A banner advertises the clean and healthy schools campaign for the 2021 school year. Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport will organise a “Cleanest School” contest with a winner chosen for every month this year.
The contests will be open to public educational institutions across the country ranging from pre-school to grade 12.
The ministry announced that the purpose for the contest is to encourage all educational institutions to pay attention to maintaining the very best standards of hygiene and cleanliness.
The announcement did not specify a clear starting date or schedule for the contests.
“If school campuses are well-maintained, they offer a more favourable environment for students to learn in. Better facilities are a part of improving education quality in Cambodia.
“The ministry therefore calls upon public educational institutions nationwide to prepare to compete in the above-mentioned [monthly] contests,” the ministry said.
Education ministry spokesman Ros Soveacha told The Post that because the clean school contest was only recently announced, he had to consult with others first, but he would inform the public of the full details and conditions of the contest soon.
“I do know that the winner will be announced every month based on which school has the most beautiful environments and maintains the highest standards, and they will receive letters certifying their having won from the ministry,” he said.
Ngov Chhun Hak, principal of Chak Angre High School in Phnom Penh, told The Post on January 11 that over the years, his school had made efforts to improve the facility by having good sanitation practices and by looking for small ways to add beauty to the campus.
He said that even though his school had not won a prize for the past several years, students and teachers had actively participated in making the school environment better.
“We are always prepared to enter any clean school contest. We expect that we will win the contest at least one of the months, but even if we don’t win it at all – we’ve still cleaned up the school so that our students will find more contentment in their studies. And we will always strive to keep improving,” he said.
Over the years, the ministry has organised several contests for clean or hygienic schools, including trophies for teachers and students for their contributions. The ministry says these contests help improve the overall quality of education in Cambodia.
However, Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association president Ouk Chhayavy said that while having such contests seemed like a good idea, the ministry should do more to ease the burden for teachers and participants alike.
She explained that in order to achieve the results the ministry desires, many teachers have to put in extra work and spend their own money and time outside of work to get it all done. And if the cleaning and renovation takes place during the school day, it cuts into the time spent on classroom instruction and study time.
“I’ve seen this with my own eyes. For the contest for model schools, we didn’t see any of the benefits go to the teachers who did the work, but rather they go to administrators or officials. For example, a school that wins first place gets a cash prize, but then the money goes to the school principal, not to the people who strived to do the work,” she said.
Chhayavy suggested that when the contest begins, the ministry should release extra funding to schools so that they can use that money towards cleaning and improving their campuses.
She said school officials should lead wisely and must not force teachers to waste study time or spend their own money on winning contests, because teachers in Cambodia have a difficult enough job already.
