Arts Education in Cambodia– High Expectation to Incorporate into Every School

PHNOM PENH – “Arts education is about creativity and inspiration; it’s not just about skill and knowledge,” said Suon Bun Rith, a programme manager at Cambodian Living Arts.

In an effort to bring the arts to all the public schools in Cambodia, Rith is currently leading a large new pilot program.

The five-year pilot program has gained support from the Ministry of Education Youth and Sport, and also the Ministry of Culture and Fine arts.

The program now runs four after-school art clubs in photography, drawing, dancing and singing out of its offices on Preah Sisowath High School’s campus, drawing roughly 80 students a week, according to local reports.

Despite the challenges such as lacking of interest and being widespread perception that kind of careers in the arts earn little bit money, Rith remains optimistic about his dream to fully incorporate arts education into public school.

This goal has already shared by the Ministry of Education in which they proposed a new national curriculum in 2015 to include arts education one hour per week as a separate subject.

Rith has estimated that the shortage of arts teacher may still remain a challenge for another decade.

He doesn’t want to wait another five year and hopes CLA’s pilot program can jumpstart that process ahead of the ministry’s schedule.

Arts education in Cambodia – high expectation to incorporate into every school