Children outside of the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center. Photo by Stevenshi
By Stevenshi
Hong Kong – February 10- IJS-Global – “Sir, Sir, here, here for photos!” said by several children.
I saw four local children standing outside of the fence and asking me to take photos of them. These ragged children were standing in a line and smiled to you.
“One, two, three, smile.” said by a taller boy.
“Oh, they seem professional. There should be many other tourists taking photos.” I thought.
“Sir, one dollar.” The taller boy said.
What? I was shocked! I thought these children were kind enough and taking photos were friendly. I was wrong now. Actually these children seemed they begged for a living.
“Ask American for money. They will give you a lot. ” Another tourist said.
This happened in the Choeung Ek Genocidal Center in Cambodia.
In those children, there was one girl running after me. I wondered if there is no fence, she would always follow me. Although I had told the girl that I hadn’t had one dollar, she still stuck to solicit.
“Sir, I need money to go to school and buy pencil.” The girl said.
Is it the real condition for Cambodia children? Is it common?
I don’t know. In many interest places in Cambodia, there are lots of children who are begging following the tourists. All of them can say little English like “one dollar”, “Thank you” and so on. It is hard to tell them from students.
Him Sokunthea is a journalism student in Royal University of Phnom Penh. She told me some information about Cambodia university education.
“Not everyone in Cambodia can go to university. Only about 20%-25% students can get a university education opportunity.” Him said, “And if we pass the examination every year we need pay $80 administration fee.”
Him told me that to be a journalism student, there were lots of practice chances. “We have internship and also we can go to interview. Sometimes when U.S. embassy has press conference, we will go there.”
“But I don’t want to be a journalist. It is a tough job.” Said by Rithy Cheatana, another journalism student in RUPP.
“Law here is not good enough although journalist is independent enough. But it seems that people don’t like them and don’t treat them well.” Rithy said.
Now in Cambodia, education still faces big problems. One of them is lacking qualified teacher. In some rural areas, there are not enough teachers to support the school not to say the quality of teachers. Although in major cities like Phnom Penh, lots of students can go to universities to receive higher education, in other parts of Cambodia education conditions are still not satisfactory.
