A Discussion with Tola Kao, Education Team Leader and Dance Teacher, Arrupe Center, Battambang, Cambodia
With: Tola Kao Berkley Center Profile
June 1, 2013
Background: As part of the Education and Social Justice Project, undergraduate Annie Dale interviewed Tola Kao, education team leader and a dance teacher at the Arrupe Center of Battambang, Cambodia, in summer 2013. Tola discussed Cambodia’s pressing social issues, the challenges she faces as a teacher, and her hopes for the program’s future.
What is your job, and
how are you involved with education?
I am the education team leader at Arrupe Carina Center.
What does your job entail?
I visit schools and families every day. Normally we go to two or three a day; that is a normal day for me.
Did your organization build all of these schools that you are visiting, or did they already exist and you are just helping them?
Some of them were already there, but I think only one. The rest we built for them.
So before you built these schools in the villages, what did the children do for education?
Before we built the schools, the kids just studied from one of the villagers. They would have one classroom—not even a classroom. They would learn under a tree or inside the cow’s house. They tried to teach the children. We got to the village and saw this happening. When we asked what they were doing, they replied, “I am teaching. We have this school because it is free. Their parents aren’t here, and they have to learn.” We started to find out more about the school and the students. We start from that.
What are the conditions of the villages you work in?
Most of them are very poor. At least four of the villagers had a problem because most of them were coming from a different province. Most of them do not have real land or a real home, so they know that they can take over this plan and have their own land. So they take everyone and make them live there and start a village. They try to build a school and make it a real community. Now the government accepts the village but not the land. They have to get the land for themselves and give a paper to a government that says, “This is my land.” To do that, they need activities and services to make them a community to prove to the government that you really want to be living there. Without the government’s support, it is very hard to have a school. It is a problem.
How many schools does the Education Team work with?
Now we have fifteen schools.
How many kids does that include?
Eighty to 100 kids in every school. Most of them are from grades one to four. We only have one school that is grade four to grade six.
The schools that you work with are very poor. Are they all in the countryside?
Yes, all in the countryside.
So what do you provide for the children?
We provide the materials: books, uniform, pencil, bags, notebook, and books. We provide materials for the teachers, too, like chalk, blackboard, tables, chairs and whatever else they need for the school.
What are some challenges to accessibility that the poorer students in rural areas face?
The way of thinking of people in rural villages is bad. They do not understand the importance of education, so that is a challenge. But I think that the children are now starting to understand. I think they really like to go to school but don’t know if they should go or stay home like their parents do. Now, I think most of the kids want to go to school and know that education is very important for them. Before, when we asked them, “What do you want to do?” they did not know. Now, they say things like “I want to be a doctor, in agriculture, or study IT.” It is a challenge to get into the social life of the children and their parents.
If the children want to go to school, will the parents usually support them?
It depends on the place. The parents want to support them, but it depends on the needs of the family. It’s hard to convince them. I think they support the children, but you also need to realize that they need somebody to help. Others, they do not support us. They say, “Why do you need to go study if your family doesn’t have even 100 riel to buy anything? You need to work.” Except for when they’re in primary school, the children have to work in the field, so this happens a lot as well. But after they visit the school and we explain it to them, they understand a little bit but not much. Not 100 percent. They listen to us for a little bit, and that is all we want.
How do you get them to understand the importance?
Every year we have all of the parents come. We talk to the parents and give them the example of how when we started, there was no parental support. I use this example to show them how much we have changed since we started until now. Little by little, they see this is also important. Also, people are now going to the border with Thailand to work. Even if you go to the border, you at least need to know how to read. Why? Because people cannot cheat you if you know how to read. If you do not know how to read, they can tell you something and you can follow them and may get lost. I tell them, “If you want to go to Thailand and you are working as a worker in construction, you also need to know how much you earn every day. You need to calculate it.” So I explain all of this and tell them it is very important. They understand and hope that at least their kid can read and write and understand what they do. If they can, nobody can trick them. We try to explain these little things. We never expect everyone to listen to what we are saying, but I think that more than 30 percent listen, and they start to let their kids come to the school.
