Abstract
Public education was introduced into the Kingdom of Cambodia starting in 1903. In this year, Éecole Norodom was opened in Phnom-Penh. The first écoles francocambodgiennes were opened in Kompong-Cham and Pursat, and expanded to every circonscription résidentielle. The top of the écoles franco-cambodgiennes system was the college Sisowath in Phnom-Penh, whose purpose was to educate functionaries.
With regard to the public education system, it has been said that the school attendance rate among Cambodian was very low compared to Chinese or Vietnamese. The reasons were thought to be derived from (1) the lack of a tradition of schools in Cambodia, (2) the reluctance of parents who would be deprived of their children's labor, and (3) Buddhism, which was considered incompatible with modern education. However, these analysis dealt with Cambodia as a whole. The data that they depended on were mainly taken from schools located in the administration centers of circonscription résidentielle, and they never reflected the rural situation. Futhermore, according to a list of the number of schools in each circonscription résidentielle in 1930, we may assume that the situation or systems of public education were very different in each circonscription résidentielle. Therefore, we should initially examine the situations of each circonscription résidentielle before dealing with Cambodia as a whole.
This paper investigates closely the introduction of public education in the circonscription résidentielle de Kompong-Cham, located along the middle course of the Mekong River. The main source is “Rapports périodiques, économiques et politiques de la résidence de Kompong-Cham” from 1898 to 1929.
In the résidentielle de Kompong-Cham, there was a disparity between the école résidentielle/école de plein exercise established in Kompong-Cham city and the écoles provinciales/écoles élémentaires established in rural villages. The number of students continued to increase in the former, but in the latter, the number was inactive at all times. The reasons for the inactivity of the écoles provinciales/écoles élémentaires were reported as based on (1) the insufficiency of good teachers and (2) the indifference of parents to education. In contrast, the école résidentielle/école de plein exercise held a splendid ceremony at the end of every school year, and sent excellent students to the college Sisowath to be candidates of functionaries. From 1925 onward, school football matches were held every year, and the team from Kompong-Cham became a powerful team second only to the college Sisowath. The honored and hope-filled prospects must have given students an incentive to attend school. At least in Kompong-Cham, for those Cambodians who lived during the first quarter of the twentieth century, proficiency in the French language and the metric system was beneficial only in cases of people becoming functionaries. For the majority of Cambodians, French colonialism failed to show how colonial education profits a primarily agricultural population.
