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OPINION: Raising Cambodia’s Voice on the Global Stage Starts with English Education
- communicationinter3
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Future Forum's junior research fellow, Sochetra Yean was published in The Cambodianess on October 29th, 2025. Check out the original article HERE, and read it below!
Cambodian learners have been empowered by English as a means to enrich their life, positions, salary, and social status. However, the English proficiency in Cambodia ranks 111th out of 116 countries that joined the EF English Proficiency Index survey in 2024, placing Cambodia at the bottom among Asian countries.
In the Grade-12 national examination, English provides only 50 marks among seven evaluated subjects, and it is not the main subject. The students need to obtain over 25 marks for them to be added to their calculated overall marks. If the students obtain 30 marks, only 5 marks are added to their overall marks in their national exam. If the students obtain 25 or below 25 marks, these marks are not added to their calculated overall marks in the exam.
English has been globally and widely used in many fields including in education, yet most secondary school students in Cambodia study English as an academic subject between only two and four hours per week. Plus, studying other subjects such as Science and Maths subjects in English has not yet been implemented in public secondary schools.
Challenges of English Teaching and Learning
Many students do not get good grades in an English subject in the Grade-12 national examination. 89,05 percent of students who passed the national exams in 2022 failed English (MoEYS, 2022), as did 86 percent in 2023 (MoEYS, 2023). Some students cannot understand English lessons and resources well when coming to study at university, and experience difficulties in using English to communicate with English speakers. Many subjects at universities involve English in teaching and resources such as course books and textbooks, so students with limited English knowledge have to face many language barriers.
Other challenges are quality of teaching, insufficient study programs, lack of learning and teaching materials, non-interactive classroom activities, big class size, and students’ self-learning attitudes that they do not prioritize English. Some students are not aware of the benefits of learning English.
Another problem concerns the traditional common method of Grammar-Translation Method (GTM), a teacher-centered approach, where teachers mostly talk and translate English into Khmer native language, and students just passively listen and take notes. Students experience factors that affect their speaking fluency such as a dominant use of L1 (Khmer language) in classrooms, students’ anxiety to speak English, and less exposure to English practices.
Students have less motivation and interest in studying English due to the lack of fun and various classroom activities. This makes the students take English classes less seriously, and do not see the actual benefits of English for their future.
Suggested Policy Solutions
There are some solutions to respond to English learning and teaching.
The first solution can be making English a main subject just like other subjects with a score increasing in the national high school examination of grade-12 students.
The existing 50 marks maximum score of English with only 25 marks added to the exam should be increased to at least 100 marks in the national exam. This will motivate students to study English more and take it more seriously. Moreover, the teachers and school authorities will pay more attention to this subject.
Creating an extra English class within schools with an affordable class fee for students to learn can help them practise English more beyond their regular curriculum. This can help students to improve their English, especially at schools where private English schools are not available. In a case study of providing extra classes at Smart Secondary School in Johore, Malaysia, the students are more motivated to study more when they have no motivation to study by themselves, and thereby make increased and improved class contributions. The school can financially and technically support those teachers and students who participate in this extra class.
Providing an English school voucher for disadvantaged students to use the money to take other charged English classes beside their normal English class at schools can make learning English more inclusive. This gives those disadvantaged students more choices in terms of where to study. The school principals can carefully select students to provide school vouchers based on their low financial and economic status.
Selecting more qualified English teachers to fulfill the needs of schools should be a priority, too. The Ministry of Education should increase the selections of new English teachers to meet shortages by closely assessing the numbers of existing English teachers and placing new teachers to meet school demands. Those newly selected teachers need to be well-trained and equipped with modern language teaching to make sure that they are fully ready and competent to teach students.
Creating a Professional Learning Community (PLC) at schools could enable teachers to regularly come together to share ideas, problems, challenges, and best practices with each other for the purpose of exchanging ideas and experience to use in their own classes. For example, the New Generation School (NGS) in Cambodia provides a PLC for teachers to regularly meet up together to exchange and share ideas to improve their professional development.
Providing incentives for English teachers to upgrade their language skills can be an encouraging factor for teachers to improve their professional development. Financial support can be given to teachers to take courses, classes, or workshops to enrich their English teaching capacities. With this financial support, the teachers can be more motivated to seek new skills and knowledge.
Creating comfortable classroom environments can make English teaching easier and more enjoyable. Students’ seating arrangements should be movable and flexible so that students and teachers can engage in more activities rather than being restricted by one seating format. The necessary teaching materials such as an LCD projector, speaker, paper posters, and other materials should be provided to the teachers in the classroom to use in their teaching with a view to more interesting learning activities.
Creating extracurricular activities related to English can make language learning more enjoyable and fun such as public speaking and debate competitions, or workshops. Engaging in these activities can help students practise what they learn and can also improve their collaborative and other soft skills.
Updating English textbooks and curricula is another solution to ensure that learning English can be more relevant and geared to the current job market and demands for skills. For instance, the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) should be more integrated in the English curriculum to allow students to use English to interact and communicate with others. The Ministry of Education should have English expertise groups to work on adjusting the lessons and contents in the English textbooks and curricula.
The proposed solutions can help address the barriers to English education faced by Cambodian students and professionals, enabling them to better engage with global trends and job markets. If these challenges remain unresolved, Cambodian children and youth will continue to miss out on countless opportunities due to limited English proficiency.
Strengthening English education is essential for advancing Cambodia’s voice and presence on the international stage. Achieving this goal requires the collective commitment of students, teachers, school leaders, communities, and government ministries to enhance the quality of English teaching and learning nationwide.
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