Chumkriel Language School - Scholarship Program

The Scholarship program currently provides free tuition at the school, and extra support for 35 of the poorest children in the area.

The Scholarship Program is funded by donations from volunteers and friends and is currently funded for approximately 6 months. CLS have an active project to expand the Scholarship Program by an additional 20 students and we are seeking new sponsorships for individual students.

The cost of running the scholarship program is approximately 55 US dollars per year per student. A breakdown of the costs involved is given at scholarshipcosts.pdf.

The history of the Scholarship Class is detailed below.

In December 2005 the school met with the leader of the Chumkriel commune who provided the school with a list compiled in August 2005 by an NGO which classified 47 of the 963 families in the community as poor and a further 89 as poorest.

In late December 2005/early January 2006 teachers from the school visited a large number of the families in the area as part of a promotion to start new classes in the school. At the same time the teachers, along with the schools foreign advisor, visited many of the poorest families from the NGOs list to confirm their family situation, and 20 children were enrolled in the scholarship program on January 9th 2006 as a pilot for the program. These students were put into different classes to match their level and ability.

In choosing the students the school decided to help only one child per family so as to assist the maximum number of families possible.

We learnt many lessons about the issues surrounding having a scholarship program in the following month.

Another 21 children were enrolled in the scholarship program in February 2006. These students were chosen in co-operation with the state primary school, in order to find the students who were poor, keen to learn, and could make the best opportunity of free extra English classes. A new class was started particularly for these scholarship students. The 14 primary school age students from the existing 21 scholarship students were brought into this class also. Having the majority of the scholarship students in the same class makes it much easier to monitor their progress, give extra assistance without making other students jealous, and clearly report the cost of the scholarship program.

The state school is aware of which students are poor in the area (from using the same list we used in our initial selection of scholarship students), and these students are helped in the state school system also (fees, which do still exist in state school, are wavered). Due to our close co-operation with the state school we can co-operate on monitoring progress of these students. When any of the scholarship students have problems or stop attending the private school we can check with the public school if they have stopped education completely or only evening school, and share information on any problems a student is having with study.

Aside from free tuition the school provides these students free textbooks, notebooks, and pens, schoolbags and two uniforms each year. The school keeps a track on any issues these children are facing (like illness) and provides extra assistance when necessary.

At the start of the raining season in July 2006 it was observed that many kids in the scholarship class did not have raincoats, or bags to keep there books dry and that this was affecting there study when it rained. Also their clothes are a lot shabbier than the other students and this can make them a bit embarrassed. We decided to buy a raincoat, bag, shirt and skirt/trousers for each student in the scholarship class. These were presented at a presentation/party already arranged by the local state school for national children's day. The cost of this was approximately 250 dollars. The parents of the scholarship class were invited also, as was the head of community. By far the most important consequence of this was the opportunity to show the parents that the kids are being supported by the state school and private school, and ask them to ensure they give there children support in education also. It sounds condescending to ask the parents to do this but many of the poorer families are likely to have other stresses on their minds and likely to need there children's help more during the day, so some will be less likely to encourage there children to study in their spare time. By reinforcing the importance of education, and showing that they are being supported, we hope the parents will give extra encouragement to the scholarship students also as their education is one of the few ways out of the cycle of poverty. Also the gifts make the kids happy (and dry!), and this improves their study.

2008 Kampot Interact. Site design by Carmel and Stu