How many of the children will actually move on from primary school to secondary school?
Now all of the schools we work with have problems with grade five and grade six. Everyone has problems. I have one school that had 15 students in grade six; now we have less than ten because they all have to go to Thailand to work. And we cannot say no. It is far, and we cannot go every day to see how they are with their parents. And we are not working with the family, so we cannot also support the family. When we are trying to help, the child is already gone.
Grade six is the last year that everyone studies. It’s not that the children don’t want to; it’s that they have to have their family, but their families to go Thailand. Grade six has the most dropouts. Maybe only five will continue all the way through sixth grade. There will be a lot of children that stop in the middle of the year. Only two or three stay until high school. That is out of 40 or 50 children that start in grade one. Secondary schools and high schools are also very far. Of all of the districts, there are only one or two high schools, so to get to a school, you have to go from one village to another village and go ten or fifteen kilometers. They won't go. Someone will have to rent a house, but to rent a house is expensive. Some of them may have to live in the pagoda or in a relative’s house, but they need to pay for the food. They cannot afford that, so they cannot go to secondary or high school.
Does the education team work with the Anatha (microfinance) team?
Yes, because we work in the same villages, we work together to talk about the families and to network. If we see that there is a school or child in need, we need to visit the family. We make sure to ask Anatha about the family so we can help the child. They visit families every day. We talk to each other and stay in contact.
How long has the Education Team been around?
It was borne out of the Outreach Team that works with the disabled in the villages. So it was part of Outreach, but in 2010 we formed Education, three years ago. I can see the work growing so quickly. It is good because it is very interesting work and now people can focus a lot more on the education.
Why is education so important to Kike and to Arrupe and to Cambodia?
Well, because when we started helping kids outside, Kike said, “Well, we already took the kids here and educated them, but we are taking them from their family.” We have an exception and take the handicapped children that cannot live at home, but there are also kids in the village that need to learn. They need to see outside. They need opportunity. So Kike decided to help people that really need assistance, and education is very important for them. Education can show them how to learn, and they can learn the importance of education. They have an opportunity to go to school and not always stay home with their family. So that’s why he said, “Go ahead and build schools in the villages.”
How would you like to expand this project? What else would you like this project to accomplish?
Oh, I have a lot. I want to do many things. We need more people who have experience or ability to help. We work in the school, but I don’t think that the school is enough. We also need to work with the family and visit the family. How can you help the family and let the kid come here? Another thing that I would do is focus on helping the family. I could help them by helping them have a small business at home or lending them money so that they could have a microcredit. If they had some business, they could let their kid go to school. Or if they really need help, we could find a job for them. I don’t know, there are many needs. I think that whatever they need their kid to do, you can replace them from that situation and let them go to school. We can’t only build a school if after we build a school, we don’t have any kids. This is what I want to do, but I don’t know if we can do it. It’s a big project because in every school, we have one hundred kids and cannot help all of them, but we can choose families to help little by little. And if I can help just one school, ten or fifteen families every year, little by little I can show them the way to making a living and letting their kids grow and succeed.
You need to understand their life and their needs and understand why they need their children. Sometimes they just want the kids to work but they don’t work. Sometimes there is a parent who stays home and doesn’t go to work but has the kid work. It is true. And sometimes the father just gets drunk every day and doesn’t let the kids go to school. You have to understand the kids. If the kid is not coming to the school, it does not mean that they don’t want to. There is a reason at home. I know this because I visit families sometimes, but I don’t have time to visit all of the families. If I could, I would love to do all of these things and see how we can help and support the families. I can see all of the kids in the village and how they love to have friends and come to school. When they come to school, I think they are happier because all of the time they see us. They are especially excited to see us when we go to visit. I don’t know how they have the energy, but they like seeing different people and different places. You go to them, you talk to them, and it’s not your parents. It is people from the outside. They get very happy to be at school.
