CAMBODIA NEEDS EDUCATION

Why is it that Cambodia is in such extraordinary need of education?

The years 1975-79 under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge ended up as a disaster for the Cambodian people.

During the American war in Vietnam, which also hit Cambodia disastrously, millions of people had fled into the cities. However, the Khmer Rouge moved them out of the cities by force to lead them at gunpoint to working camps in the countryside.

In these years, about two million people died of exhaustion, starvation, or disease, or they were tortured and executed. Nearly all people with an education were killed: lawyers, doctors, teachers at all levels, even the monks and many, many more.

The result was that the Khmer Rouge forces killed most of the teachers in Cambodia. The size of this crime is unbelievable. It ended up as one of the worst genocides ever.
So not only is Cambodia a very poor country, but during the dark, dark years, the country lost nearly all educated people and the places of education were destroyed.

Cambodia has had to start all over again, and still today the country is short of educated people and there are not at all enough schools or teachers.

Therefore, CCAHA wants to make an effort to give the poorest children and the orphans a chance to learn to read and write in their native language and some basic skills in English.

For further information about this period:
www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/pol-pot.html