IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2

Special Contribution to EFA and ESD Review article
erd

The Mutually Complementary Relationship between EFA
and ESD in Cambodia
YUTO KITAMURA*
Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan
Email: yuto.kitamura@gmail.com
Received 20 June 2012

Accepted 20 August 2012(*: Corresponding Author)

Abstract This paper examines the significance of the concepts of EFA and ESD occurringin attempts at education reform and education improvement in developing countries, anddiscusses the issues found therein. Within this discussion, this paper analyzes why it is important to implement ESD on multiple occasions along with the promotion of EFA, withparticular focus on the importance of the role of education in achieving a democratic society. This paper  will  also  consider  the  state  of  “citizenship  education,”  which  is  thought  to  hold a major key to the promotion of ESD. Based on the above conceptual examination,
this paper then provides an overview of how ESD is being promoted in Cambodia today inhistorical, social, and cultural contexts as part of the implementation of EFA, from threeperspectives: (1) acquisition and improvement of life skills; (2) enhancing environmental
education; and (3) promotion of peace education and human rights education. It is worth
noting here that although the educational activities conducted in Cambodia are not necessarily known as ESD, they certainly embody its principles and characteristics. Although
EFA focuses on the diverse states of education in and out of school, its chief concern lies
in enhancing the quantity and quality of school education. Moreover, fundamentally, it ispublic organizations, such as governments under international agreements, who take onmost of the responsibility of promoting EFA, expanding basic education together with various other stakeholders. In contrast to this so-called top-down feature of EFA, ESD is amore bottom-up operation, based on autonomic educational activities by proactive citizens; the areas it covers include a wide range of issues, such as daily life, social forms, andthe natural environment. As a conclusion, the paper emphasizes that the positioning of
EFA and ESD as essential lifelong learning is important to achieve a sustainable society.
Keywords life-skills, environmental education, peace education, human rights education,
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), Education for All (EFA)

INTRODUCTION
Cambodia was in a state of social disorder, particularly from the 1970s to 1990s, due to ongoing
civil wars and genocide by the Pol Pot regime. However, the political situation and social environment gradually began to stabilize in the late 1990s; presently, Cambodia is achieving steady economic growth. Under these circumstances, Cambodia has actively promoted national education
reforms to improve the education situation (especially basic education), particularly since the year
2000,  based  on  the  goals  of  the  international  initiative  “Education  for  All  (EFA)”  to  expand  basic  education. The results of these reforms are gradually becoming apparent; however, many issues
have also come to light, such as the issue of education quality. Under such circumstances, promoting  “Education  for  Sustainable  Development  (ESD)”  is  not  only  essential  to  achieve  EFA  but  also  it is expected to be relevant for improving the whole education situation in Cambodia. In many developing countries such as Cambodia, EFA and ESD cannot be treated separately. It is important toexamine how a mutually complementary relationship is being built (or attempting to be built) between the two initiatives.1
First, this paper considers the significance of the concepts of EFA and ESD in the context of
education reform and education improvement in developing countries, and discusses the issuesⒸISERD7

