Berkley Center

Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, undergraduate Annie Dale interviewed Rajat Hanna Purti, a teacher at the Catholic Church Student Center, in summer 2013. Rajat discussed her work at the center, education issues in Cambodia, and the influence of the Catholic Church on the center.

Can you tell me what your position here is and what this center does?  

I am a teacher at a training school where we train teachers. I also work here as a director for the center. The center is a place for students from throughout Cambodia—from almost all over the country, all provinces. This year we are supporting 65 students. This center here only has 25 boys and 24 girls, but the other center has eighteen also. The eighteen are all girls because we help girls more than boys. In our system, it is easier for the woman to stay at home and not go to school, so we think that we need to take care of the women more than the men. The woman has to protect their family, so they need more income. So we help the girls study various subjects at university. Some students study mathematics, some study physics, some study engineering, some study agriculture. There are many subjects.  

How long do the students stay here?  

Here the students study only for 4 years. We will support them here for four years.    

So the students come here and live so they can go to school. And do you pay for their schooling?  

Yes, we play for the school, the food, water, for everything that they spend. We pay for it all. We don’t have that much money for health, but we do support fifty people. We buy them books to keep in the library, too.    

How do you select the children to come here and stay and go to school?  

We have rules for selection. To receive the interview and to take the exam, they have to be age 17 to 23. Second, they have to be Christian or from a poor family. If they are Buddhist, they can still come, but they have to be poor. Also, if they are Buddhist, we only accept the women. They have to be accepted into our community. They also have to really want to study. We have many students that want to come here and receive the benefits, but they don't want to study. Our kids need to want to study. So these are the rules under which we accept them. They also have to be selected by their community. The community selects the child and sends them to the center. We want to make sure the students are prepared to go to university.    

So how many children apply?  

We get over 100 children who take the test, but we don't have enough space. This year, we received only twelve students.    

Would these students be able to go to university if they did not have your help?  

Well, we have interviews so that we only choose the good students to study here. The big problem for them is language. They study in the Khmer language, but all of the documents are in a foreign language. That is their problem. If they study medicine or engineering, most of the documents are in French or English, so they have to try very hard to learn French or English. For them, it’s really difficult. Here, they try very hard, even if they don’t know the language very well.    

So since they are very poor families, would they otherwise be able to afford to go to school?  

A lot of them would stop. The closest university is very far, and they would have to walk. This student would have to ride her bicycle nearly one hour.    

So you obviously are working with very qualified students that are the best-of-the-best from their class, yet there are a lot of students that never even make it to secondary school. What is the difference between your students and the ones that don't make it? 

Yes, the problem is that they have to spend a lot of money to study, especially for the extra classes, so some families stop because they are not able to support them. There is also a problem with the student, especially in high school. From my experience, I see that they don't study hard. They have a friend, go gamble, and have many problems. The hardest part is that they don’t have enough materials. Even here, the materials we supply for the students are not enough. The math book or the study book is not enough. They still need more. See, some schools have libraries, but there are not many books. Some teachers also are not very good at computers or at a subject. Some don't know English, so how can they work? Especially in the provinces, it’s very, very difficult. There is no Internet and no computer. The teachers do not make enough money, either. High school teachers only make around $120 a month. That is very difficult. They need to support their families and themselves. That is not enough, so teachers have to get extra money by making the students pay for extra classes.

That is why I said that the students couldn’t afford to pay for the extra classes. The students especially have to pay for their tests during finals, so that is why they stop studying. They then go to work in the factory or they go abroad for work. They go to Thailand or Korea or Malaysia. Especially those from the provinces go to Korea. Once they finish primary or secondary school, they stop. They go to work for their families because their families cannot support them. They have to help the family. You can see in the factories, especially here in Phnom Penh, where most of the workers don't have an education. Most of them only finished primary school. They can read only a little, so it is a big problem. If they study more, they can make a little more.    

Yes, but many of them don't get the chance to study.  

Yes, so many. You know about the problems.    

You said you also train teachers. Is that here or in the provinces?

I train in another province—not here in Phnom Penh, but not far. It takes just thirty minutes to arrive on motorbike. Every morning I train, and in the afternoon I work here. You see, even in my place, many of the teachers can’t use the computer. This is the problem for teachers. They don't know how to search—they just know what is in the book. We don't have many books, so their knowledge is limited. So we train the teacher, and then the teacher has to go teach. Hopefully they can give the student a little. I am teaching them to help them more.      

