This Life in Schools

          This is an important program because it helps strengthen each community’s capacity to help students and increases the resources available. I feel proud to work for This Life In Schools and inspired to help the younger generation of children in Cambodia who want to learn and continue their education like I was able to do. 

Oeur Saloeurn, LSSDP Project Officer

Ask most Cambodians what they want for their children, and they’ll probably answer “a good education” immediately. Unfortunately, the sad truth is that every year in rural Cambodia, hundreds of thousands of bright, optimistic young children drop out of school before they turn 14, because the secondary schools near them aren’t good enough and the pressures of poverty are too great.

Our This Life In Schools program has been tried and tested over many years as a way of revitalising and redeveloping secondary schools. We work with the School Principal and existing school structures like the School Support Committee (a body of people from within the local area, including parents) and the Student Council. When all of these bodies are fully operational and motivated, the whole community, teaching team and student body work together to support the school to regenerate, redevelop, recruit better staff and fundraise for improved facilities.

This program has a strict three year duration, after which we exit. In every case we have seen drop out rates fall, exam pass rates climb and the number of students increase, and these results have continued long after we left.

What is the aim of the program?

To improve access to and quality of education by engaging community members in school development. 

What activities do we run?

 

 

What are the program outcomes?

 

Outcomes for all of This Life’s programs can be found in our Annual Report.

 

To learn more about the Lower Secondary School Development Program, download our report Lower Secondary School Development Program Pilot Phase Evaluation (2013).  The report describes the success of LSSDP in empowering communities to support their local public lower secondary school (grades 7 to 9), by engaging whole communities in school development at the grassroots level.

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