Publication: Cambodia Economic Update, June 2024: Cambodia's Export Revival and Trade Shifts
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2024-06-14
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2024-06-14
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Cambodia has made significant strides in expanding access to education over the past decade. The country’s net enrollment rates have increased steadily, with primary education attendance reaching 90 percent in 2019, up from 81 percent in 2009. Similarly, enrollments at the lower and upper secondary levels have shown good progress. Despite these improvements, Cambodia still faces numerous challenges in providing quality education to all its citizens. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has further exposed the vulnerabilities of the education system, with prolonged school closures leading to substantial learning losses. Even prior to the pandemic, Cambodia already faced high learning poverty rates, with students scoring low in both Khmer and mathematics. Moreover, disparities in access to education, especially at the secondary level, and variations in learning outcomes, persist across different geographic locations and socioeconomic backgrounds. This Special Focus chapter on education delves more deeply into these critical issues. By examining educational access, spending, outcomes, teacher effectiveness, and foundational learning, we seek to provide actionable policy recommendations to strengthen Cambodia’s education system. The chapter will address the following areas: access and equity in education, with a focus on early childhood education and primary schooling and an examination of trends in enrollment and learning outcomes and a discussion of strategies to enhance access and quality; trends in education spending and the relationship to learning outcomes and the need to focus on spending better; and the importance of teacher effectiveness and policies to improve teacher recruitment, training, and deployment. The final section summarizes the key findings and provides policy recommendations that prioritize spending better, improving teacher effectiveness, and strengthening foundational learning.
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“World Bank. 2024. Cambodia Economic Update, June 2024: Cambodia's Export Revival and Trade Shifts. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/41708 License: CC BY-NC 3.0 IGO.”
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