And are these government teachers that you are training?  

Yes.    

Do you work for the government?  

Yes, yes. The government hires me. The teacher training is only with the government. Private school teachers don't allow this training.    

What other kind of training takes place?  

There are some teachers that work on the Thai border. They train some teachers to use cafés as schools. In the early morning, they have a shop. They sell Khmer noodles and coffee or something for breakfast. Then around eight, they clean everything and start the school. They have to do this because there is no other school. There are many people that work there. There are very, very big problems. The family, the mother and father, never studied, so when the students study, they don't understand how. Some families don't know how important it is to study. If they need their children to work, they come to the school and ask their children to go work instead of studying.    

I’ve seen this trend—that many parents do not support their children because they do not have an education and don't know the value of school. Do you see this?  

Yes, many parents are not supportive. This is especially true in the countryside and for people far away from the city. They don’t know what is important. Some families, though, still support the students. Some want them to study so that they can get a job. But salaries in Cambodia are not enough to stay. The parents feel that going to work is better than studying and having to work later because salaries are not that big. They think that if they work as children, they can earn more than if they go to school to get a job with a salary. They assume that as long as they can read, that is enough.    

Because even if they do finish, they won't make enough money. So in Thailand, do they make more money?  

Some, but not much. They go there without permission just to work. Sometimes the Thai police will catch them, and they get arrested.    

Even the children will get in trouble?  

Yes.    

But many of them don't have a choice and they have to follow their family.  

Yes, that's why I try to have teachers at the border. We give them some money. The teacher gets a very low salary the first year. For the first six months, they get no salary. So how do they live for the first six months? They have no house and need food. Some teachers try to stay there, but some cannot, and they leave.    

So teachers may not want to go to very rural villages?  

No, they don't want that. If the government gave a good house and salary, maybe it would be better.    

So that makes it even harder for the children in the countryside to get an education.  

Yes, they do a lot in the city, but it’s different in the provinces. In the countryside and the rural areas, there is no access to education. The government sometimes gives them more money because the area is bad. They try to have the teachers live in the village because they think it is important. The community may try to help the teachers to keep them from leaving and to make sure their children get an education. They may give them rice or vegetables, some share what they have with the teacher so that the teacher can stay. If not, the teacher cannot stay. It is very far, and the road is very difficult and they have to stay alone. There are many problems, especially for the women.    

So going back to the center here, what is the goal of the center?

The goal is that the youth that stay here do well and study for the future of Cambodia. That is why we host them, so that they can be good students and good people for their country. We have some programs to help them develop themselves. Each student here has one or two social activities that they have to do. For example, they join the church to go help poor people. They share the money and try to earn some money by collecting something that they can sell or share, such as clothing and food. They work together, even though they do not have that much money. Sometimes they go visit sick children in the hospital and also ask for money from other people or from NGOs. They work a lot. This is why we have them here: to live like good Christians and good people. They are not here just so we can support everything. They are here to learn about people outside and see how they are living and how to take care of these people. They learn how to stay with those people.    

So it isn’t only academic, it’s also about making good people. How does the Church influence that?  

We have some activities, like we have special prayers every day and Mass every Sunday. After Mass, the students have their activities. They will go help kids or teach and play with the children. We are supported by the Catholic Church, so many activities follow Catholic guidance, but we still welcome all. For the Buddhists, we have Mass every Wednesday and invite all of the students to come. They go to all of the activities, no matter what religion they are.    

It has been very interesting seeing how much of an influence the Catholic Church has here. There are not many Catholics here, but they do so much.  

That is because the government doesn't support us enough. We have the Church to help us live better and help each other.    

So what is your dream for your children? What do you want for them in their future?  

I just want to see that they have a good life. I want them to live their own dreams. Now, all of the alumni from the center try to meet with one another every month. Last December, we had a very special program, so we invited all the alumni to join the party. They work together and share some money with the students, and the students here make food and sing and dance. They all join together. Many alumni also come to share and play football.    

And you have seen many people move on from here and get great jobs and become very successful?  

Yeah, most of them have a job. All of them have a job except one.    
How long has the center been here?  

Since 1999 until now, so almost fourteen years.    

How long have you been here?  

Well, I was also a student. I was in the second batch of students. I left and worked in India for one year and then came back and worked with a Jesuit writing storybooks for children. After, I took the scholarship exam from the government to become a teacher. In 2006 I got a job in Battambang. In 2009, I moved to Phnom Penh and worked with another center. In 2011, I came back here.