A young boy who lives in a relocation community in Kampong Cham, Cambodia takes time out to look outside from his new home. He is among 250 people, who were displaced to this location from their former homes on the banks of the Mekong, River. The move was triggered by the construction of a large new hotel on the site of their former homes. In all, thirty-nine families made the move and each received 50 kilograms of rice and plastic sheeting to wrap up their homes from the new hotel's owner.
Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved
During morning hours, Mr. Um Ero, usually headed off from the snack stand he owned to his duties as a public school teacher at Prince Sihanouk High School in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. His stand is near the high school so he didn't have to go far.
He also kept busy in the afternoons serving as vice-director of a now lifeless NGO, Khmer Ghvith Thmei Organization (KGTO), which was operating before the lid went down due to corruption. (Please see related story, Corruption Is Not A Crime In Cambodia). KGTO was operational thanks to funding issued by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Pact Cambodia's LAAR program.
His afternoon job consisted of dedicating himself to poverty reduction and fighting corruption. In fact, one of KGTO's principal areas of program emphasis included providing training and support for the Volunteer Youths for Development and Peace Network (VYDAPN).
Let us agree that advocating poverty alleviation and standing up to corruption while teaching youth about development and peace made Mr. Um Ero a role model in the eyes of those he mentored. His stature as a teacher further enhanced his status as a community leader. Furthermore, the young people knew KGTO had cooperated with rights-promotion organizations including the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and the Center for Social Development (CSD), two organizations known in Cambodia for "telling it like it is." What better way was there to achieve focused moral clarity while developing a social consciousness than by studying Mr. Um Ero in action?
Nonetheless, there was a problem and it was the morning job. According to a report issued awhile back by the CSD, "Public education clearly stands out as the institution responsible for more than half of the total yearly amount spent on bribes by all households."
The survey continued, "Households frequently pay corrupt payments in their everyday contact with the education sector with 72% of all households reporting contact the previous year, and those 72% had a 33% likelihood of bribe conditional on contact."
What's happening here folks is teachers are shaking down kids and their families for money.
According to the report, the most commonly mentioned forms of corrupt practices paid by students to teachers are for:
1. "Enrollment and registration: corruption is paid when enrolling a child in school."
2. "Exams and grades: teachers ask for corrupt payment when students have tests or students pay to receive better results."
3. "Snacks or drinks during breaks or after school: Snacks and drinks are sold by teachers as a supplementary income. Parents feel pressured to give their children money to spend on this and fear the children will otherwise be discriminated against by the teacher."
4. "Extra private classes: payment or private education by the teachers covering the official curriculum after school hours."
These facts are a bit astonishing to visitors breezing through the country seemingly oblivious to the root causes of why this nation has been slow to rebuild. One day I decided to ask three Prince Sihanouk High School students if bribery existed at their school while visiting their home, "Have you ever been asked for money by a teacher at your school before the teacher would give you a test paper?" I asked the trio, "Yes" they all responded nodding their heads affirmatively. "Do you ever say no?" I shot back. "No, we're afraid we wouldn't pass our classes" a seventeen-year-old boy admitted.
In need of corroborating testimony that would satisfy my curiosity, I subsequently asked Mr. Um Ero, snack shop owner, teacher and corruption fighter, "Have you ever witnessed any teacher at Prince Sihanouk High School asking students to give them money in return for test papers?" "Yes", he said. "Have you ever asked a student for money?" "No never" he asserted.
When students are asked how they feel about this informal arrangement they seem resigned and point to teacher's low pay (about $50 USD per month) as the reason the shakedowns occur. It's as if they don't realize this systematic abuse is wrong, and instead, merely lump bribe payments with other costs of going to school such as buying books and school supplies.
This system starts long before high school however and poor primary school aged children become the first victims. Unable to fork over bribe money, they're forced to quit school (or never start) to begin their careers earlier than most. Professional opportunities available to 7-12 year olds include scavenging for recyclable material, book selling, beheading frogs, food selling, working in salt fields and tending to farm animals.
Back to Mr. Um Ero for a moment. Clearly, he sees himself as an honest man but in fact, he is intellectually dishonest. By afternoon, he advocated poverty reduction and mentored youth courtesy of US funds provided to him but his toleration of an extortion racket at Prince Sihanouk High School that perpetuates increasing Cambodia's poverty rate is totally void of any principled thoughts. After all, isn't this guy a "corruption fighter"? It seems "talking the talk" is a bit easier when one perceives America has your back than "walking the walk" when real poverty reduction is on the line. Um Ero knows his bread always tastes better when it's buttered on both sides.
