THE Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport plans to spend 9.7 billion riels (US$2.33 million) on the end-of-year high school examinations, a nearly 20 percent increase from last year, according to Ly Sathik, the director of the ministry's finance department.

"We have to spend more than before because we have more students, inspectors and security guards for transporting test documents to the examination room, and we have to enforce the rules during the exam," Ly Sathik said.

There are 156,419 official invigilators for this year's exam, which takes two days and is scheduled for July 6 and 7. Last year, Ly Sathik said, there were only 8,419 invigilators.

"We have to enforce discipline during exam time in every examination room, and we have to punish students and inspectors if they violate the exam rules," he said.

But Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA), said Wednesday that he remains sceptical that the increase in funding would result in better enforcement.

"I don't think that if they spend more money on discipline during examinations it will be better than before ... because they just say that but have never done it," he said. "I think the examination room will still see bribes because I have never seen any inspectors or teachers punished."