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Special education curriculum for northwestern pupils

43 schools in northwestern provinces are selected to additionally provide special education programme on Safer access to Lands. The move is in cooperation between ECOSORN and the Royal Government of Cambodia through the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MoEYS) with support from the European Union.
“It is very important to give extra knowledge on safe  access to lands to our students in the remote rural areas where the population are lacking accessibility to information, especially the land issues involving with their daily life and long-term development,” said Keo Chhunly, Head of Safer Access to Lands Component, ECOSORN Project.
Forty three lower-secondary and upper secondary schools located in the rural areas in 14 target districts of Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, and Siem Reap provinces are selected to be the pilot schools and the curriculum will be put on trial for 3 months from first 2009 after finalizing curriculum in December 2008, according to Keo Chhunly. The curriculum were developed by ECOSORN-MoEYS — educates the pupils​ and villagers in the target  areas to clearly understand about their land safety and value, he added.   
There are seven modules in the extra curriculum and each module focuses on different issues related to land and sustainable development: raising awareness of mine fields, land title, land dispute, land safety, soil and fertilizer, land and water, land and plants, land and animals, land and weather, land size and value, land and loan, land and sale, agricultural development, infrastructure and residence building, poverty and land title, empowerment and land title, and other issues related to land.  
The programme to have the extra curriculum is aiming to raise awareness of the issues among villagers and the rural communities, especially among pupils from grade 7 to grade 10. “When people understand about the issues, they will also understand about sustainable development leading them to improve their living conditions,” Keo Chhunly said.
To reach the goal, ECOSORN Project thinks that pupils are the right focal persons and when students understand about the issues at school, they can send the message to their parents and neighbours and even apply at their homes, according to Keo Chhunly.
“We believe that the pupils who get knowledge on the land issues from school can explain to their parents about bad affection when they lose their land. So, everyone must know about the land issues,” he added. 
After nine-month study at schools, ECOSORN-MoEYS will organise a national seminar to discuss the strength and weakness of the implementation so that they can improve the curriculum.
And if it is possible, the seminar will decide to put the curriculum in the national education programme for all, Keo Chhunly said.
The project is designed by the Royal Government of Cambodia and European Commission. Within
the project, ECOSORN also aims to establish land communities playing the key role to act as the agents to provide capacity building, raising awareness, and supporting to get land titles and other related land issues to villagers in the target areas of 90 villages of 40 communes. 
“When our villagers understand about the importance of land, they will keep their land for long-term development. If they sell their land for short-term benefit, they will lose everything in the future. When they lose land, they and their children can negatively affect and the numbers of migration and poverty are more increased in the future,” Keo Chhunly said.