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Gender access to education in Cambodia is &hellip;

=== Myths and Cultural Beliefs ===


 * In Cambodian tradition, girls are believed to become stubborn if they were to become literate. In order to prevent any shame to the family, they make girls stay at home because educated women have the ability to write love letters to men.
 * Cambodian culture is traditional when it comes to gender roles. Gender comes intact with social status. Males are considered for work while females are expected to stay at home and take care of the family, farming fields, or household.
 * It is expected that girls would be married off when they become older. Their husbands are the ones who are presumed to financially take care of them so they do not have the pressure to hold a job. Therefore, it holds this belief that Cambodian parents find that there is no benefit to educating their daughters.
 * Traditional belief that men are the breadwinners and women are the housewives that work within household duties. Women and girls' that are involved in labor are equivalent to generating income.

Barriers

 * Cambodia's development in education was prospering but was interrupted by the start of the Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.


 * Unavailability of sanitary facilities: Female students' restrooms in schools in the rural parts of Cambodia are not available. If they request to use a restroom, they have to go our of their ways to use to go to a forest.
 * Social status: Gender is is attached to social hierarchy.
 * Cambodian society is organized by power and conditions of status that affect social order. Women are already at lower status for being a woman in biological means.
 * Lack of gender equality in Cambodian culture
 * Cambodian households that need their daughters for work and preventing them from danger.
 * Direct costs and opportunity costs are a part of the decision of Cambodian parents' consider when enrolling their children into schools.

Educational Management

 * Female educator rates continue to decline as each education level raises up. It is at 38% by the overall total of positions.
 * Most female teachers are located in the urban areas of Cambodia. Teaching in rural areas are not ideal in Cambodian culture. The lack of female educators creates a less empowering position to female students who want to pursue education.
 * Cambodia's education positions (whether educators or students) are dominantly taken over by males. The job market for jobs are based on affirmative action policy in order to give more bias to female applicants who apply to work in the education fields. Gender gaps increase as the average education level goes up as well.
 * Cultural views and and barriers on women measures the current gap between location setting preferences and career stance.

Gender Gaps
In 2015, Cambodia ranked 91 out of 109 out of all countries in terms of gender empowerment. Cambodian girls have a significantly bigger school drop-out rate at all education levels. The average Cambodian girl does not have the opportunity to to complete a high-school level education. Thus, this prevents the possibilities of women having access to higher education in Cambodia. The education in Cambodia caters to teachers rather than students and their needs.


 * 1) "Gender Blind" content. This refers to the absence of acknowledging any information on gender equality on subjects such as STEM and home economics.  The ideas of gender equality in textbooks and teacher handbooks are only up to primary to secondary level.
 * 2) MoEYS Curriculum Development Plan discovered that gender equity issues were not approved to be in the primary and upper secondary levels of core curriculum.
 * 3) Teaching methods are based off of memorization rather that the overall understanding of the material. There are a lack of catering and identifying  female and male students' various learning styles.  This can be improved by classroom administration and gender analysis.
 * 4) Acknowledgement of time allocations for responsibilities that are gender-related.  Girls are more inclined to have more household chores and family obligations; this makes them more likely to fall behind on schoolwork.
 * 5) Sexual abuse, harassment, and gender related violence are not recognized within the education and workplace system. Cambodia must put attention on these issues in order for the system to change.

Programs and Projects

 * MoEYS Five-Year Education Sector Support Program: Active 2001-2005. Seeks the issue of gender to reform Cambodia's education agenda. Through ESSP and EFA, more girls have been able to obtain a primary education. More women are hired in the education field to plan and monitor. The progress of boosting the changes in both the students and teachers are linked to ESSP and EFA's efforts for Cambodia's education reform.
 * UNICEF Cambodia's Learning Opportunities for School and Child-Readiness Project: a project that provides aid to improve physical learning conditions in each classroom.
 * Kampuchea Action for Primary Education (KAPE): a project that paired up with Developing Child-Friendly and Child Sensitive Schools. The objective that of this project is to make schools as productive as possible. It would cater to the learning preferences and attentiveness to girls and boys in schools.

Statistics (2008-2012)
==== Literacy Rates between the ages of 15-24: ==== Male at 88.4%

Female at 85.9%

Secondary School Net Enrollment ratio
Male 39.4%

Female 35.8%

Primary School Net Participation Survival Rates in 2008-2012
Overall 61.3% - 92.2%

Economy
Women take up 53% of the labor market. They enter this field with less education and other qualifications compared to men. 15% of men in the labor force are considered to be paid employees, unlike their female counterparts at 6%.