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06/08/2014

“With similar geographical locations as Cambodia, we have learned different practices in Thailand, and most of them are good and practical.”
Ms So Sam Borey, Science teacher trainer, Kampot Province

The discovery was a study visit to Bangkok, Thailand from 30 June to 03 July, 2014. The participants included 2 science teacher trainers, 2 technical staff from the Ministry of Education and 2 local VVOB staff. The visit aims at gaining ideas for material development and learning from success stories in science education in Thailand.

Not many taxi drivers and people speak Khmer or English, but with creative gestures and a map, we can luckily manage to arrive at our destinations on time. We explored some good practices from UNESCO Bangkok, as well as the Faculty of Education and a demonstration school of Chulalongkorn University. We also visited the Science Society of Thailand, the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST), and the Science Center for Education.

Presentations on the teacher education system in Thailand by UNESCO and the Chulalongkorn University show that student teachers require to complete a five-year training programme including one full year of teaching practice. This allowed us to understand the importance and need for the reform of the current two-year to the planned four-year teacher training programme in Cambodia.

“I believe that the five-year teacher training programme provides strong pedagogical content knowledge and skills for student teachers in their future teaching career. In addition, the teaching practicum is one full year. This is good for student teachers to be ready for their real teaching after they graduate,” said Mrs Pen Theary, vice office chief of Primary Education Department.

The class observations at the demonstration school of the Chulalongkorn University provided best practices which can be adapted for Cambodian classes. The variety of class activities, teaching materials and methodologies were inspiring and will be shared with colleagues.

Mr Chuong Chantha, science teacher trainer from Phnom Penh PTTC expressed that “I am not sure if I can teach as well as they do. Both classes taught by student teachers and model teacher were interactive. I like it when they integrated ICT in the classroom and students have workbooks for practice.”

The experience of the training programmes shared by Science Society of Thailand and IPST was beneficial for the preparation of VVOB’s nationwide training. Successful teacher training and assessments should focus more on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) rather than the content knowledge (CK) itself. The teaching aids should be student and teacher friendly, inexpensive and easy to find, and match local culture and context. From the Science Centre for Education we picked up ideas like organising a science camp that could be tried out in Cambodia. 

Mr Yos Sovann, officer of the teacher training department expressed his concerns that “we can make easy teaching aids with inexpensive raw materials. However, we cannot guarantee that all science teachers are competent to produce them”.

At the end of the visit, the participants provided feedback and assessed the visit before going back to Cambodia.Now it’s time to select, adapt and apply the observed best practices into science education in Cambodia. We plan a follow-up session where the participants can share what they have learnt from the visit with their colleagues. 

Download the full report below!