In a situation where the parents are lazy or they don’t work and force their child to work, do you address the family about it?
In our project, we are also working with the high school students. It is hard to say, “It is the mother’s fault” or “It is the father’s fault.” You have to get to know them. Once, we were helping a family with their needs. The child’s father is a disabled and the mother stays home, and they do not work. They depend on the child to earn something, so the mother doesn’t care much about education. Every time we go, we ask, “How much do you know about your kid? Did you know that this months she got good marks?” They just don’t know and they don’t care. We have to say, “We are helping your kid.” We try to explain to them the importance of the relationship between the mother and the daughter. For the kid, it is very important for someone to ask, “How was your school? How did you do? Did you get a good mark?” They don’t have this in the village, but they need it. But sometimes if you tell the parents to ask this, they say, “How can I ask? I have no time to think about it. I have my husband who is disabled and I feed my two or three other children. I don’t have time.” Once she was telling me, “I don’t need your money to support my kid because school is not more important. We need money. We don’t need her to finish school. She needs to work.” She also says this to her daughter.
The last time I went to see the daughter, she said, “I don’t want to study anymore.” But I don’t believe that she doesn’t want to study. I said, “Is something wrong in school? Don’t you want to finish high school?” But she said she wanted to stop. I said, “I don’t believe you, and you have to be honest with me because we have been helping you a lot. This money is not a lot, but your knowledge is very important, and you have almost finished high school.” So she said, “Because my parents won't let me. Every day they tell me to do this, and I have no free time. I have to stay home. I have to look after my brothers and sisters. I have to look after my father. I have to cook. My mother has to work. So I cannot leave my mother. So my mother also yells at me for studying.” Every month I go to the student and ask her again, but this is too much pressure for her. She said that she won’t receive our money anymore, but she said she would stay and study until she finishes high school. I said, “At least you will stay until you finish high school, and I will visit you from time to time.” But then I went and talked to the mother, and she was not happy. At least the father is very supportive. He is the one who used to work with a NGO, but since he had the accident, he cannot work anymore.
So if the parents do not support them, they can’t attend schools.
Yes. What I don’t understand is when I visit that family, the father always says he only wants his daughter to study. But then when she stops, nobody says a word. Nobody is pushing her. They just let her stay at home. Now she is still not finishing school. Most of the time, the families just do not know what their children want to do. They never talk to each other. When you ask, “Do you know what your son or daughter wants to do in the future?” It is always, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I never talk to them.” So it is very common. It is not a surprise. But for volunteers like us, it is such a surprise. They don’t know if their child fails or passes. They do not care.
So most of these parents did not go to school?
Very few of the parents went to school. Only a few know how to read and write.
I know there are many other NGOs in Cambodia working on education. Is that a new trend?
The NGOs are not new, but I think the focus on education is. They used to focus mostly on the mines. The education movement is still moving very slowly. Many people live in very small villages, but people are starting to move everywhere. Education is not one of the major focuses. The government does not have many funds to support education, so that’s why many of the NGOs come and focus on education to support what the government doesn’t have, such as materials and school buildings. We try to cooperate with the government and respect each other.
What is one challenge that you face?
It is very hard to get everyone in the community to cooperate. For example, if we want to build a school, we ask the community to be involved, but some people do not agree. Some people say, “If you want to help us, help do it all. We don’t want to help.” The people want it, but they don’t want to build it. They have to work to earn money, and if they come here to help, they don’t earn any money. They ask to be paid, but we told them that if they wanted a school, they would have to help us. So we convinced them and explained it to them. This is a very hard part. Sometimes they understand easily, but sometimes they just don’t want to listen.
