Schools closed: Phare tries to keep the students, teachers, parents engaged

This June 2021, the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport announced that all schools will remain closed and children will continue learning through online classes due to the pandemic.

For rural and less privileged communities in Battambang, it still means a lot of active participation from teachers and parents to compensate for the lack of access to internet and digital devices, and the long term gap it is digging to reach back the standard education level all children are entitled to get in Cambodia.

Teacher Capacity Building: Integrating Music in the Classroom

In the last trimester, our kindergarten teachers have been learning music pedagogy and songs in Phare Ponleu Selpak campus. They have spent 2 hours a day training with the music school teachers, singing and playing instruments under the school tree.

Online Teaching

Our arts schools teachers have been using google classroom to provide lessons and assignments, as well as English exercises, while the kindergarten teachers have been more active on chats like messenger and telegram where they regularly ask the parents to send back videos of the assignments being completed. The students can also still learn through the Ministry of Education’s online platform accessible on smartphones.

Art & Education Worksheets Implementations

We learnt from the last home confinements that online teaching alone is not enough to keep all our children and parents engaged and progressing in the school program, especially in the most rural and impoverished communities. We are not sure when the schools will reopen, and our teachers are regularly visiting the students’ families to discuss their situation with COVID-19 and explain how to teach their children as long as it is needed.

They spent a lot of time designing worksheets for the Kindergarten students, to make it easier and equal to all households. To implement this new collaborative learning methodology, they conducted parents meetings in small groups, 22 in total, guiding them on how to actively monitor their children’s progress and achievements.

Every Monday, the worksheets are available on campus, where the parents come to get them and receive the latest guidelines. The completed worksheets are returned every Friday. Art sessions have also been adapted on worksheets, on which the children can learn about colors and shapes, drawing and coloring.