Project Background
While Cambodia has made remarkable progress in expanding access and improving the quality of its basic education, fundamental gaps in provision remain, particularly in early childhood care and education.
Currently, 77.1% of Cambodian children aged 3 to 4 do not have access to early childhood education due to a lack of preschool facilities. If unaddressed, this can have far-reaching consequences: children who lack access to early childhood education services, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, will face lower school readiness, leading to lower student achievement, increased probability of dropout, and a decline in overall educational quality.
In the more than 137 villages along the Tonle Sap River and Tonle Sap Lake in Kampong Chhnang and Pursat provinces, there is a high incidence of poor quality education services, high malnutrition rates, and low access to and poor quality of health services, water and sanitation.
Project Activities & Outcomes
With the funds from Footprints the Early Childhood Care for Floating Villages Save the Children were able to:
- Recruit 34 Early Childhood Care Development (ECCD) teachers who were trained to deliver education programs.
- Deliver education programs to 1,200 children, 600 of which were female, while the floating and onshore classrooms were being designed and built. This meant that children who previously had no access to education could now learn.
- Teach a fortnightly reading and writing class in 77 villages to 3,713 parents and caregivers, teaching them the importance of continuation of education and reading at home. This meant that parents and caregivers were equipped with skills to help their children with homework and reading.
- Conduct Workshops in partnership with the Agriculture and Health Office of Cambodia, with 549 families from some the poorest and most remote villages facing food shortages. These workshops helped the families to improve their home gardening and cooking practices.
What Next?
Construction of the onshore and floating village classrooms will be finalised early 2018. The working designs for these buildings are below:
Onshore Classroom
Offshore Classroom
Community support is growing with the success of the at home and community based education programs we are running so far. This support will ensure that once the construction is finished lessons can begin immediately in the classrooms with a high number of students.
Project Overview
While Cambodia has achieved remarkable economic growth and macroeconomic stability in recent years, it remains one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. Added to this, in spite of the large reduction in poverty and improvements in the quality of basic education, fundamental gaps in provision remain, particularly in early childhood. Currently, 77% of Cambodia's 3-4 year olds do not have access to Early Childhood Education due to the lack of pre-school facilities.
The children living in the 137 floating villages along the Tonle Sap River and Tonle Sap Lake in the Kampong Chhnang and Pursat provinces are some of the least likely to have access to quality Early Childhood Education and Development (ECCD) services. In these target areas there is a high incidence of poor quality education services, high malnutrition rates and low access to and poor quality of health services, water and sanitation.
The floating way of life challenges both government and more traditional approaches since solutions need to account for a variety of complex factors. They need to fit the cultural and environmental aspects of living on the lake and so far, both the government and civil society have shied away from tackling this challenge.
Their relative isolation and the difficulties (including extra cost) of establishing the infrastructure needed to provide a safe and sound environment for children to grow is an additional challenge and has contributed to the limited coverage of children's primary needs in these areas. Given these factors, more traditional approaches to ECCD are unable to be implemented.
Project Objectives
The new Early Childhood Education Program objective is to improve access to quality Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD) services through community and home-based programs for children aged 0-5 years old in the Kampong Chhnang and Pursat provinces of Cambodia. These services aim to ensure that children enjoy physical, cognitive, mental and emotional development both at home as well as in centres, providing quality and sustainable health, nutrition and education services.
The higher level objectives of the project are inclusive growth and the reduction of inequality. This will contribute to the Government's efforts to achieve basic education, health and poverty reduction goals by making ECCD services available to the disadvantaged within the country.
Funding will contribute towards the creation of community based ECCD centres, which will serve as a venue for implementation of ECCD programs including pre-school classes, training sessions, awareness raising and other development related activities. The project also includes home-based activities which will be implemented by trained core-mothers for neighbourhood mothers who have 0-5 year old children.