IJERD – International Journal of Environmental and Rural Development (2012) 3-2

found therein. Within this discussion, this paper examines why it is important to implement ESD
on multiple occasions along with the promotion of EFA, with particular focus on the importance ofthe role of education in achieving a democratic society. This paper will also consider the state of“citizenship  education,”  which  is  thought  to  hold  a  major  key  to  the  promotion  of  ESD.
Following the examination of the concepts of EFA and ESD, this paper then provides an
overview of how ESD is being promoted in Cambodia today in historical, social, and culturalcontexts as part of the implementation of EFA, from three perspectives: (1) acquisition/
improvement of life skills; (2) enhancing environmental education; and (3) promotion of peaceeducation and human rights education. It is worth noting here that although the educational
activities conducted in Cambodia are not necessarily known as ESD as such, they certainly embody
its principles and characteristics.
LINKAGES  BETWEEN  “EFA”  AND  “ESD”  It is widely known that the international goals to promote basic education based on the concept of
EFA were established in 1990. However, there has been a trend in many countries since the 1990sof governments attempting to reduce costs for public services; the expansion of basic educationmeans difficult decisions for governments as it requires policies and measures accompanied by increased  government  spending  to  increase  capital  and  to  secure  teachers’  jobs.  
One notable issue in the promotion of EFA is the emphasis on achieving macro-level objectives; no specific initiatives are suggested for tackling issues such as rectifying regional disparity
within a country or improving learning outcomes in schools. One reason for this is a policy-level
connection between the strong demand from the aid providers for international targets to bereached  by  2015  and  the  government’s  motivation  to  maintain  power  and  stability.  This  has  led  to  situations where despite substantial funds being invested into basic education, ordinary people are
not guaranteed the opportunity to participate in the policy dialog process and education is often
turning into a governmental means for populism.
On the other hand, under global capitalism-in which funds, goods, labor, and technology movefreely-economy and culture become internationalized, and with phenomena such as an increase inmigration, there is a greater necessity for multicultural education. As a consequence, many countries  are  promoting  “citizenship  education”  to  develop  democracy  and  cultivate  community ethics.
Furthermore,  with  the  transfer  of  the  state’s  redistributive  function  to  the  market  accompanying therise of neoliberalism, the power of state has become more relative. The relationship between thestate   and   individual   citizens   has   altered;;   “independent/autonomous   citizens”   are   expected   to   survive in a competitive society at their own risk. Moreover, many developing nations in which thesocial and political systems are still fragile often have multicultural, multiracial, and multilingual
settings, making national unity through education and the cultivation of a national identity essential.
This indicates that, in reality, education reforms based on neoliberal ideology are often being promoted in a mutually complementary relationship with a nationalist trend of thought.
Thus, as many countries search for an education system that meets the needs and aspirations ofboth the individual and the state, which may seem contradictory at first, it is necessary to ask who
ought to take charge of new education reforms. The answer to  that  question  is  “citizens,”  first  and  foremost; the government and international organizations—the public actors—ought to keep playing
a  supporting  role  to  the  independent  and  autonomous  reforms  of  “citizens.”  To  further  deliberate  on  this question, it   is   necessary   to   look   at   ESD,   an   attempt   at   “bottom-up   reforms”   aimed   at  independent/autonomous education reforms at the local level, such as reforms by individuals andcommunities. This is because ESD can potentially provide an opposing or complementary
discussion  to  the  “top-down  reforms”  seen  in  the  EFA  promotion  process.  
The  concept  of  ESD  that  covers  diverse  areas  initially  came  out  of  a  concern  for  the  “quality  of education.”  Behind  this  is  the  fact  that  despite  EFA  advocating  a  concept  of  basic  education tocover   a   wide   range   of   areas,   in   reality,   there   was   little   awareness   of   education’s   initial   role   in  raising   “citizens”   who   are   able   to   build   sustainable   society,   while   many   countries   became   more  interested in the quality of academic learning achievements in formal education. By contrast, ESD,ⒸISERD8