When we say “help,” we never say “pay” them. We tell them we cannot pay them because they are not our workers. They are working for the community, and it is the community’s school. What we want to do is to get the children an education and give them an opportunity to go to school. This is the difficult part but also the best part. We get to know the community and get the chance to talk to them. We get them to know us through this. We start with them and get as close as possible to them. We start to get to know them, and after that, they help you by being happy and smiling. Next time you go, they will do whatever you say. They will be very happy from their heart.
I am the education team leader at Arrupe Carina Center.
What does your job entail?
I visit schools and families every day. Normally we go to two or three a day; that is a normal day for me.
Did your organization build all of these schools that you are visiting, or did they already exist and you are just helping them?
Some of them were already there, but I think only one. The rest we built for them.
So before you built these schools in the villages, what did the children do for education?
Before we built the schools, the kids just studied from one of the villagers. They would have one classroom—not even a classroom. They would learn under a tree or inside the cow’s house. They tried to teach the children. We got to the village and saw this happening. When we asked what they were doing, they replied, “I am teaching. We have this school because it is free. Their parents aren’t here, and they have to learn.” We started to find out more about the school and the students. We start from that.
What are the conditions of the villages you work in?
Most of them are very poor. At least four of the villagers had a problem because most of them were coming from a different province. Most of them do not have real land or a real home, so they know that they can take over this plan and have their own land. So they take everyone and make them live there and start a village. They try to build a school and make it a real community. Now the government accepts the village but not the land. They have to get the land for themselves and give a paper to a government that says, “This is my land.” To do that, they need activities and services to make them a community to prove to the government that you really want to be living there. Without the government’s support, it is very hard to have a school. It is a problem.
How many schools does the Education Team work with?
Now we have fifteen schools.
How many kids does that include?
Eighty to 100 kids in every school. Most of them are from grades one to four. We only have one school that is grade four to grade six.
The schools that you work with are very poor. Are they all in the countryside?
Yes, all in the countryside.
So what do you provide for the children?
We provide the materials: books, uniform, pencil, bags, notebook, and books. We provide materials for the teachers, too, like chalk, blackboard, tables, chairs and whatever else they need for the school.
What are some challenges to accessibility that the poorer students in rural areas face?
The way of thinking of people in rural villages is bad. They do not understand the importance of education, so that is a challenge. But I think that the children are now starting to understand. I think they really like to go to school but don’t know if they should go or stay home like their parents do. Now, I think most of the kids want to go to school and know that education is very important for them. Before, when we asked them, “What do you want to do?” they did not know. Now, they say things like “I want to be a doctor, in agriculture, or study IT.” It is a challenge to get into the social life of the children and their parents.
If the children want to go to school, will the parents usually support them?
It depends on the place. The parents want to support them, but it depends on the needs of the family. It’s hard to convince them. I think they support the children, but you also need to realize that they need somebody to help. Others, they do not support us. They say, “Why do you need to go study if your family doesn’t have even 100 riel to buy anything? You need to work.” Except for when they’re in primary school, the children have to work in the field, so this happens a lot as well. But after they visit the school and we explain it to them, they understand a little bit but not much. Not 100 percent. They listen to us for a little bit, and that is all we want.
How do you get them to understand the importance?
Every year we have all of the parents come. We talk to the parents and give them the example of how when we started, there was no parental support. I use this example to show them how much we have changed since we started until now. Little by little, they see this is also important. Also, people are now going to the border with Thailand to work. Even if you go to the border, you at least need to know how to read. Why? Because people cannot cheat you if you know how to read. If you do not know how to read, they can tell you something and you can follow them and may get lost. I tell them, “If you want to go to Thailand and you are working as a worker in construction, you also need to know how much you earn every day. You need to calculate it.” So I explain all of this and tell them it is very important. They understand and hope that at least their kid can read and write and understand what they do. If they can, nobody can trick them. We try to explain these little things. We never expect everyone to listen to what we are saying, but I think that more than 30 percent listen, and they start to let their kids come to the school.
How many of the children will actually move on from primary school to secondary school?
