Strategic Assessment of the General Education and TVET Sectors

Cambridge Education provided technical and strategic advice to inform the Asian Development Bank’s future funding initiatives in the education sector in Cambodia.

Over the past decade, Cambodia has achieved an impressive expansion of the education sector, with many more children enrolling in and attending school. The education sector budget has consistently increased. Access to education has become more equal – there is a narrowing gender gap in primary and secondary levels and inequality between the school enrolment of rich and poor has also decreased. However, other challenges remain, including addressing significant geographic disparities in student enrolment, low survival rates in basic education and low mastery of the curriculum.

Cambridge Education provided high level strategic and technical advice on the Cambodian general education sector and technical, vocational education and training (TVET) to ADB in order to identify key areas of focus for future intervention aimed at further improving the education sector. The consultant worked with staff from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MOEYS), development partners and private sector stakeholders to assess the current and future trends in education.

A Country Assessment Report was prepared, which included assessing levels and trends in educational performance and student achievement as well as incorporating other existing statistics and evaluations of educational quality that have been conducted. It considered the progress made in addressing gender and inclusive education issues in the general education sector and highlighted the implications of the government’s decentralisation and de-concentration strategy for the education sector. Other teaching and learning conditions in the sector were also considered. The key features of the policy, regulatory and funding framework for the general education sector were identified and financing issues were addressed.

The future of Cambodian education
With a view to effective future interventions, the ass essment considered the private sector’s role in education and suggested effective ways to enhance public-private partnerships.  The report summarised current and recent ADB and other development partner interventions in Cambodia, focusing on the lessons learned in order to inform the nature of future interventions and outline priority areas in need of improvement. The capacity of the MOEYS to undertake reform and oversee the education sector, including its capacity to manage Sector-Wide Approaches (SWAps) or SWAp-like arrangements was also considered.

The Cambridge Education assessment is central to ADB’s planning of effective future interventions within the education sector in Cambodia. There is an increasing awareness, globally, of the need for harmonisation and alignment of donor efforts to ensure that aid and development projects are as effective as possible, as outlined in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness. The Strategic Assessment of the General Education Sector is also useful in that it reflects a summary of the plans for all development partners working in education in the country, which is important in informing more streamlined approaches and better donor coordination in Cambodia.