‘Can Rainsy even write Khmer?’ minister muses
Thu, 8 October 2015
Taing Vida
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| Minister of Education Hang Chuon Naron talks to the media earlier this year in Phnom Penh. Heng Chivoan |
Responding
to shots taken at Cambodia’s education system by opposition leader Sam
Rainsy, the Minister of Education yesterday questioned the long-term
expat’s Khmer literacy.
In
the video, Rainsy promised to make educational reform a high priority
if elected and slammed the value of degrees awarded in the Kingdom.
“Cambodian
degrees are given left and right, what use are they if they have no
quality? To stick on a wall?” he asked rhetorically, characterising the
education system as “very weak”.
Speaking
at an event at the Cambodia Institute of Technology yesterday, Minister
of Education Hang Chuon Naron responded to the remarks, citing
improvement over the past 15 years of relative stability, then launched a
personal attack on Rainsy, who has spent much of his life in France.
“The
attack is vain; he is a politician that only speaks but never acts,” he
said, adding that Rainsy’s foreign education means he does not value
the Kingdom’s.
“We
are not sure that he knows how to write Khmer very well,” Naron
continued before promising renewed attention to teacher training and
better salaries in 2016.
San
Chey, coordinator of ANSEA-EAP – a social accountability NGO – said
Rainsy’s criticism applies to higher education, which has seen “no
change”, but was unfair given high school exam and curricula reforms.
Chey
suggested that if Rainsy has a reform policy in mind, then “why not
work together with the Ministry of Education and do it”.
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