Sir, – Listening from my home in Siem Reap to Irish radio coverage of Ireland’s latest Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) results, it is difficult not to be struck by the contrast with the country in which I have lived and worked since 2014 (“Irish teenagers getting weaker at maths and reading”, News, September 8th).
Ireland’s 15-year-olds are once again among Europe’s strongest performers. When Cambodia last participated in Pisa, in 2022, it recorded the lowest scores among 81 participating countries in mathematics, reading and science.
Yet there is another way of looking at Cambodia’s participation. There is genuine pride here that the country is taking part at all, measuring itself against international standards and confronting openly the scale of the challenge it faces.
Cambodia’s education system has had to rebuild from an almost unimaginable starting point. About 90 per cent of the country’s teachers were killed during the Khmer Rouge period. Less than half a century later, Cambodia is participating in the same international assessment as Ireland and seeking to improve against the same measures.
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At SeeBeyondBorders, an Irish-supported NGO working in rural Cambodian primary schools, our focus is on one of the most important influences on children’s learning: their teachers. We work alongside Cambodian educators to strengthen teaching, school leadership and professional development, with support from the Irish Government through Irish Aid.
Ireland should rightly take pride in today’s Pisa results. But perhaps there is also an opportunity to reflect on the value of Irish educational expertise internationally. In Cambodia, where the challenges are very different, Ireland is already playing a small but meaningful part. – Yours, etc,
COLM BYRNE,
SeeBeyondBorders,
Siem Reap,
Cambodia.
