Q UALIFIED Khmers working for NGOs and aid donors in education are to have their
incomes cut - in some cases by 200 percent - by order of the Ministry of
Education.
NGOs - who have "topped up" the civil servant salaries of
Khmer foreign language teachers - are said to be happy with the decision because
it ensures uniformity of pay scales.
It is argued that competition will
stop richer NGOs and donors from "buying off" the best people.
Many
Khmers, however, are far from happy - though at between $80 and $130 a month,
they will still be paid much more than most.
One group of Khmer lecturers
in English at Phnom Penh university staged a one-day strike in protest at the
decision.
The ministry made the order, effective April 1, because it
could not afford to pay the inflated salaries.
The ministry will take
over many foreign-run education projects due soon to come to the end of their
term, and with them, the salary costs.
Sources told the Post that other
ministries with Khmers whose salaries are supplemented by foreign agencies "are
looking with interest" at the Education Ministry's moves.
The ministries
of health and agriculture, for example, have large numbers of foreign-run
projects, and staff whose salaries are "topped up" by foreign agencies. "They
too are interested in the guidelines just laid down by the Ministry of
Education," said one NGO source.
Problems, however, are feared. NGO
sources argue that the quality of education projects will be affected, and that
projects could become unsustainable. They say well-educated Khmers will find
higher-paying employment away from the education field, or be forced to take
secondary jobs, or resort to corruption.
"It is a difficult problem, a
vexed question," said one NGO worker. "It is only going to be solved when civil
servants get paid a decent salary. Generally though the reaction to the
ministry's initiative has been favorable."
The hardest hit is AusAid's
showpiece English degree (B.Ed) course at Phnom Penh University.
Senior
academics spoken to by the Post fear that B.Ed lecturers - who are paid $400 a
month - will pack up to find more lucrative employment.
Course director
Geoff Coyne said to prevent "student unrest and a drop in (lecturers') moral"
AusAid will continue supplementing salaries till the end of the academic year,
in June.
The Australian involvement in the course has been extended for
one year, till June 1996; mainly to find a solution to the problem and so the $3
million Australian taxpayers have spent on the course is not wasted.
From
1997 to the year 2000, the government's policy is to increase the education
portion of the national budget from eight percent to 15 percent, by which time
they could afford a bigger wage for teachers and lecturers.
"I know the
lecturers are very unhappy," said one senior academic. "Although they are young,
many support extended families."
Coyne said he believed the lecturers'
"obligations as well as expectations" had been built up, though they had always
been told their salaries were "under negotiation."
"There are 240
students who have yet to graduate," the source said, "what might happen to them,
we have an obligation" - indicating that the collapse of the course is the
worst-case scenario that could happen quickly.
A letter to the Post from
a fourth-year student said the axing of the salary supplement had caused
"emotional and ideological turmoil" among students and
lecturers.
Lecturers had lost motivation and students felt the course -
acknowledged as the best in Cambodia - is in decline, it
said.
International auditors have criticized UN agencies in the past for
paying salary supplements to people "for doing just what they should be anyway"
Coyne said, and that the money could be better spent elsewhere.
Rather
than lecturers engaging in corruption or "moonlighting", the alternative was to
charge student fees - a world-wide trend, but one in which Cambodian students
had demonstrated a capability and willingness to pay, Coyne said.
"It is
a revolution of thought and a break from the past for (Cambodian) students to
pay fees."
It is understood that on May 2, Coyne announced to students a
"plan" to charge them $190 a year to cover maintenance costs, for instance
electricity and equipment replacement. The students, the Post understands, are
anything but happy.
The university's English department could sell its
services privately to make money, something the Australians will help organize
during the year extension.
Coyne said: "We can't defend lecturers'
supplements to $400 a month to the ministry, its just regarded as too
extreme."
Coyne - who said the lecturers were "confused" rather than
angry - said they had been told: "It doesn't matter how much money is in your
pocket at the end of the month, think of the splendid opportunity for nation
building and career oportunities."
"In a country that has been so
devestated, where literacy is so low, and basic education so poor, how can you
justify spending so much money on a small group who are relatively so well off?"
he said.
