Teach For Cambodia will support the Ministry in its efforts to develop the human capital needed to achieve the Royal Government of Cambodia’s vision of becoming a developed nation by 2050.
On April 27, 2017, Teach For Cambodia and the Ministry of Education, Youth & Sport signed a five-year Memorandum of Understanding to build a pool of quality teachers and long-term leaders for Cambodia. The signing of this agreement is the culmination of a three-year journey that reinforces the belief that creating and sustaining meaningful change in education requires collaborative and committed leadership.
When CEO & Founder of Teach For Cambodia Monirath Siv returned home to Cambodia from the United States in 2014, he was in the very early stages of formulating an idea on how he might contribute to strengthening educational quality in his home country. It was Minister of Education, Youth and Sport H.E. Dr. Hang Chuon Naron that affirmed Moni’s conviction to move forward with Teach For Cambodia. He advised Moni to gain a deeper understanding of the nation’s policy priorities as well as the needs of students, families, communities and the institutions in the broader ecosystem of Cambodia.
Since then, the Teach For Cambodia team has engaged with experts and stakeholders from the public sector — including Deputy Director-General Dr. Dy Sam Sideth and Secretary of State H.E. Nath Bunroeun — and private sector leaders to identify how we might contribute to creating a competitive economy through knowledge and innovation. According to the World Bank, “education quality most accurately predicts economic growth,” and further, “a high-quality teaching workforce is the single most important factor in improving student learning.”
Aligned with these learnings and key policy priorities of the MoEYS’ Teacher Policy Action Plan, Teach For Cambodia aims to place a diverse pool of 200 of Cambodia’s young leaders as teachers in high-needs schools, reaching up to 54,000 students in the next five years. The Teacher Policy Action Plan seeks to raise the quality of education throughout Cambodia, particularly through the successful recruitment and training of strong new teacher candidates (specifically, Strategy 2: “Attracting competent persons into teaching profession” and Strategy 6: “Provision of in-service training and professional development for teachers”).
In the immediate term, Teach For Cambodia plans to provide a new pool of committed and competent teaching Fellows to serve in government schools. In the medium to long-term, Teach For Cambodia will channel the leadership capacity of program alumni, informed by their teaching experiences and insights, to work inside and outside of education to contribute to goals of the Royal Government of Cambodia’s National Development Strategic Plan and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport’s Education Strategic Plan.
Our teachers will be leaders within their classrooms, working to ensure that every child receives the quality education needed to fulfill their potential. These classroom experiences will build these leaders’ foundational understanding of the challenges facing children in public schools, the strategies and support that are required to meet their needs, the importance of developing partnerships within the communities where they teach, and the potential of every child to overcome obstacles in the path to expanded opportunity.
By 2023, we envision that over 100 Teach For Cambodia program alumni will be working inside and outside of education including school leadership, policy, teacher training, social innovation, the private sector and other areas critical to meeting the 2050 National Vision.
Applications for the first cohort of the Teach For Cambodia Fellowship officially launches on 20 October 2017. Learn more about how to apply for the Fellowship or how you can support our work.