Sahakoom Apeewaht Sala (SAS) Program Quarterly Update July 1 - September 30, 2011 SAS empowers communities to develop sustainable schools that provide all children with a quality education. The SAS Team and the School Support Committees (SSCs) of Chanleas Dai, Prasat Knar, and Run Primary Schools are proud to bring you these latest updates from PEPY. Last quarter, PEPY’s teachers and students have faced a couple of setbacks based on two huge factors. The first major setback was the Khmer New Year celebration in mid-April. Teachers and students were given two weeks off to celebrate the New Year, but a lot of teachers chose to take the whole month of April off without giving much notice, leaving students without a teacher. The second factor was the coming of the rainy season. In the wet season, many parents force their children to drop out of school to help tend to family farms and bring in more income. However this quarter, Cambodia has been hit hard with heavy rains causing dangerous flooding, evacuations, and even many deaths. Most of our students currently reside in areas that have not been greatly affected by the floods, but the floods play a huge factor in the both the students’ and teachers’ attendance.
CHANLEAS DAI PRIMARY SCHOOL Student enrollment: 434 Teachers/administrators: 10
Grade levels: Kindergarten – Grade 6 (10 classes) School Support Committee Members: 9
Latest Activities 1. Fish pond During the 2nd quarter, the SSC and the students began preparations to make a fish pond in the school compound to sell fish for consumption. The initial investment included a plastic sheet, labor, and training. A fish pond income cycle lasts about 2.5 months. The cycle starts with purchasing baby fish and ends with harvesting the entire pond and selling the mature fish. Baby fish are available for purchase June through September, allowing the school to complete two cycles per year. The SSC purchased 2.3 kg baby cat fish (about 280 in total) and 17 kg of fish food. The cost for this activity for this quarter was 121,000 Riels (approximately $30.25 USD), and of that total, the community contributed about 30% (36,000 riels/$9 USD) while the SSC contributed 70% (84,700 Riels/$21 USD). Expected income from the fish pond project is approximately 464,000 Riels ($116 USD). Overall, the project was very successful in terms of raising community and student participation and receiving a good return on investment. The SSC is very pleased with the progress of this project and hopes to share the skills they learned in constructing and caring for the fish pond with other schools or small businesses.
2. Teacher’s inspection Each teacher’s methods are evaluated on a monthly basis. The evaluation is conducted by the principal, who may be accompanied by a member of PEPY’s staff. The inspection focuses on effective teaching and learning (ETL) and classroom management. Since the school year ended in July, teachers have only been evaluated once this quarter. In the 2nd quarter, the principal asked teachers to record students’ attendance and performance in order to determine any actions needed to take place for the next school year. As the months continue, both the principal and teachers are seeing a positive progress in students’ attendance and performances.
3. PRA (Participatory Rural Appraisal) Parents, students, and teachers from three different communities were invited to partake in a PRA meeting. With these meetings, the community has the opportunity to discuss, address, and prioritize any issues that may need attention. PRA meetings were conducted in these three communities: o o o
Tahmeak, July 14, 2011 Khnar Joh, July 28, 2011 Chanleas Dai, July 28, 2011
Student statistics
The 2010-2011 school year ended during the 3rd quarter. During the course of the school year, teachers were asked to record students’ attendance. Below are the results. Although we work with school teachers and directors to encourage them to report the actual results of the students, it is common for schools in Cambodia to report inflated results. While failure/dropout rates such as these are less than ideal, they are on par with national averages and are one of the many indicators of the need for increased training and resources in the field of education in Cambodia.
Grade Level 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
Enrollment
% Pass
% Fail
% Drop-Out
49 54 72 65 54 90 434
82.78 87.75 78.91 81.64 84.00 88.09 83.86
17.21 8.57 16.32 12.65 10.28 11.90 12.82
00 5.57 4.76 5.69 5.70 00 3.62
Total Student Flow Rate 2010 - 2011 During PRA process, we found the following issues which affect students and their education:
• Not all school-age children were enrolled in school • The closest school was a considerable distance away from the child’s home • Parents were not involved in their children’s school work • Students were performing poorly in literacy • Classes lacked learning materials • Students were hurt by traffic accidents • Lack of personal hygiene • The school grounds flooded • The classroom roof leaked • Lack of a (clean) water supply • Lack of communication between teachers and the community • Children, parents, and community members were not making education a priority
SSCs are now communicating with their respective communities on what actions need to take place in order to resolve these issues in 2012.
PRASAT KNAR PRIMARY SCHOOL School Snapshot Student enrollment: 519 Teachers/administrators: 10
Grade levels: Kindergarten to Grade 6 (12 classes) School Support Committee members: 12
Latest Activities
1. Awards for outstanding students On July 29th, 2011, SSCs, students, parents, teachers, and local authorities from 6 different communities participated in and supported an award ceremony for students who performed well academically. The ceremony started with the principal of the school expressing his delight on how well the students were performing. There were 55 students (including 36 girls) in grades 1-6 who received certificates of acknowledgement as well as a few school supply items. The ceremony drew in a huge crowd of over 350 people. During this ceremony, the SSC also received donations from teachers and parents that totaled to about 390,000 Riels ($97.50 USD) plus 80 notebooks and 70 pens.
