Nine Villages and Only One School
Thursday, March 20, 2008 - Editor: Tiep Seiha
Sunshine flows through a small hole in the thatched roof of the schoolhouse. The sun reflects on tables and students’ chairs are covered with dust as if no one has cleaned them for a long time.
The black board, the teacher’s desk and the chairs under the derelict roof are waiting for students. But these disappeared more than a month ago from Ang Phrasat School, the only and now abandoned school for Tumpour Meas commune’s nine villages in Somrong Torng district.
The school is located in Preahreach Kot pagoda along the flank of Preahreach Kot Mountain in Tumpour Meas commune’s Tangsnor Ouprom village of Kampong Spur province’s Somrong Torng district. About 40 kilometres away from Kampong Spur’s city hall it can only be reached on a bumpy red gravel road.
Lay Bunleang, who founded the school in 2003, is a 55 year old farmer and a clergyman of the pagoda. He still lives close to the school and is upset at the development. “People here do not value education enough,” he says. “That's hard to understand, because so many don't know how to write and read. Now even their children don't learn it.” In this region, many students leave school after the second year.
The modest school has only one room and students took morning and afternoon shifts, so that the different grades could learn separately. But in May students started to drop out of school one by one. The twelve year olds went to work in the parents fields and the school fell quiet.
“The drop outs are an old problem,” recounts Lay Bunleang. “People here are very poor. Children have to help the family to find food.” As long as he can remember, students studied for a while, and then stopped. The situation only got better after Bunleang contacted the international NGO Partner Passion Organization. “I was successful,” he smiles. “They paid the salary for two teachers, 35 Dollars each, and they donated books and pens to our students.” His daughter, Lay Suporn, who finished secondary school and now teaches the youngest, explains: “Some of the children live a long way from school, some have difficult families and others just quit.”
The old no-walls Ang Prasat School was the only place to study for the children of nine surrounding villages. “Some students had to walk ten kilometers every day over mountains and through the jungle,” says Miss Suporn. Others come barefoot.
“I could not afford a bike for my son,” remembers Loeng Chhoun. Her son left home at noon in order to be in class at two o’clock. “When my son asked to drop out of school, what could I say?”
A former school boy of Ang Phrasat School, Say Mouv, says that often on the way home, his friend felt dizzy because of hunger and exhaustion.
Miss Lay Suporn says that she used to visit her students’ families to explain the importance of education. But the parents stopped sending their children whenever they needed help.
Along the road there are more charcoal kilns than houses, with groups of children working. "I need the income from my sons,” says Kam Pol. One of her boys works in the kiln while another brings home 60,000 Riel tending goats. By Kuy Mengheang and Chey Sambath
