Action taking on nation exam corruption

After facing a crucial criticism from public on how corrupted and cheated it was in the last following years during the 3 days of national exam, Cambodian government has sworn to eliminate these problems in order to prepare the country for the up-coming ASEAN integration in 2015.

According to UNESCO, Cambodia education was ranked in around 170^th in the world due to budget spending on education sector is very small (just 1.6% of Cambodia's GDP spending on education) and also because of the corrupted system inside the education body itself.

There are many pictures of corruption in Cambodia national exam. Mr. Un Reaksmey, a high school teacher in Takeo province, mentioned some pictures of corruption in national exam that, first students pay bribe in order to cheat in exam, and second it comes to teachers threaten students to pay during the exam in limited price, and third the exam paper makers give the answer sheets to the students in return of under table money, and forth there are students who go to the correcting room and pay directly to the correctors.

The replacement of minister of education in 2013 was set to make a change in Cambodia education system. After Mr. Hang Chuon Naron took his position as the minister of education in September 20^th 2013, there have been many actions taken on reforming education system especially on the national exam, while other government sectors are also involved.

The first statement published by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) on 1^st Jan 2014 announced that primary and high school teachers will begin individually authoring and writing final exams on the whiteboard for the 2014 academic term. It seems to follow the 1980s’ style while at that time all teachers were required to give his or her individual test to the students. This strategy is believed to help preventing the leak of exam paper beforehand.

According to the Cambodia Daily newspaper, Mr. Chuon Naron said at the Education Ministry’s annual meeting on 24^th March 2014 that end-of-term grade for graduating seniors would no longer be combined with national exam scores.

From the previous years, the end-of-term grade was always included as part of the grade of national exam and there had always been the adjustment of the end-of-term grade between students and teachers. So now the end-of-term grade will not be included; therefore, parts of corruption between students and teachers for the national exam’s result will somehow be eliminated.

The Anti-Corruption Unit  (ACU) also takes part in eliminating corruption in National Exam. On the 25^th of March 2014 the ACU threatened a serious punishment to student and teacher who caught doing corruption in national exam. Teacher and students who caught cheating would be send to court, said Mr. Om Yentieng, the chairman of ACU. He also added that this punishment would help to eliminate old habits of purchasing answer sheets and paying bribes to exam monitors.

Moreover, on 2^nd April 2014, the ACU also established the monitor volunteering program in national exam this year. According to the Phnom Penh Post newspaper, the ACU has posted downloadable applications for individuals and civil society groups to volunteer as exam monitors. Their responsibility is to observe and report irregularities during exam to the ACU, and the ACU will prepare legal document and send lawbreakers to court.

Also lately, on 9^th May 2014, the Ministry to Education published a new statement of national exam rules and regulations, which was re-designed in order to strengthen the action in national exam. The statement was published to inform the public and student to be aware of cheating during exam.

However, Mr. Un Reaksmey also showed some concerns over the effectiveness of government actions on eliminating corruption in national exam. “It will help reducing corruption and cheating but it won’t effectively eliminate by 100%.” He continued, these actions will scare only the lower level and would be effective just small scale. He also added that if you wanted to eliminate corruption, you needed to do from the top level to the lower level.

There are concerns and debates over this reformation of national exam as well. Although the changes were strictly implemented, still the result was in blur line. Doubts and concerns are still rumoring from public opinion.

Miss Heng Monineat, a sophomore from University of Health and Sciences of Cambodia, mentioned the side effects of reformation that “By instantly restricting actions in national exam, government will face other problems such as the number of students failing exam will increase rapidly; as a result, the number of following year 12 grader will relatively outnumber.”

Mr. Kem Ley, an independent social analysis, said that the change will somehow eliminate corruption in some parts in education systems but it is not enough to change the whole corrupted things in this sector. He added “if you want to have a change in Cambodia education system, you need to revolutionize the whole system because the main foundation was already corrupted.”

However, those actions on reformation in Cambodia national exam have shown that Cambodia government is moving on a right track to strengthen the country education system. The corporation between Education ministry and other government unit revolved in the reformation also set a good start for further development in Cambodia education sector.

Mr. Kem Ley also said that “our country is in need of human resources and this change in national exam is the key to retain our human resources since the last following years, the exam was widely open for corruption; as a result, the number of potential students is very low.” He continued that “it doesn’t matter about the quantity of student who can pass the exam, but it’s matter about the quality of student who pass the exam.”