A new concrete school building of five classrooms in Kriel Pong village of Kampong Speu’s Aoral district was inaugurated on December 17, 2009, presided by H.E Touch Sarun, Advisor to Samdech Moha Thormak Porthisal Chea Sim and Vice Governor of Kampong Speu.

Ellie Kuhne (left front), H.E Touch Sarun (right front) and Mr. Seng Sintha (middle)

The building was built under the financial support from Australian Lutheran World Service (ALWS) channeled through LWF Cambodia, aiming to provide the students with an opportunity to continue their study in lower secondary level in this remote area. The building was built under the LWF’s technical standard which equipped with students’ tables, blackboards, teacher’s desks and chairs, three latrines and a deep well. The total cost for this project amounted to US$45,521.

H.E Touch Sarun expressed his deepest thanks to ALWS and LWF for their active contribution to improve Cambodia’s education sector.

“Working on the development of education is a major contribution to help the Government reduce poverty,” he said.

LWF Cambodia’s Program Manager Ms. Pok Panhavichetre highlighted major activities and achievements made by LWF in the development of education over the past years. They included the repair of old school buildings and construction of new school buildings, latrines, deep wells, library and dormitory; training non formal education (NFE) teachers and support to NFE class, providing vocational training to NFE class, building, providing poorest students with scholarships, etc.

She stressed that these education achievements resulted from active participation of the local communities through their mental, physical and material support, as well as good cooperation and strong support provided by the government’s line agencies and local authorities at all levels.

Ellie Kuhne, representing ALWS at the ceremony, was very proud of the work of ALWS and LWF. “We hope that many children will come to this school for lots of year. Our country values educators, skills, school build, and children going to school is very exciting,” she said.

Mr. Seng Sintha, LWF Cambodia’s Project Manager based in Aoral, said there was only one school building of 5 classrooms funded by a generous Japanese person in 2002. Many children have completed their primary level here, but had no chance to continue their study in the lower secondary level as the secondary school locates in central Aoral, some 35 km far from their houses. Their major challenges were the travel on bad roads.

With this new building, this school has been upgraded to a lower secondary level. Former primary students who completed their study two or three years ago have now come back to undertake the lower secondary class. This new building is now serving only one class (Grade 7) of 35 students (28 of them female).

Study materials were given to all 408 students. Twenty-two of them who are from the poorest families and whose houses locate far from school received a bicycle each in addition.

LWF Cambodia has been supporting the development of Cambodia’s education since 1996, aiming to improve education quality and increase literacy rate. From 1998 to late 2009, 49 concrete school buildings (203 classrooms) and 22 wooden school buildings (58 classrooms) were constructed across LWF Cambodia’s six projects, of which 15 concrete school buildings (52 classrooms) were built in Aoral. The total cost for the constructions amounted to USD 1,313,409.