In an article written by Jennifer Hile that appeared online in National Geographic News on September 12, 2003, Mom Thany, executive director of the Child Rights Foundation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia stated, "It's very important for nonprofit organizations to develop schools in Cambodia," she continued, "We are a very poor country, and there are not enough schools here."
While I agree with Mom Thany's assessment regarding the lack of schools, is relying on the nonprofit industry to develop the Kingdom's schools the best option for Cambodia's long term outlook? Shouldn't Prime Minister Hun Sen's government start spending 100% of its allocated education budget instead of under 80% as it has in years past (while spending over 100% of the allocated military budget.) Shouldn't the Cambodian government spend its own money before asking for outside help?
Admittedly, nonprofit organizations (NPO's) would probably plan to pay teachers at these newly developed schools a livable wage, perhaps even eliminating bribery in these schools. That in itself would reduce poverty and bring some kids back off the street and into the system. However, it would also lead to the development of a two tiered school system.
One system would exist where bribes are paid and a parallel one where they are not. In the "no-bribe" system, students would be "forced to study" to earn good grades and they would actually receive diplomas that benchmarked a level of knowledge. In the shakedown system diplomas are awarded based on whether or not a student played the game. What's between their ears may or may not be reflected by their sheepskin.
Hundreds of Cambodian college students pay $100 yearly kickers in addition to their annual tuition to be passed to the next class. At the end of their four-year course many of them know about as much as the first day they walked in. Now you know why competency levels are considered to be low in Cambodia by outside investors vs. countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Rather than relying on NPO's to develop education, the Cambodian government should partner with business to find lasting solutions. If big business has a growing demand for people who possess specific skill sets, they should help foot the bill for their education. Cambodia is a country that imports engineers from Japan to supervise such routine work as underground sewer pipe construction, so certainly the need is present.
When a large development firm such as the 7NG Company tells Hun Sen they need a properly functioning infrastructure to drain a few hundred fancy toilets each day, Hun Sen should offer that he could use some schools along with adequately salaried, honest teachers for the nation's children. THEY should be the ones cooperating to advance the educational agenda by eliminating corruption and the institutionalized school bribery business in Cambodia. I fail to see why nonprofit organizations that will eventually leave the country should be long-term stakeholders in this endeavor. Ten years ago the percentage of Cambodia's gross national product (GNP) that came from international aid stood at 14 percent and that number has worsened over the years. It's well past time to start moving the needle the other way.
I encourage those who support Mom Thany's thesis to visit neighboring Laos. Ten years ago The European Union (EU) funded the construction of several schools but today the schools exist as mere shells. Sure students and teachers occupy them but teachers are low paid and business/government funding is virtually non existent. Books and other school supplies are scarce and while the buildings still stand, Communist Laotian leaders failed to put a system in place that would sustain them as places to learn.
Hun Sen sets terms and conditions of doing business in Cambodia all the time. A few weeks ago for example, Cambo Six, a gambling operation Hun Sen ran throughout the country with Singaporean partners closed and the partners were sent packing. Further, Cambodian citizens have been banned from gambling casinos in the Kingdom. Apparently too many of Hun Sen's millionaire buddies lost big bucks so Hun Sen decided to save his friends from themselves (no I am not kidding).
So why doesn't Hun Sen start partnering with business, raising teachers salaries and punishing teachers who seek bribes if it's relatively easy to? That's simple. He has no desire to educate the underclass. Oh sure, he wants everyone to read at an eighth grade level so people can find out about "how much he has done for them", but he has no motivation to improve their critical thinking.
Further, if he eliminated bribery in schools, a large majority of the sons and daughters of corrupt officials and businessmen who willingly pay those bribes would fail to learn how to benefit from corruption themselves. Many of these students are already beginning to value the fact that they will always have money if they play by Hun Sen's rules.
And as for good old Mr. Um Ero? Hun Sen's got him right where he wants him; a snack shop owner who can talk all he wants about eliminating corruption in the afternoon, but because of his own mystifying intellectual duplicity fostered in the very system in which he now teaches, can't do a thing about it the next morning.
