Cambodia's literacy rate among youngsters reaches 84.7%

People's Daily Online
http://english.people.com.cn/

August 06, 2009

Cambodia's literacy rate among people aged 15-24 has reached 84.7 percent after years of efforts by the government, khmer newspaper reported on Thursday.

"If we consider 15 years old upwards, it has 73.6 percent of literate people. However, among this figure, there are still 26.4 percent of illiterate population, " the Kampuchea Thmei quoted Phon Hon Sin, director of informal education system of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, as saying.

And among the illiterate people, 60 percent of them are women. "Each year we helped 55,000 people to eliminate illiteracy," he said.

"The most of illiterate women have abandoned their education since the beginning of primary. Their dropout rate from primary and secondary schools is about 10 percent across the country and at the higher education, the women enrollment rate is so low and it has about 30 percent only," he said, adding that poverty is mainly the reason why they abandon education.

"Education sectors of the government opened 1,000 literacy classes and another 1,000 literacy classes were set up by organizations with supports from partners," he said.

Source: Xinhua