PON Pong, a Dang Run Primary School student, dropped out a year ago before being approached by the school principal and social worker. The school and social worker had tried several to convince him to send him back to school but they received a rejection.
Pon Pong is a 14-year-old boy who lives in Dang Run Village, Banteay Neang Commune, Mongkul Borei District, Banteay Meanchey Province. He is the second son of two siblings and lives with his grandmother. Pong’s parents migrate to Thailand and work as construction workers there.
Pong dropped out of his sixth grade at Dang Run Primary School in early 2022. He said he quit school because he was a slow learner and wanted to join his parents working as a construction worker in Thailand to help raise money for his parents.
“I quit school because I am a slow learner and needed to work in construction work in Thailand to get income for my parents,” Pong added.
Ms. Yoeut, our social worker who works closely with Pong and the other children, explained to Pong that working in construction would mean exchanging his strength for money and that he would have to rely on his physical strength for the rest of his life. She pointed out that as a young man, he would eventually be the head of his household, and if he did not have the strength to work, he would not be able to earn money to support the family in the future. Yoeut added that if he returned to school, he would gain the skills and knowledge he would need to earn a living without having to rely on his physical strength. She said that with an education, Pong would be able to help his parents, his children, and his wife in the future, and he would also have the knowledge to start his own business if he wanted to.
After negotiation with the school principal, Pong was registered and agreed to return to school with the support of CCOSC intervention in early 2023, such as an in-kind scholarship and remedial classes. However, he wished to start in the fifth grade again instead of the sixth grade because he had missed out the whole year of his fifth grade due to the COVID-19 pandemic (school closures).
Pon Pong is now a fourth-grade student at Dang Run Primary School in the 2022-2023 academic year. After re-entering school earlier this year, he has maintained a regular attendance record. According to his class teacher, Ponh Vannak, said, “Pon has not missed a single day of school and has been consistently scoring better [ with a score of 9.28 and ranked 7th in the class] on his tests.”
During the academic year 2021-2022, In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) in Cambodia, Action Education, in partnership with Education Above All’s Educate A Child program (EAC) and partners of the CCOSC supported the implementation of the remedial learning program for a total of over seven thousand of students who are slow learners equivalent to nearly 400 classes in the target schools of the CCOSC. This remedial learning program was supporting grades 1 to 6, running for a full two months (from early October to the end of November 2022), 3 hours a day and 5 days a week to support slow learners, marginalised, out of school children. As a result, more than half of the students benefiting from the remedial program achieved better learning outcomes.
