Although the poverty line in the rural areas of Cambodia is set at US$0.25 per person per daily consumption, 53.7% of the population in Siem Reap is still living below the poverty line.Due to poverty, children in Cambodia are forced to give up the chance of receiving education to work and supplement the family’s income. The opportunity cost of sending their children to school are very high in some families, making it almost impossible for the children in the families to receive education.

 

  Based on the data from International Labour Organization, close to 20% of children ages 5–9 are employed as child labor. The figures then rise to 47% for children between age 10-14 and 34% for ages 15–17. Among the number of working children of ages 5 to 17, only 45% have the chance to attend school. Non-economic productive activities such as housework tend to start earlier than economic activities, although less intensively, causing children in Cambodia to be performing ‘double-duty’ whereby they are involved in both housework and economic activity each week, leaving them little or no time to go to school.

  Teachers in Cambodia are earning merely US$20 to US$50 a month and thus they resort to collecting informal school fees of $0.02 to $0.05 per day from students to supplement their salaries. This further deters children from attending schools as they cannot afford to pay for the informal school fees. Though there are efforts by the Cambodia government to promise free provision of education, the collection of informal school fees is still a huge deterrence for children to attend school. Also, due to the shortage of teachers in Cambodia, teachers employed often lack proper training and also a high student-teacher ratio in the classes. This has led to poor quality of education in Cambodia and high grade-repeat rates among students.The low 40% enrollment rate at secondary level and 5% at tertiary level has caused the majority of Cambodian population not being able to converse in English, which is the common language used in the commercial industries. In addition, English is essential in Siem Reap where the tourism industry provides an increasing source of income and employment to the locals.