes, the rest is doing excercises and going through the results (which Khmer schools very often don't do). Plus, I have a background in education, although not in primary. Planning what to do and preparing the excercises can be a pain, but once you've created a system that's just a few minutes of work. The curriculum can be found online, I just follow that one although I only teach the core of it. No environmental issues, gender studies, gardening, etc etc, I focus on the basics:language and math.

Usually I take my kid to a coffeeshop to spice up the thing and make it a more pleasant hour of the day. During COVID I only taught at home which was a burden for both, ever since that's over teaching has eased up a lot.

One more thing: a few years ago I bought my kid a subscription for Kobo so there was access to books. When I was young I was an avid reader. Despite my efforts my kid isn't, but my kid loves to listen to audiobooks. When my kid got interested in 'Harry Potter' I switched to Storytell. They offer access to the full library for the fee, Kobo let's you buy some 'popular' books which becomes expensive at the end. Listening to these stories surely made my kid's language improve at just 12$ or so a month. To have access to the library we have to use a VPN but that was another useful lesson learned during home schooling.

Highly recommended for bi-lingual kids in Cambodia.