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which  raises  “citizens”  as  members  of  a  democratic  society  and  the  community  and  is  supported  by  those  “citizens,”  is  a  conceptual  mechanism  to  broaden  the  scope  of  the  “quality  of  education.”
This can be seen in the fact that the Education Sector in UNESCO headquarters established a
Section for Education for Sustainable Development within the Division for the Promotion of Quality around the year 2002—the period in which the concept of ESD was being proposed—with
UNESCO having placed the role that ESD plays in planning for improving the quality of education
to be important.2 Although there is not really any general international consensus on how to position ESD as an educational practice, the author considers that the significance of promoting ESD
will be made clear by returning it to its original purpose of improving the quality of education.
Although the ESD concept focuses on covering a wide range of issues, its characteristic is thatit places each individual person as a starting point, irrespective of the issue. The existing discussions on developing countries tend to emphasize the quantitative aspects of the expansion of education; there has been little interest in the qualitative aspects of what is being taught. Furthermore,
where the quality of education has been considered, there has been little interest in subjects thatdeal with the development of individuals as engaged and responsible citizens —namely, citizenship,
ethics, and values—compared to the excessive interest in the level of achievement in academic subjects. Furthermore, the public actors in ESD—the governments and international organizations—are
expected  to  support  the  independent  and  autonomous  “bottom-up  reforms”  by  “citizens”;;  this  is  the  way education policies should be formulated and implemented in developing countries in the postneoliberal era.
Conceptually, ESD can be independent and autonomous educational activities at the local level of schools and communities. In practice, however, pressures from administration play a majorrole in shaping ESD and people on the ground may easily follow the direction set by the government. Promotion of ESD by governments and international organizations like UNESCO and theUnited Nations University (UNU), therefore, has the possibility of contradicting the original idea of
ESD. It is critically important to synergize citizen-led ESD and government-led EFA.
ESD IMPLEMENTATION IN CAMBODIA
This paper has discussed the conceptual framework of EFA and ESD; on the basis of this discussion, it now examines how these two concepts are implemented in Cambodian education.
Acquisition and improvement of life skills
The basic strategy of the Cambodian education sector is a five-year plan known as the Education
Strategic Plan (ESP). Four of these five-year plans have been put in place since 2000: (1) 20012005; (2) 2004-2008; (3) 2006-2010; (4) 2009-2013. The education sector has created a five-year
program called the Education Sector Support Program (ESSP) as an implementation program for
the ESP (the five-year period is the same as the ESP). Furthermore, the education sector has also
set in place the EFA National Action Plan 2003-2015 to deal with basic education. The highest priority in each of these policy documents is  implementing  “fair  access  to  high  quality  education”  at  the basic education stage.
However, despite the provision of these education policies, there is probably still room left for
improvement in terms of the quality of education, such as textbooks, teaching materials, curriculum,
teaching methods, teacher training, and school facilities (Hirosato & Kitamura, 2009). In promoting
ESD, formal education (especially primary and lower secondary education), the most basic educational foundation within a society, is more desirable than anything; however, in Cambodia, there
are major issues with the quality of basic level school education. Most of all, it is essential to improve the quality of teachers who play a central role in school education. From that perspective, theNational Institute of Education (NIE), the main teacher training institution in Cambodia, aims toprovide training that incorporates ESD while teaching, especially in the secondary teacher training
program, and to improve the quality of education of the regular curriculum while also promoting
ESD (UNESCO, 2010).
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While Cambodia needs education to support sustainable development, it first needs to raise thequality of basic education. Studies on the quality of education have often tended to focus only on
the level of achievement in academic subjects (so-called scholastic improvement). As previously
mentioned, however, education has a major role to play in fostering engaged and responsible citizens and critical thinkers who can shape a better future. It is essential to promote broad-perspective
initiatives such as ESD.
Accordingly, initiatives to promote ESD are being undertaken, particularly in various areasthat cannot be covered by basic school education alone. The most typical initiative is education
with   the   aim   of   acquiring   and   improving   “life   skills.”   The Policy for Curriculum Development
2005-2009,  adopted  in  2004,  aimed  to  introduce  a  new  subject  known  as  “Local  Life  Skill  Program  (LLSP)”  from  grades  1  to  10  to  raise  citizens  capable  of  contributing to building a healthy and productive  society.  This  policy  defines  life  skills  as  the  “intellectual,  personal,  interpersonal,  and  vocational skills that enable informed decision-making, effective communication, and coping and selfmanagement skills that  contribute  to  a  healthy  and  productive  life”  (MoEYS,  2004,  p.8).  The  introduction of these new life skills programs shows that there is an emphasis on educating publicminded citizens and developing useful skills for life in society.
The acquisition and improvement of life skills in school education is particularly conducted
through vocational training, health education, HIV/AIDS education, and human rights education.
However, school education, which focuses on passing on information and skills in academic subjects, cannot adequately pass on life skills, that is, knowledge and skills covering a wide range ofareas. Furthermore, life skills are necessary for everybody, regardless of age or gender. Since
school education only targets a certain age bracket, it is not possible to promote the acquisition oflife skills to many people in Cambodian society. Consequently, non-formal education is very important.
In order to promote non-formal education, a number of villages have established Community
Learning Centers (CLCs) or similar educational organizations. These CLCs provide non-formal
education, making use of existing facilities wherever possible, such as temples, village offices,
homes of village heads, etc., and building new facilities wherever necessary. In 1994, UNESCO
and the National Federation of UNESCO Associations in Japan provided assistance to the Cambodian government to establish the first CLCs in the provinces of Siam Reap, Battambang, and Kandal. Support then began to come in from other aid agencies and NGOs. Presently, villages in several provinces have established CLCs (or similar educational organizations) and implemented literacy training, vocational training for income generation and family education for childcare, playing amajor role in fostering  people’s  life  skills.  An  important  feature  of  CLCs  is  that  although  they  receive assistance from the government, they are basically managed and operated by villagers. This
type of community-based style of management is essential to embody the concept of ESD. The
aforementioned EFA National Action Plan identifies the importance of CLCs in implementing nonformal education.
Supplementing environmental education
Although the term ESD is not generally used in the Cambodian education sector, the field of environmental education is one area where education activity is actively promoted based on the conceptof ESD.
In  2009,  Cambodia’s  Ministry  of  Environment  set  out  its  five-year plan, the Five-Year Strategic Plan on Environmental Education for 2009-2013, asserting  the  importance  of  “Environmental  education  for  sustainable  development”  (EESD)  at  the  beginning  of  the  policy  document  (Department of Environmental Education and Communication, 2009). This Strategic Plan stipulates theStrategic Goal and Action Plan on EESD for 2009-2013 from an ESD perspective, in particular.
If we examine these initiatives, we see that they are plans to further enrich basic environmental  education  and  do  not  necessarily  focus  on  ESD.  Nevertheless,  providing  “training  on  environmental  issues  and  ESD”  under  the  human  resource  development  initiative  aims  at  fostering  people  with a deep understanding of ESD to become involved in environmental education. Moreover, atⒸISERD

