Social Assessment Report Public Disclosure Authorized Social Assessment on Access to Education: Field Study Report Project Number: P144715 Date: 24th July 2013 Public Disclosure Authorized Cambodia Global Partnership for Second Education Sector Support Project Public Disclosure Authorized Prepared By The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports Kingdom of Cambodia Public Disclosure Authorized EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Government of Cambodia is currently preparing for the Cambodia Second Education Sector Support Project, hereafter referred to as the “Project”, to be financed by the Global Partnership for Education (GPE), which the World Bank administers and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) executes. The project consists of four components, namely, Component 1 Improving the Access and Educational Experience of Vulnerable and Disadvantaged Students; Component 2: Benchmarking Student Competencies; Component 3: Improving the Cambodia’s Teaching Force; and Component 4: System Management and Monitoring and Evaluation. A Social Assessment (SA) is required under the World Bank’s Safeguard Policy (OP/BP 4.10). The objectives of the assessment are to : (i) evaluate the project potential positive and adverse effects on the Indigenous People (IP) and examine project alternatives where adverse effects may be significant; (ii) assess the stakeholders’ perspectives on current status of access to education, discrimination in access to education service, discrepancies in enrollment or any other indicators of education access between IPs and mainstream Khmer communities, measures to improve their access to education to maximize the benefits of the project activities to beneficiaries; and (iii) establish a basis for subsequent project monitoring and evaluation. The SA is also a means to engage in free, prior and informed consultation with indigenous communities and to assess whether these communities provide their broad support to the project or not. During SA process indigenous people were informed about the project and consulted about the project benefits and adverse effects. The SA has found that consulted the IP communities and key stakeholders support for the project. The SA requires the collection of both primary and secondary data. Primary qualitative data were collected using qualitative research methodology such as focus group discussion (FGD) for the people from the communities and key informant interview (KII) for other key stakeholders. Secondary statistical data were also collected mainly from MoEYS, and Ministry of Planning’s commune database. Four provinces were selected for field study, namely Stung Treng, Mondul Kiri, Kampong Thom and Banteay Meanchey. In each province, a FGD and 5 KIIs were conducted. Two selected communes, Sekong (Lun village) and Krang Teh, are dominated by Indigenous People (IP) where the other two communes, Popok and Ta Lam, are inhibited by Khmer ethnic. Sekong and Krang Teh are remote communes whereas Krasang and Ta Lam are rural communes. Primary sources of income in all four communes are mostly from rice and other crop production. Access to forest to collect non-timber forest products (NTFP) and hunting are very common for remote villagers of Lun and Krang Teh whereas migration to urban areas is a common option to generate alternative sources of income. In general, in these communes, access to education is not much improved in recent years. Net enrollment rate in these communes remained almost at the same level or slightly decreased for the past four years, and dropout rate of all off the four visited schools increased compare to the previous academic year (see Annex 1). There are a number of factors affecting the access to education, including prevalence of poverty, out-migration, seasonality, poor infrastructure and distance from school, irregular teaching schedules, unattractive school environment, low awareness of educational benefits, etc. There is no gender discrimination or cultural barriers in the access to education. In fact, the number of girls at visited primary schools was higher than that of boys in all schools. However, there is a tradition that girls are usually married at a younger age (14-15) and, the number of female dropouts at grade 5 and 6 is almost the same as boys. The majority of boys dropout from school at grade 5 and 6 in order to look for employment. Measures have been taken by the MoEYS, and its partnering NGOs in order to improve access to education. Those measures include provision of scholarship to poor students, provision of dormitory for poor students seeking higher education, provision of school meal, creation of decentralized curriculum, provision of bi-lingual programs, construction of new schools, and 2 promotion of child friendly schools. All measures can promote more enrollment, ensure regular school attendance and prevent dropout. However, more efforts are needed. During field visit, communities and key stakeholders raised some recommendations in order to further improve access to education. Those recommendations are: (i) fostering local economic growth especially in rural and remote area; (ii) training local resource people, who can speak both Khmer and IP language, to become teacher; (iii) strengthening and promoting bi-lingual teaching program; (iv) providing incentive for remote-village teachers; (v) promoting child friendly school to all schools; (vi) constructing more schools to reach remote and un-served villages; (vii) providing regular education awareness campaign; (viii) continuing provision of scholarship to poor student sufficiently cover their basic needs (food); (ix) building more dormitory for teachers and students; (x) encouraging private sector to invest in education; and (xi) promoting informal education in working place where majority of workers are young with lower education. In summary, the SA did not identify adverse effects on IPs as the result of implementing the project, and consultations and interviews confirmed that IP communes strongly support the proposed interventions and perceive its benefits. To ensure that the IPs present in the sub- project areas receive culturally appropriate social and economic benefits in an equitable manner, the SA recommends that the Project prepare an Indigenous Peoples Planning Framework (IPPF). For the monitoring of safeguards implementation, the SA recommends that the proposed project use the system established under the previous education project, Education Sector Support Scale Up Action Program (ESSSUAP). However, the project shall improve monitoring system at the school level and at the District Office of Education in order to ensure reliability and accuracy of the data and record keeping. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................ 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................................................... 4 LIST OF ABBREVIATION ....................................................................................................................... 5 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................... 6 1.1. Project Summary ................................................................................................................ 6 1.2. Objectives of Social Assessment (SA) ................................................................................. 6 1.3. Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 7 2. LEGAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE FRAMEWORK .............................................................................. 9 2.1. Administrative Framework ................................................................................................. 9 2.2. Legal Framework ................................................................................................................ 9 2.3. World Bank Safeguard Policies ......................................................................................... 10 3. SOCIOECONOMIC INFORMATION ............................................................................................ 10 3.1. Sekong Commune ............................................................................................................. 10 3.2. Krang Teh Commune ........................................................................................................ 11 3.3. Popok Commune .............................................................................................................. 11 3.4. Ta Lam Commune ............................................................................................................. 11 4. INFORMED CONSULTATION AND MAIN FINDINGS .................................................................. 12 5. OTHER FINDINGS ...................................................................................................................... 12 6. PAST AND EXISTING EFFORTS ................................................................................................... 14 7. RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................................................................... 15 7.1. Key considerations for IPP/IPPF ....................................................................................... 15 7.2. Key considerations for better access to education