Sustainable Literacy Project
Education Initiative | Reinvestment Opportunity
HT has spent the last 8 months conducting three English literacy classes at our renovated school in Balangk commune. When we began the program last November, over 100 students enrolled. Each student took a basic placement test to assess their English capacity. We received most tests back blank, as expected. This gave us a template for measuring any progress achieved through the program. We then set up 3 levels of classes with each level taught two times a day three days a week. At the primary level we have students ranging in age from 8 to 12. Students at the intermediate level are between the ages of 12 and 16 and the adult level, with more difficult subject material, is for students ages 15 and above.
When students come back after the rice harvest, they will find a new, local teacher who has been trained by our teacher trainer. Parents of students will be asked to pay a small sum to the school to supplement this teacher’s salary. We believe this small amount of money will give students a sense of ownership of their school and their education. Students who cannot pay and qualify will be given merit-based scholarships to the program. Over time, we intend for the community to fund the teacher’s salary, allowing for the program to continue without exterior donations. We also hope to build a new playground for the younger students, something almost all of them have never seen before.
Another pressing need within the community is Khmer literacy education for adults. One community member, a sixty year old female deputy village chief, said, “The war {with the Khmer Rouge} in Phnom Penh ended in 1993. The war in Balangk ended in 1998. It was not safe to go to school until a few years ago. I myself can read only four words.” It is because of this need that we are planning to implement the first of many free, 6 month Khmer literacy courses in Balangk. Unlike the English literacy program, where we will be charging dues, the literacy program will be completely funded by HT.
Because so many members of the community are illiterate, by keeping the classes free of charge we hope to encourage even the poorest member to attend.
To begin the program, teachers from within the community will be chosen by HT in conjunction with community leaders to teach each class. After a training period, these teachers will hold classes at different schools around the community in the evening after formal classes have finished. Each class will have approximately twenty adult students per class attending a six day a week, two hour a day literacy class, following a proven curriculum set up by the Cambodian Government’s Office of Non-Formal Education. This curriculum allows literacy to be taught through important subjects such as health, nutrition, women’s rights, sanitation and basic accounting skills. Thus students will not only be learning to read and write in their native language, they will also be learning important lessons about how to improve not only their health and the health of their families or their economic circumstances but ultimately, their lives.
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Please contact HT@HumanTranslation.org with any questions about this project.