Project details

This project will cover:

Implementation and monitoring the build of a 3-room school plus teacher's house, a set of solar-panels and water tank.

This project includes community involvement tasks such as:

• Mobilizing community to contribute their resources to the school building,
• Negotiating and mobilizing all government management departments and district governor in order to get timber for building schools and other facilities
• Preparing and organizing a bidding process in order to increase the accountability and increase the stakeholders participation and contribution
• Developing the agreement with all stakeholders such as community, local government, and contractor and construction materials suppliers.

Project Outcomes:

This project will promote education in a remote area where around 80% of children are not able to partake in the government-educational system.

Teachers will be dispatched to the villages by the provincial department of Education, Youth and Sports. This strategy encourages the Cambodian government to focus on remote areas lacking equal access to basic services, particularly education.

The building of teacher’s houses, with solar panels, is an important strategy to help retain teachers living in the village and provide a venue for adult education classes.

The community will also be encouraged to use school the as multi-purpose center for traditional and cultural purposes.

Project Background

Tial village is comprised of 493 people, including 255 women and 90 families.  Villagers rely on rice growing, farming, hunting, logging and resin collection.  Few families have cattle to help with farming and, in drought years, rice shortages are experienced for most of the year.

Tial primary school has only one room with a poorly thatched roof. At the moment the teachers have agreed with villagers to use the pagoda but there is insufficient space for students to study.  Two male teachers work at the school and live in a community house with poor services. Community members gather rice as food to support the teachers and built a hut for teachers to stay and teaching students.

Part of a larger project

Oxfam has identified 3 small villages in remote regions that all require new and revitalised education facilities. It is a three year project that will see one school built in one village each year. Footprints funded the Pha Ao village school project 2008,  and intends to support the final phase of the program in Kampong Pang (2010/11).

In total over the three years, there will be three wooden school buildings (9 rooms), 3 teacher’s houses, 3 water-tanks and three sets of solar panels.

Community Involvement

Community contribution is essential for the success of this project. The community will contribute some materials and labor. The community is responsible for monitoring of work quality of staff and government counterparts. The community will also be involved in the final evaluation and opening ceremony.

Oxfam Australia has been operating in Cambodia since 1982.