UN Analysis Final.pdf - United Nations in Cambodia

BOX: 4.1 FOCUS OF ESSP 2006- 2010
The ESSP lays out policy priorities that
diverge from previous policy formulations
for basic education in three main respects:
increased emphasis on demand-side
interventions
greater importance placed on
improving education quality
stronger focus on lower secondary
education
These efforts notwithstanding, access to education is
still geographically limited and is shaped by wealth
status. Rural youth and other indigent populations
of young people are still most likely to be excluded.
Additionally, the quality of education still needs to be
standardized to meet international criteria.
4.1.2 EDUCATION EXPENDITURE AND SUPPORT
A critical factor in achieving poverty reduction through
education and ensuring wider access has been a
significantly increase in education’s recurrent budget
share in recent years. The increase has generally been seen
to be more pro-poor and to some extent well distributed.
Government spending on education doubled from the
1990s reaching 18.9 per cent in 2006. The World Bank
(2006) suggests that this prioritized government spending
has resulted in the balance of benefit accruing to the poor.
Due to MoEYS investment in school facilities and instructional materials over the past several years, a notable
transformation has taken place in various levels of education. Systems performance, however, varies widely
across regions in terms of quality, efficiency and coverage 17 . National data on education sector performance
indicates that improvements in primary and secondary completion are still insufficient and that more effort is
required to reach the target indicator by 2015. This poses a major challenge for Cambodia, especially in terms
of maintaining the gains achieved at the younger grades while expanding capacity in the middle school years,
for as primary school capacity increases, so too will demand at the secondary school level. Additionally, while
expanded capacity is critical, so is assuring the quality of education.
On recognising the requirement for human capital in response to economic and social development,
stakeholders have made major efforts and investment in education, and promoted access to education for
young people (Table 4-1).
Table 4-1. Trends in education support from development partners to the sub-sector
Education Sector
2007 2008 2009 2010
USD ‘000
Non-Formal and General Education Development 26,020 36,299 26,877 20,746
Trained Educational Development on Technical, Higher
Education and Scientific Research
6,837 6,235 5,596 2,933
Youth and Sport Development 2.749 2,651 331 331
Strengthening Good Governance 97 244 14 14
Education Service Management and Support 3,181 2,671 428 195
Other 5,721 11,053 1,286 540
Total Expenditure from Development Partners 44,605 59,153 34,514 24,760
Source: MoEYS 2008
17
For CSES 2004, Cambodia was geographically divided into four major natural endowment zones: the ‘Plains’ area
(Phnom Penh, Kandal, Kompong Cham, Svay Rieng, Prey veng and Takeo) Tonle Sap area, the coastal zone; and the plateau zone.
40 Situation Analysis of Youth in Cambodia