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 Sent to you by Tom Hoffman via Google Reader: Education bounces back
in Cambodia and Ethiopia via World Education Blog by EFA Editor on
3/22/11

By Jakob Engel, a research consultant for the Overseas Development
Institute

Girls going to school in Srah Srang village, Cambodia. (Photo: Tang
Chhin, Sothy © UNESCO

Cambodia and Ethiopia offer valuable lessons on improving access to
education after conflict, the theme of the 2011 EFA Global Monitoring
Report, The hidden crisis: Armed conflict and education.

Ethiopia, long one of the most educationally disadvantaged countries in
the world, has had remarkable success increasing primary enrolment. In
1992, after 15 years of civil war, almost four out of five primary-age
children were out of school. Less than 20 years later, this figure had
dropped to about one in five.

In the course of the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, over 1.7 million
people died and the education system was destroyed. In the last two
decades, the gender gap at both primary and lower secondary level has
effectively been closed and the country may reach universal primary
enrolment by 2015.

What has allowed these countries to bounce back after such devastating
civil wars? For one, both benefited from improved security, as well as
increased government prioritisation of education. This has been
complemented by a shift in donor priorities away from post-conflict
peace-building and demobilisation, and towards heavier investments to
support social services.

In Ethiopia, education was seen as central to state-building efforts.
The government’s priorities in education – building schools in rural
areas, gender equality, teaching in children’s mother tongue,
decentralisation and curriculum reform – were intended to address
longstanding sources of fragility, including high rates of rural
poverty and inequality, as well as the cultural suppression of ethnic
groups.

In Cambodia, inequality of opportunity is also gradually being
recognized as a source of instability. The government is aiming to
improve access to education not only by building schools and training
teachers (“supply-side” programmes), but also abolishing school fees,
establishing school feeding programmes and providing scholarships for
children from disadvantaged backgrounds (“demand-side” programmes).

Over the past 20 years, the education systems of Ethiopia and Cambodia
have proved remarkably resilient during a long period of post-conflict
recovery and reconstruction. However, progress remains fragile and both
countries continue to struggle with high dropout rates. And the poorest
children, particularly those facing several overlapping sources of
marginalization (such as wealth, gender, geography and ethnicity),
still pay a high price to attend school in terms of lost opportunities
to earn income or perform housework for their families.

In Cambodia, teachers’ poor working conditions, low pay and lack of
opportunities for advancement have resulted not only in low morale but
also in the continued collection of informal fees by teachers. Low
levels of student learning, overcrowded classrooms and teacher
absenteeism have raised concerns in Ethiopia that the technocratic
command approach that had been successful in mobilising efforts to
achieve quantitative targets is less well suited to achieving more
qualitative goals. It will therefore be important that ongoing efforts
in both countries to gradually decentralize the management and
financing of schools also aims to build administrative capacity and
promote greater accountability and responsiveness to local needs.

To address these challenges, both countries’ governments, together with
donors and NGOs, have further increased efforts to address deep
inequalities in the education system. This has been instrumental in
providing a long-term foundation for recovery and sustained progress.
However, this foundation remains fragile as long as many long-term
systemic challenges are not addressed.

Jakob Engel worked as a research consultant on the Overseas Development
Institute project Progress in Development: A Library of Stories, funded
by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Twenty-four country case
studies, covering eight areas of development, aim to outline key
factors contributing to progress, lessons and remaining challenges.
Case studies on education examined Ethiopia, Cambodia and Benin.


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