PHNOM PENH, March 1 (FN) -- Cambodia on Tuesday launched the multilingual education national action plan in Kratie province, aimed to expand access to quality learning for children from ethnic minority communities.
"The plan provides a roadmap to expand multilingual education to reach more children from ethnic minority communities in Cambodia by enabling them to learn in their mother tongue to strengthen the quality and relevance of their learning," said a statement jointly released by the Ministry of Education, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and CARE.
The plan includes planning for more schools, training teachers and developing teaching materials for the multilingual education program in the northeastern provinces of Ratanak Kiri, Mondul Kiri, Stung Treng, Kratie and Preah Vihear.
"The multilingual education program is essential to reach the sustainable development goals for inclusive and equitable quality education in Cambodia," Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said.
"It serves as a bridge for Cambodian children who do not speak Khmer at home and allows indigenous children to learn in school effectively and understand what their teachers say in the classroom."
The plan covers until the end of 2018 and aims to increase the number of multilingual education pre-schools by 88 percent (64 pre-schools) and multilingual education primary schools by 100 percent (108 primary schools).
"This plan underpins the political will and commitment of the government of Cambodia to ensure children's equitable access to learning by providing education that is tailored to the needs of children from ethnic minorities," said Debora Comini, UNICEF Representative to Cambodia.
"The next important step will be to ensure that the government allocates sufficient budget to expand the multilingual education program in a sustainable manner."
With support from UNICEF and CARE, the multilingual education program is currently implemented in five provinces for pre-school children and in four provinces for primary school children.
To date, more than 5,500 children learn in primary schools implementing the multilingual education program using five ethnic minority languages, namely Brov, Tampuen, Kreung, Kavet and Phnong.
A total of 150 teachers have so far been fully trained in multilingual education.
It is estimated that 64 percent and 58 percent of the population in Rattanak Kiri and Mondul Kiri, respectively, belong to an ethnic minority group. According to the 2008 census, 41 percent of the non-Khmer mother tongue speaking children had never attended school at that time.
Studies have shown that it is easier for children to learn a second language if they begin to learn it in their mother tongue.
A child learning at school in a language not used at home is more likely to experience poor performance and marginalization from education.
= FRESH NEWS