Now all of the schools we work with have problems with grade five and grade six. Everyone has problems. I have one school that had 15 students in grade six; now we have less than ten because they all have to go to Thailand to work. And we cannot say no. It is far, and we cannot go every day to see how they are with their parents. And we are not working with the family, so we cannot also support the family. When we are trying to help, the child is already gone.
Grade six is the last year that everyone studies. It’s not that the children don’t want to; it’s that they have to have their family, but their families to go Thailand. Grade six has the most dropouts. Maybe only five will continue all the way through sixth grade. There will be a lot of children that stop in the middle of the year. Only two or three stay until high school. That is out of 40 or 50 children that start in grade one. Secondary schools and high schools are also very far. Of all of the districts, there are only one or two high schools, so to get to a school, you have to go from one village to another village and go ten or fifteen kilometers. They won't go. Someone will have to rent a house, but to rent a house is expensive. Some of them may have to live in the pagoda or in a relative’s house, but they need to pay for the food. They cannot afford that, so they cannot go to secondary or high school.
Does the education team work with the Anatha (microfinance) team?
Yes, because we work in the same villages, we work together to talk about the families and to network. If we see that there is a school or child in need, we need to visit the family. We make sure to ask Anatha about the family so we can help the child. They visit families every day. We talk to each other and stay in contact.
How long has the Education Team been around?
It was borne out of the Outreach Team that works with the disabled in the villages. So it was part of Outreach, but in 2010 we formed Education, three years ago. I can see the work growing so quickly. It is good because it is very interesting work and now people can focus a lot more on the education.
Why is education so important to Kike and to Arrupe and to Cambodia?
Well, because when we started helping kids outside, Kike said, “Well, we already took the kids here and educated them, but we are taking them from their family.” We have an exception and take the handicapped children that cannot live at home, but there are also kids in the village that need to learn. They need to see outside. They need opportunity. So Kike decided to help people that really need assistance, and education is very important for them. Education can show them how to learn, and they can learn the importance of education. They have an opportunity to go to school and not always stay home with their family. So that’s why he said, “Go ahead and build schools in the villages.”
How would you like to expand this project? What else would you like this project to accomplish?
Oh, I have a lot. I want to do many things. We need more people who have experience or ability to help. We work in the school, but I don’t think that the school is enough. We also need to work with the family and visit the family. How can you help the family and let the kid come here? Another thing that I would do is focus on helping the family. I could help them by helping them have a small business at home or lending them money so that they could have a microcredit. If they had some business, they could let their kid go to school. Or if they really need help, we could find a job for them. I don’t know, there are many needs. I think that whatever they need their kid to do, you can replace them from that situation and let them go to school. We can’t only build a school if after we build a school, we don’t have any kids. This is what I want to do, but I don’t know if we can do it. It’s a big project because in every school, we have one hundred kids and cannot help all of them, but we can choose families to help little by little. And if I can help just one school, ten or fifteen families every year, little by little I can show them the way to making a living and letting their kids grow and succeed.
You need to understand their life and their needs and understand why they need their children. Sometimes they just want the kids to work but they don’t work. Sometimes there is a parent who stays home and doesn’t go to work but has the kid work. It is true. And sometimes the father just gets drunk every day and doesn’t let the kids go to school. You have to understand the kids. If the kid is not coming to the school, it does not mean that they don’t want to. There is a reason at home. I know this because I visit families sometimes, but I don’t have time to visit all of the families. If I could, I would love to do all of these things and see how we can help and support the families. I can see all of the kids in the village and how they love to have friends and come to school. When they come to school, I think they are happier because all of the time they see us. They are especially excited to see us when we go to visit. I don’t know how they have the energy, but they like seeing different people and different places. You go to them, you talk to them, and it’s not your parents. It is people from the outside. They get very happy to be at school.
In a situation where the parents are lazy or they don’t work and force their child to work, do you address the family about it?
