The Lingering Effects of the Cambodian Genocide on Education

In late August, high school students across Cambodia sat for their national exams. It has been four years since stringent anti-cheating reforms were introduced, which resulted that year in more than 70 percent of students failing their exams. This multifaceted push for reformation, spearheaded by Education Minister Hang Choun Naron, aims to improve an education system still recovering from the Cambodian genocide.

Four decades ago, from 1975-1978, the Khmer Rouge conducted a genocidal campaign, killing between approximately 1.2 to 2.8 million Cambodians — one-quarter of the country’s population. During this senseless violence, more than 90 percent of the country’s financial and educated elite were targeted and killed.

Before the civil war that began in 1970 and ended with the Khmer Rouge taking power, Cambodia had undergone a stunning educational transformation. After independence from France, Prince Sihanouk had made education a priority, spending more than 20 percent of all government expenditures on education. Taking inspiration from French and Buddhist education systems, Cambodia was the model of education in the region: education attainment rates grew steadily at a remarkable rate of more than 2 percent.

Prince Sihanouk was deposed in 1970, just 17 years after Cambodia gained independence, and the country was embroiled in conflict for the next two decades. A five-year civil war was followed by the Pol Pot-led genocide. Schools were shut down and were replaced by re-education and ideology camps. Research by Thomas Clayton finds statistics from the Ministry of Education that 75 percent of all teachers and 96 percent of all tertiary students were killed.

While the Cambodian genocide ended on December 25, 1978 when Vietnamese soldiers and Cambodian rebels re-entered the country, it was not until 1991 that peace accords were signed and reconstruction efforts could begin. While the new government initially attempted to allocate more than 15 percent of the national budget to education, this figure dropped to 8 percent within three years. According to a 2001 International Labor Organization report, only 25 percent of respondents reported the completion of secondary school or higher, and almost 20 percent responded that they had never received any schooling at all.