2. PRA with Community and Teachers This PRA meeting took place on July 13, 2011, and members from three different communities (Reol, Khnoa Choeng, and Khnar Taboung) came to discuss “Child Friendly School” and “A Child Rights to Education”. Fifty-seven people (including 3 SSC members) participated in the meeting. During the PRA meeting, the three communities learned that a lot of issues needed attention. Issues included: • Not all children 6-12 years old enrolled in school • Very few children under 6 years old enrolled in school • Students performed poorly in literacy • Lack of learning materials • There was a lack of safety measures during some student activities • Parents were not encouraging their children to go to school
PRA activity
School Support Committee Meeting Activity
Student statistics The 2010-2011 school year ended during the 3rd quarter. During the course of the school year, teachers were asked to record students’ attendance. Below are the results. Although we work with school teachers and directors to encourage them to report the actual results of the students, it is common for schools in Cambodia to report inflated results. While failure/dropout rates such as these are less than ideal, they are on par with national averages and are one of the many indicators of the need for increased training and resources in the field of education in Cambodia.
Grade Level
Enrollment
% Pass
% Fail
% Drop-Out
1 2 3 4 5 6 Total
113 108 87 76 78 57 519
88.78 87.50 88.67 88.77 86.95 81.03 87.11
5.6 7.29 4.71 6.12 7.72 00 5.24
5.6 5.2 3 5.1 5.43 18.96 7.21
Total Student Flow Rate 2010 - 2011
PRA activity with teachers During another PRA meeting, more issues came up that the community felt needed to be addressed:
• Parents were not taking their children to school • Children were getting involved in traffic accidents while traveling to/from school • Students were not performing well in math and literacy • The school had no athletic field • School restrooms do not provide soap for handwashing
2. Awards for outstanding students
HUN SEN RUN PRIMARY SCHOOL School Snapshot Student enrollment: 319 Teachers/administrators: 4
Grade levels: Kindergarten to grade 6 (6 classes) School Support Committee members: 12
Latest Activities
1. PRA Activities Preference Ranking Tool (PRT) is a new tool used by the principal and teachers to determine how parents prioritize their children’s education. Teachers have been working with parents from three different communities (Run, Kok Tnaut, and Chuk Rath) in gathering information on how parents value education. As of now, more information is needed before any assessment can be made.
Due to the success of the awards ceremony in Prasat Knar, the SSC wanted to have another awards ceremony for the Hun Sen Run School. However, in this ceremony, students were given a categorical rank determined by how strongly they performed during the school year, with rank #1 demonstrating excellent performance. All students received certificates of acknowledgement, but only 30 students stood out and were given the #1 rank designation. Total costs for the awards ceremony stood at 30,000 Riels ($7.50USD).
Student Receiving Awards
Student statistics The 2010-2011 school year ended during the 3rd quarter. During the course of the school year, teachers were asked to record students’ attendance. Below are the results. Although we work with school teachers and directors to encourage them to report the actual results of the students, it is common for schools in Cambodia to report inflated results. While failure/dropout rates such as these are less than ideal, they are on par with national averages and are one of the many indicators of the need for increased training and resources in the field of education in Cambodia.
Grade Level Enrollment 1 58 2 61 3 56 4 58 5 45 6 41 Total 319
%Pass 72.41 85.24 83.92 77.58 82.22 78.04 79.90
% Fail 27.58 14.14 16.08 22.42 17.78 21 20.09
% Drop-Out 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
The SAS team has worked very closely with the SSC and the principal for building trust to get reliable statistics. The chair of the SSC hopes to use two statistical sources: one from the district of educational office and the other from the data collected from the SAS program. But before the SSC starts using both data sources, they would like to discuss it with the other two schools, Prasart Khnar and Chanleas Dai, to see if they would like them to follow suit. Strengthening Capacity PEPY’s SAS Team works to improve the capacity of teachers, principals, and School Support Committee (SSC) members. These activities are SAS standard support, and thus totally funded by PEPY. This quarter, we’ve been busy organizing and delivering these activities:
ACTIVITIES AT ALL SCHOOLS (Chanleas Dai, Prasat Knar, and Run) 1. PRA training activity PRA training is needed to train members of the SSC who in turn will train teachers and community leaders with the hopes they work together to prioritize and reslove any issues in thier communities. Training focus on topics:
Total Student Flow Rate 2010 - 2011
• •
How to conduct PRA on Child Friendly School How to conduct PRA on Child’s Right to an Education.
2. Provide technical support on Effective Teaching and Learning and Mathematic teaching methology This quarter, the Technical Team asked English Traveling Teacher Support (TTS) to share their experiences as well as thoughts and ideas in classroom observation, where TTS can help identify the support services needed for teachers to become more effective at teaching. During this registration the Technical Team started to prepare the content and materials to provide training for teachers and staff members who were going to help facilitate this activity. The Literacy and Math camps were held in three places: 1-Hun Sen Run Primary School 2-Prasat Knar Primary school 3-Chanleas Dai Primary School Both students from SAS schools and other schools nearby were encouraged to participate, and both the Literacy and Math camps were fully enrolled.