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tempting  to  raise  people’s  awareness  by  spreading  information  on  environmental issues will require
the use of a wide range of media, from printed media, such as books and magazines, to electronic
media, such as the Internet. The use of printed media is very significant in Cambodia, where provincial towns and villages still have limited access to electronic media, despite the fact that in recent years an increasing number of people own mobile phones and that internet cafes and the likeare becoming more commonplace.
Furthermore, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the Ministry of Tourism, and theMinistry of Culture and Fine Arts are working together on a master plan for building a learning
program on environmental protection and biodiversity in the Tonle Sap Basin. 3 This learning program  is  known  as  a  “learning  laboratory”;;  it  aims  to  provide  opportunities  to  learn  about  sustainable development while coming into close contact with the actual natural environment. The program
can,  for  example,  deepen  people’s  understanding  of  how  a  body  of  scientific,  experiential,  and   indigenous knowledge about protecting the biosphere can be used to implement sustainable development. Moreover, the program can also have people think about policies to make improvements inthe environment (such as biodiversity conservation), human life and livelihood (such as reducing
poverty) or economic benefits (such as increased income through developing the tourism industry).
Other  countries  outside  Cambodia,  such  as  Vietnam,  are  also  building  these  “learning  laboratories,”  supported by UNESCO (Nguyen et al., 2010).
Peace education and human rights education
Cambodia entered a state of war in the late 1960s affected by chaotic situations of the Vietnam
War; a coup was staged in 1970, followed by a civil war. In the 1970s, Cambodia came under the
Pol Pot regime of the Khmer Rouge and their radical Maoist ideology. The political instability continued into the 1980s with interference by Vietnam and the Soviet Union; the Cambodian society
remained at the height of chaos until the late 1990s. However, after the signing of the 1991 Paris
Peace Agreement, the social situation did begin to gradually stabilize despite various issues, andCambodia began to show a significant economic growth in the 2000s.
Given this history, more than anything, the people in Cambodia want to maintain a peacefulsociety that they have taken such great pains to bring about. In order not to repeat the tragedies ofviolence and atrocities in the past, it is important to address peace and human rights through education. This paper will now outline how Cambodia is implementing peace education and humanrights education, which constitute the main fields of ESD.
While peace education exists in Cambodia, in reality, there has been a limited number of classes on peace education in schools until recently. For example, it was not until recently that history
classes began to adequately address the issue of what the Pol Pot regime did in the 1970s. Behind
this was the thinking that children would be able to envisage a bright future for Cambodia if they
were not taught the negative aspects of history, as well as the viewpoint that it was unnecessary toteach children things that would only fuel conflict between people as many people who supported
the Khmer Rouge are still alive and living in society. However, in 2003, the Cambodian government and the United Nations agreed to the establishment of a special tribunal to administer justicefor the genocide of the Pol Pot regime. Investigations began in 2006 and the trials are still being
conducted at the present time. Because of these developments, Cambodia has begun toacknowledge the importance of teaching children the accurate facts of this negative part of history
and has begun to publish revised history textbooks and supplementary teaching material The History of Democratic Cambodia. Initiatives toward peace education in schools are gradually starting toincrease.
Public organizations and associations as well as NGOs have also been actively involved in
implementing peace education in Cambodia, at times with overseas support. One example of this is
the implementation of peace education through the Tuol Sleng Museum, a concentration camp during  the  Pol  Pot  regime.  The  Japan  International  Cooperation  Agency  (JICA)  established  the  “Okinawa-Cambodia Peace Museum  Collaboration”  Grassroots  Technical  Cooperation  Project  to  support this. In this project, the Okinawa Prefectural Peace Memorial Museum, the implementing orⒸISERD