And today I'll leave you with a little quote:
“I write for those who cannot read me. Those from below, those who have waited all these centuries at history’s end of the line, who don't know how to read and don't have the means to do so." - Galeano
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
Photo © John Brown All Rights Reserved
During morning hours, Mr. Um Ero, usually headed off from the snack stand he owned to his duties as a public school teacher at Prince Sihanouk High School in Kampong Cham, Cambodia. His stand is near the high school so he didn't have to go far.
He also kept busy in the afternoons serving as vice-director of a now lifeless NGO, Khmer Ghvith Thmei Organization (KGTO), which was operating before the lid went down due to corruption. (Please see related story, Corruption Is Not A Crime In Cambodia). KGTO was operational thanks to funding issued by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through Pact Cambodia's LAAR program.
His afternoon job consisted of dedicating himself to poverty reduction and fighting corruption. In fact, one of KGTO's principal areas of program emphasis included providing training and support for the Volunteer Youths for Development and Peace Network (VYDAPN).
Let us agree that advocating poverty alleviation and standing up to corruption while teaching youth about development and peace made Mr. Um Ero a role model in the eyes of those he mentored. His stature as a teacher further enhanced his status as a community leader. Furthermore, the young people knew KGTO had cooperated with rights-promotion organizations including the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and the Center for Social Development (CSD), two organizations known in Cambodia for "telling it like it is." What better way was there to achieve focused moral clarity while developing a social consciousness than by studying Mr. Um Ero in action?
Nonetheless, there was a problem and it was the morning job. According to a report issued awhile back by the CSD, "Public education clearly stands out as the institution responsible for more than half of the total yearly amount spent on bribes by all households."
The survey continued, "Households frequently pay corrupt payments in their everyday contact with the education sector with 72% of all households reporting contact the previous year, and those 72% had a 33% likelihood of bribe conditional on contact."
What's happening here folks is teachers are shaking down kids and their families for money.
According to the report, the most commonly mentioned forms of corrupt practices paid by students to teachers are for:
1. "Enrollment and registration: corruption is paid when enrolling a child in school."
2. "Exams and grades: teachers ask for corrupt payment when students have tests or students pay to receive better results."
3. "Snacks or drinks during breaks or after school: Snacks and drinks are sold by teachers as a supplementary income. Parents feel pressured to give their children money to spend on this and fear the children will otherwise be discriminated against by the teacher."
4. "Extra private classes: payment or private education by the teachers covering the official curriculum after school hours."
These facts are a bit astonishing to visitors breezing through the country seemingly oblivious to the root causes of why this nation has been slow to rebuild. One day I decided to ask three Prince Sihanouk High School students if bribery existed at their school while visiting their home, "Have you ever been asked for money by a teacher at your school before the teacher would give you a test paper?" I asked the trio, "Yes" they all responded nodding their heads affirmatively. "Do you ever say no?" I shot back. "No, we're afraid we wouldn't pass our classes" a seventeen-year-old boy admitted.
In need of corroborating testimony that would satisfy my curiosity, I subsequently asked Mr. Um Ero, snack shop owner, teacher and corruption fighter, "Have you ever witnessed any teacher at Prince Sihanouk High School asking students to give them money in return for test papers?" "Yes", he said. "Have you ever asked a student for money?" "No never" he asserted.
When students are asked how they feel about this informal arrangement they seem resigned and point to teacher's low pay (about $50 USD per month) as the reason the shakedowns occur. It's as if they don't realize this systematic abuse is wrong, and instead, merely lump bribe payments with other costs of going to school such as buying books and school supplies.
This system starts long before high school however and poor primary school aged children become the first victims. Unable to fork over bribe money, they're forced to quit school (or never start) to begin their careers earlier than most. Professional opportunities available to 7-12 year olds include scavenging for recyclable material, book selling, beheading frogs, food selling, working in salt fields and tending to farm animals.
Back to Mr. Um Ero for a moment. Clearly, he sees himself as an honest man but in fact, he is intellectually dishonest. By afternoon, he advocated poverty reduction and mentored youth courtesy of US funds provided to him but his toleration of an extortion racket at Prince Sihanouk High School that perpetuates increasing Cambodia's poverty rate is totally void of any principled thoughts. After all, isn't this guy a "corruption fighter"? It seems "talking the talk" is a bit easier when one perceives America has your back than "walking the walk" when real poverty reduction is on the line. Um Ero knows his bread always tastes better when it's buttered on both sides.
