Near Cambodia's Temple Ruins, a Devotion to Learning

Near Cambodia's Temple Ruins, a Devotion to Learning.

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA — Millions of tourists come here every year to visit the ancient ruins of Angkor Wat, an influx that has helped transform what once resembled a small, laid-back village into a thriving and cosmopolitan town with thumping nightlife and more than 10,000 hotel rooms.

But the explosion of the tourism industry here has also done something less predictable. Siem Reap, which had no universities a decade ago, is now Cambodia’s second-largest hub for higher education, after the capital, Phnom Penh.

The sons and daughters of impoverished rice farmers flock here to work as tour guides, receptionists, bartenders and waitresses. When their shifts are over, they study finance, English and accounting.

“I never imagined that I could go to university,” said Hem Sophoan, a 31-year-old tour guide who is now studying for his second master’s degree. “There’s been so much change and opportunities for young people.”

The establishment of five private universities here is helping to transform the work force in this part of Cambodia, one of Asia’s poorest countries and a society still living in the shadow of the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. Employers say that English proficiency is rising and that workers who attend universities stand out for their ability to express themselves and make decisions. A generation of students who would otherwise have had little hope to study beyond high school are enduring grueling schedules to get a degree and pursue their dreams.

Khim Borin, a 26-year-old tour guide by day and law student by night, says he wants to become a lawyer. But he sometimes has trouble staying awake in class during the high tourist season, when he spends hours scaling vertiginous temple steps and baking in the tropical sun.

“I tell my friends, ‘Hit me if you see me falling asleep,”’ he said.

The son of a broken and impoverished household, Mr. Khim Borin worked as a bartender and a masseur and installed air-conditioners at hotels before becoming a tour guide. He summarizes his life as “hard but happy.”

The five universities in Siem Reap currently enroll more than 10,000 students. Most of the campuses, which are scattered around the town, are quiet during the day but come to life with the buzz of students’ motorcycles as soon as the sun sets.

The United Nations and foreign aid organizations have had an oversize role in helping steer the country since the Khmer Rouge were driven from power more than three decades ago. But the symbiosis of work and study here came together without any master plan.

It was driven largely by supply and demand: universities opened to cater to the dreams of Cambodia’s youth — and offered flexible hours in sync with the rhythms of the tourist industry. University administrators say 80 to 90 percent of the students hold full-time jobs.

“They come here, find a job first, and then they start their bachelor degree,” said Rous Bunthy, vice president for administrative affairs at the University of South-East Asia, which opened here in 2006 and has an enrollment of 2,300.

Most students pay the annual tuition of $400 themselves, Mr. Rous Bunthy said. “Some of their parents can help a little — maybe $10 a month,” he said.

Although the fees are a small fraction of what private universities in more developed countries charge, students often struggle to pay, administrators say.

“The main problem is financial support,” said That Bunsay, vice president of administrative affairs at the Siem Reap branch of Build Bright University, the largest in Siem Reap with about 5,000 enrolled.

“They need to find money first and then go to school — money is the first priority,” Mr. That Bunsay said.

Luckier students get sponsorship from foreigners. On a recent evening, an Argentine insurance saleswoman on vacation here, Maria Theresa Landoni, waited outside Mr. That Bunsay’s office. She had come to the university to pay the tuition of a young woman who wanted to study tourism.

Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/world/asia/cambodias-angkor-wat-temple-ruins-brings-tourists-and-higher-education-opportunites-for-tour-guides.html?_r=1&ref=cambodia

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Thai Schools Urged to Boost Speaking

Thai Schools Urged to Boost Speaking.

The Thai government has embarked on an ambitious nationwide programme to teach English at least once a week in all state schools as part of the new 2012 English Speaking Year project.

The initiative is intended to ease Thailand's entry into the Asean community in 2015, when southeast Asia becomes one economic zone and a universal language is required for communication and business.

The project will focus on speaking English rather than studying its grammar, with teachers provided training through media modules and partnerships with foreign institutions, including English-language schools, according to Thailand's education ministry.

The initiative, which started in late December and is still being ironed out, is a formidable task, aiming to reach some 14 million students in 34,000 state schools across Thailand from pre-primary to university age, said Ministry of Education permanent secretary Sasithara Pichaichanarong.

"Our goal is to reach students all across Thailand – from the remote, far-reaching villages to the capital – by teaching them English through educational tools on TV, the radio and internet, and conversations with native speakers," said Sasithara. "Obviously the students are not going to be fluent immediately, but the idea is to get them speaking English better today than they did yesterday."

While the ministry aims to incentivise teachers to create an "English corner" in classrooms containing English-language newspapers, books and CDs, the programme is in no way mandatory and will rely instead on a system of rewards. Those who embrace the project may receive a scholarship to travel abroad or be given extra credit at the end of term, Sasithara said.

The programme saw a recent publicity boost when former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who visited the education ministry as part of a three-day trip to Bangkok, taught some 100 Thai students basic English and called the Speaking English Year project a "brave … and sensible decision for Thailand". Now the ministry is discussing a partnership with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation for assistance with the project in upcoming months, Sasithara said.

To date, government-run language programmes have focussed on rote learning that makes for poor improvisation when it comes to having conversations in the real world, critics argue. Recent university admission exams show that Thai students scored an average 28.43 out of 100 in English, according to the National Institute of Educational Testing Service.

Native speakers will have a role to play in the project, said Sasithara, who expects to start recruiting teachers from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and US, as well as from countries where a high level of English is spoken, such as Singapore, the Philippines and India.

School director Panya Sukawanich said his Bangkok school would go ahead with Speaking English Year modules but that they may not reap the benefits the government was expecting.

"Many of our students have poor English – some Mathayom 1 [first-year secondary school] students still can't write A-Z," he recently told the Bangkok Post. "We have to teach them the fundamentals again and again."

Final-year student Rossukhon Seangma, who has been learning English for the past 10 years, explained, in Thai, why that was the case. "Thai students don't speak English in their daily life, so we are not familiar with using it," she told reporters. "When the class finishes, we switch to Thai."

If English fails, perhaps Mandarin will succeed – as the Ministry of Education has also been in discussions with China about creating a similar "Speaking Chinese Year Project", Sasithara said.

"Chinese officials were very interested in the English programme and offered to create a Chinese version – where they would send over 1,000 Chinese teachers to Thailand and provide scholarships to 1,000 Thai students to study in China," said Sasithara. "I told them, 'Yes, why not?' If we can learn both, it would be a great success."

Read more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/feb/14/thailand-speak-english-campaign

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