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ganization,  taught  the  curators  and  staff  of  Tuol  Sleng  Museum  about  the  “peace  museum”  concept
and the know-how necessary to operate it, such as data collection and preservation methods, andpeace education activities. The two museums continue to have dialog to further enhance their respective peace education activities.4
Furthermore, the aforementioned NIE teacher training program provides training on World
Heritage Education as part of its ESD training. This training also encourages the consideration ofpeace issues through world heritage.
Cambodia is also undertaking human rights education in the form of government-led programs
as well as educational activities outside the school classroom. In particular, various projects havebeen developed by schools, public organizations, and NGOs since 2005 to promote human rights
education  based  on  the  “United  Nations  World  Programme  for  Human  Rights  Education”  adopted  by the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2004.5
These projects include human rights workshops and the publication of a Khmer language version  of  the  “Human  Rights  Education  Lesson  Plans  for  Southeast  Asian  Schools,”  which  teaches  about human rights issues and situations with a particular focus on human rights in the Southeast
Asian region. The Cambodia Office of the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and the Cambodian Buddhist Society, a human   rights   NGO,   also   created   the   “Human   Rights   and   Buddhism  Training  Curriculum  for  Buddhist  Monks  and  Civil  Servants”  and  are  engaging  in  other  initiatives  using  Cambodia’s  traditional  cultural  resource  of  Buddhism  to  promote  human  rights  education.6
CONCLUSION
This paper has outlined Cambodian initiatives to promote ESD, based on its relation to EFA. As
mentioned at the beginning of this paper, a consideration of Cambodian education cannot separate
EFA and ESD, but should constantly be aware of the mutually complementary relationship between them. Furthermore, the positioning of EFA and ESD as essential lifelong learning is important to achieve a sustainable society.
In particular, although EFA focuses on the diverse states of education in and out of school, itschief concern lies in enhancing the quantity and quality of school education. Moreover, fundamentally, it is public organizations, such as governments under international agreements, who take onmost of the responsibility of promoting EFA, expanding basic education together with various other stakeholders. In contrast to this so-called top-down feature of EFA, ESD is a more bottom-up
operation, based on autonomic educational activities by proactive citizens; the areas it covers include a wide range of issues, such as daily life, social forms, and the natural environment.
Accordingly, this paper has provided an introduction on ESD in Cambodian education while
being always conscious of its relation to EFA (for instance, its placement within school education).
It is extremely important to bring ESD into schools from the perspective that it is vital to improve
the quality of education not only to raise the level of achievement in academic subjects but also topass on important knowledge and skills necessary for acquiring and advancing life skills. Furthermore, school education and non-formal education can be organically connected by being based on
the concept of ESD. As outlined in this paper, various initiatives for this have been set in place,with active measures being taken. However, we cannot deny that many initiatives are still insufficient, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
To improve this situation, as previously mentioned, ESD initiatives should fundamentally bepromoted by citizens. At the same time, this cannot be done without active participation by publicorganizations such as the government. The United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development will end in 2014, but long term initiatives to promote ESD should continue.
I sincerely hope that the aforementioned active ESD initiatives will continue to grow and further enhance the future of education in Cambodia and that this, in turn, will contribute to the expansion  of  EFA.  From  my  heart,  I  hope  that  raising  “citizens”  who  can  give much thought to democracy and public morals will create a sustainable Cambodian society.

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NOTES
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

See Wade & Parker (2008) for general discussion on the relationship between ESD and EFA.
Afterwards, there was repeated reorganization within UNESCO and the position of ESD as aiming to improve thequality of education became ambiguous.
See the Ministry of Tourism website for the Master Plan for Sustainable Tourism Development in Peri-Tonle Sap
Lake and Establishment of a Learning Laboratory for Sustainability (http://www.mot.gov.kh/ministryactivity.php?id=15 [accessed 2-25-2012]).
For further details on these projects, see the JICA website (http://www.jica.go.jp/topics/2009/20091026_01.html[accessed 2-25-2012]).
For details on the United Nations World Programme for Human Rights Education, see the website of the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
(http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/training/programme.htm [accessed 2-25-2012]).
See Kimura (2000; 2007; 2008) for the present status of human rights education in Cambodia.

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