In our project, we are also working with the high school students. It is hard to say, “It is the mother’s fault” or “It is the father’s fault.” You have to get to know them. Once, we were helping a family with their needs. The child’s father is a disabled and the mother stays home, and they do not work. They depend on the child to earn something, so the mother doesn’t care much about education. Every time we go, we ask, “How much do you know about your kid? Did you know that this months she got good marks?” They just don’t know and they don’t care. We have to say, “We are helping your kid.” We try to explain to them the importance of the relationship between the mother and the daughter. For the kid, it is very important for someone to ask, “How was your school? How did you do? Did you get a good mark?” They don’t have this in the village, but they need it. But sometimes if you tell the parents to ask this, they say, “How can I ask? I have no time to think about it. I have my husband who is disabled and I feed my two or three other children. I don’t have time.” Once she was telling me, “I don’t need your money to support my kid because school is not more important. We need money. We don’t need her to finish school. She needs to work.” She also says this to her daughter.
The last time I went to see the daughter, she said, “I don’t want to study anymore.” But I don’t believe that she doesn’t want to study. I said, “Is something wrong in school? Don’t you want to finish high school?” But she said she wanted to stop. I said, “I don’t believe you, and you have to be honest with me because we have been helping you a lot. This money is not a lot, but your knowledge is very important, and you have almost finished high school.” So she said, “Because my parents won't let me. Every day they tell me to do this, and I have no free time. I have to stay home. I have to look after my brothers and sisters. I have to look after my father. I have to cook. My mother has to work. So I cannot leave my mother. So my mother also yells at me for studying.” Every month I go to the student and ask her again, but this is too much pressure for her. She said that she won’t receive our money anymore, but she said she would stay and study until she finishes high school. I said, “At least you will stay until you finish high school, and I will visit you from time to time.” But then I went and talked to the mother, and she was not happy. At least the father is very supportive. He is the one who used to work with a NGO, but since he had the accident, he cannot work anymore.
So if the parents do not support them, they can’t attend schools.
Yes. What I don’t understand is when I visit that family, the father always says he only wants his daughter to study. But then when she stops, nobody says a word. Nobody is pushing her. They just let her stay at home. Now she is still not finishing school. Most of the time, the families just do not know what their children want to do. They never talk to each other. When you ask, “Do you know what your son or daughter wants to do in the future?” It is always, “I don’t know, I don’t know. I never talk to them.” So it is very common. It is not a surprise. But for volunteers like us, it is such a surprise. They don’t know if their child fails or passes. They do not care.
So most of these parents did not go to school?
Very few of the parents went to school. Only a few know how to read and write.
I know there are many other NGOs in Cambodia working on education. Is that a new trend?
The NGOs are not new, but I think the focus on education is. They used to focus mostly on the mines. The education movement is still moving very slowly. Many people live in very small villages, but people are starting to move everywhere. Education is not one of the major focuses. The government does not have many funds to support education, so that’s why many of the NGOs come and focus on education to support what the government doesn’t have, such as materials and school buildings. We try to cooperate with the government and respect each other.
What is one challenge that you face?
It is very hard to get everyone in the community to cooperate. For example, if we want to build a school, we ask the community to be involved, but some people do not agree. Some people say, “If you want to help us, help do it all. We don’t want to help.” The people want it, but they don’t want to build it. They have to work to earn money, and if they come here to help, they don’t earn any money. They ask to be paid, but we told them that if they wanted a school, they would have to help us. So we convinced them and explained it to them. This is a very hard part. Sometimes they understand easily, but sometimes they just don’t want to listen.
When we say “help,” we never say “pay” them. We tell them we cannot pay them because they are not our workers. They are working for the community, and it is the community’s school. What we want to do is to get the children an education and give them an opportunity to go to school. This is the difficult part but also the best part. We get to know the community and get the chance to talk to them. We get them to know us through this. We start with them and get as close as possible to them. We start to get to know them, and after that, they help you by being happy and smiling. Next time you go, they will do whatever you say. They will be very happy from their heart.
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