In an article written by Jennifer Hile that appeared online in National Geographic News on September 12, 2003, Mom Thany, executive director of the Child Rights Foundation in Phnom Penh, Cambodia stated, "It's very important for nonprofit organizations to develop schools in Cambodia," she continued, "We are a very poor country, and there are not enough schools here."
While I agree with Mom Thany's assessment regarding the lack of schools, is relying on the nonprofit industry to develop the Kingdom's schools the best option for Cambodia's long term outlook? Shouldn't Prime Minister Hun Sen's government start spending 100% of its allocated education budget instead of under 80% as it has in years past (while spending over 100% of the allocated military budget.) Shouldn't the Cambodian government spend its own money before asking for outside help?
Admittedly, nonprofit organizations (NPO's) would probably plan to pay teachers at these newly developed schools a livable wage, perhaps even eliminating bribery in these schools. That in itself would reduce poverty and bring some kids back off the street and into the system. However, it would also lead to the development of a two tiered school system.
One system would exist where bribes are paid and a parallel one where they are not. In the "no-bribe" system, students would be "forced to study" to earn good grades and they would actually receive diplomas that benchmarked a level of knowledge. In the shakedown system diplomas are awarded based on whether or not a student played the game. What's between their ears may or may not be reflected by their sheepskin.
Hundreds of Cambodian college students pay $100 yearly kickers in addition to their annual tuition to be passed to the next class. At the end of their four-year course many of them know about as much as the first day they walked in. Now you know why competency levels are considered to be low in Cambodia by outside investors vs. countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.
Rather than relying on NPO's to develop education, the Cambodian government should partner with business to find lasting solutions. If big business has a growing demand for people who possess specific skill sets, they should help foot the bill for their education. Cambodia is a country that imports engineers from Japan to supervise such routine work as underground sewer pipe construction, so certainly the need is present.
When a large development firm such as the 7NG Company tells Hun Sen they need a properly functioning infrastructure to drain a few hundred fancy toilets each day, Hun Sen should offer that he could use some schools along with adequately salaried, honest teachers for the nation's children. THEY should be the ones cooperating to advance the educational agenda by eliminating corruption and the institutionalized school bribery business in Cambodia. I fail to see why nonprofit organizations that will eventually leave the country should be long-term stakeholders in this endeavor. Ten years ago the percentage of Cambodia's gross national product (GNP) that came from international aid stood at 14 percent and that number has worsened over the years. It's well past time to start moving the needle the other way.
I encourage those who support Mom Thany's thesis to visit neighboring Laos. Ten years ago The European Union (EU) funded the construction of several schools but today the schools exist as mere shells. Sure students and teachers occupy them but teachers are low paid and business/government funding is virtually non existent. Books and other school supplies are scarce and while the buildings still stand, Communist Laotian leaders failed to put a system in place that would sustain them as places to learn.
Hun Sen sets terms and conditions of doing business in Cambodia all the time. A few weeks ago for example, Cambo Six, a gambling operation Hun Sen ran throughout the country with Singaporean partners closed and the partners were sent packing. Further, Cambodian citizens have been banned from gambling casinos in the Kingdom. Apparently too many of Hun Sen's millionaire buddies lost big bucks so Hun Sen decided to save his friends from themselves (no I am not kidding).
So why doesn't Hun Sen start partnering with business, raising teachers salaries and punishing teachers who seek bribes if it's relatively easy to? That's simple. He has no desire to educate the underclass. Oh sure, he wants everyone to read at an eighth grade level so people can find out about "how much he has done for them", but he has no motivation to improve their critical thinking.
Further, if he eliminated bribery in schools, a large majority of the sons and daughters of corrupt officials and businessmen who willingly pay those bribes would fail to learn how to benefit from corruption themselves. Many of these students are already beginning to value the fact that they will always have money if they play by Hun Sen's rules.
And as for good old Mr. Um Ero? Hun Sen's got him right where he wants him; a snack shop owner who can talk all he wants about eliminating corruption in the afternoon, but because of his own mystifying intellectual duplicity fostered in the very system in which he now teaches, can't do a thing about it the next morning.
And today I'll leave you with a little quote:
“I write for those who cannot read me. Those from below, those who have waited all these centuries at history’s end of the line, who don't know how to read and don't have the means to do so." - Galeano
John Brown Photojournalist On LIGHTSTALKERS
My Mondo Library Photography
My Photoshelter Photography Archive Homepage
4 comments:
My goodness, I wouldn't have thought to imagine such an incidence of corruption. Thank you for this awareness as well.
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