(23 March 2016) Cambodia marked its first National Reading Day on March 11 – a public event that calls on Cambodians to embrace a love of reading. The event was one of the many recent steps taken by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MoEYS) to improve the quality of education in Cambodia.
A national reading test conducted with primary school students in 2010 revealed that 54 percent of students who have finished first grade could not read at an “acceptable level.” A National Early Grade Reading Assessment carried out in 2012 showed that one-third of second-grade students could still not read a single word. Part of the problem is the low levels of reading in the home. According to a recent small sample interview conducted by The Asia Foundation, only half of households of the primary students surveyed owned a children’s book and less than a third had more than two children’s books at home.
Read the full story by Siv Hong Lim here.
