The Man from the Ministry! June 2009

What a month! Started at a fairly sedate pace, low key and routine then – kerpow! We had his Excellency the Minister of Education arrive mid June for a two day visit to see the impact the current project has had.

The build up had grown a pace beginning with a suggested itinerary with poor weather alternatives built in (another Khmer first!). Teachers and children were excited and it was a big deal for the area to have a personality with such gravitas!

Schools had the expected wash and brush up and we supported a few events e.g. setting up a model child friendly classroom at one of Jan’s schools as part of a workshop on Effective Teaching and Learning (ETL). For the actual formal meeting with the Minister, we prepared a continuous PowerPoint presentation showing all manner of schools, teachers, children, workshops, lessons, displays etc, etc. I also negotiated to borrow the POE’s pride and joy – a multimedia projector and screen to boot, all kept under lock and key. We also decided to display a sample of the learning activities we had developed for use in our workshops and schools.

After many amendments to his proposed schedule he duly arrived on the 16th June to address the meeting of POE and us lowly VSO professional volunteers! In all there were about seventeen in the delegation which consisted of our Phnom Penh programme officer, Rith, and Alice Castillejo the VSO country director, no less, so almost a royal visit! Other venerable additions included members of the MIE (our, soon to end in August, project) executive board from DAC (Disability Action Council) and NEP (can’t remember this one!) as well as the Minister’s Personal Assistant, his body guard (who put the Minister’s shoes on for him!), photographer and a civil engineer (looking at the state of the buildings).

It was amazing to see things suddenly being done on the build up to his visit. For example, the Education office building tidied and thoroughly cleaned, ‘empty’ display case filled with ‘school’ photographs, an entrance concreted and now accessible, weeding, litter picked up, some planting, even the local school buildings painted (a nice pink). In all a bit of a make over or a ‘spick & span’ exercise. If only his Excellency would visit on a monthly basis we would see impressive change! It was a bit like when royalty visits in the UK.

We also put out a sample of the resources we had developed and used in schools and workshops and at the end of the initial meeting I high jacked the minister and got him to try my compressed air bottle rocket which he seemed to enjoy!

On entering the meeting room he immediately came to see us and pressed the flesh! Various comments / speeches were made with all us volunteers putting in our two penny worth. His Excellency was very complimentary towards us and thanked us for coming to Cambodia, in particular, to such a remote area such as Mondulkiri, to support the people. He even commented that the project had exceeded their expectations – wow, high praise!

In his second speech he even made a comment involving Jan’s mom and dad! We had chatted to him and said one thing which made being in a remote area easier was our use of Skype to chat to family and friends. He was obviously listening!

He visited seven primary schools and one Lower Secondary School. During the visits he was very pleasant to all the teachers and children and gave each teacher an envelope containing a few dollars. He seemed empathetic to the general conditions and did appreciate the difficulties they face on a day to day basis. His two speeches echoed his understanding of the situation in remote areas and did comment about teacher shortages, contract teachers - young adults with very basic education which can be as low as grade one, 6yrs, or rarely up to grade 9, 14yrs. They receive no money for six months and have to live on handouts (rice) from the community. If they perform very well they may be selected to go to TTC (Teacher Training College) Even so they still only have their basic education and we’re unsure as to the quality of the TTCs!

The minister, sorry, his Excellency, the Minister, even said that teachers need to be trained at a local level at a TTC in the province. This would encourage recruitment and retention as trainees would know the difficulties and be close to their friends and families – sound reasoning we felt.

In all we were very pleased with the visit of the ministerial head honcho and so were the VSO and MIE board royalty. However, we did empathise with our counterparts in another province who were the recipients of another ministerial team visit which, let’s say, didn’t go quite so well!

On the Saturday, leaning towards the masochistic, we then held a science workshop at a local school. It was attended by over thirty staff – at the end we were cream-crackered but had a great response from the school director which was pleasing.

At the end of June we travelled to PNH (Phnom Penh) for our Annual Performance Review (APR). All education volunteers met to highlight the past year, looking at strengths and weaknesses. The build up to this was very difficult for a number of reasons which I will omit (for legal reasons, mainly slander or libelous). We had very tight (silly) deadlines to complete the required documentation immediately after the ministerial visit and we were supposed to have a series of discussion meetings with our partners. Trying to get them to meet was a task in itself and in the end we presented information to them which was effectively rubber stamped (after some minor picky points – there’s a surprise!).

Whilst in PNH we sorted out medical and dental appointments (Jan braved this after half a tooth fell out some time ago. She was dreading the experience but it was very good with excellent facilities – certainly not the typical dirty ‘surgeries’ you see with enormous teeth and evil looking instruments outside), hair cuts, completed some reports and met up with folk not seen for a few months. On Saturday we attend a ‘fusion’ Christian/Buddhist wedding of our (once) VA (volunteer assistant - translator), Sopheak to Sophal who is based at an NGO called ICC in Sen Monorom, MDK. More of this in next month’s epistle.

Our journey back was completed in the shortest time ever – 6.5 hours from PNH to Sen Monorom (including a 20 min stop!).