Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport

In January 2019, Open Development Cambodia (ODC) in partnership with East-West Management Institute (EWMI) and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) signed a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the purpose to strengthen MoEYS’ efforts to become a “clearinghouse for education resources and administrative education data”. The support to MoEYS will also contribute to more data about the education sector in Cambodia being collected and published on the platforms of ODC. One of the ministry’s goals has been to develop teachers and students’ ability in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). The ministry’s ambition together with ODC’s expertise in map and data has forged the collaboration which will eventually benefit Cambodian students, teachers and the public at large.

Under the MoU, ODC is working with the Department of Information Technology (DIT) of the ministry to carry out activities within a 3-year timeframe to mainly build teachers and students’ capacity in GIS map reading and data collection through training facilitated by ODC’s skilled map and data team. We believe the ability to read and create maps will allow students and teachers to critically comprehend and analyze information indispensable for their study, teaching, and decision-making. The map reading lesson will be brought as far as to be integrated into the MoEYS’ ICT textbook and mobile application. ODC and DIT are studying the means by which we can undertake the said activities.

Besides the training, ODC will support MoEYS in reviewing its Open Education Resource (OER) website. The ministry’s OER is a platform providing various learning material that has been digitalized and made available for the public to utilize for their study, research and other educational purposes. To enhance the functionality and build on the existing content, ODC team will assist in the identification, adaptation, and translation of documents and information on and for the OER platform. Guidelines regarding data sharing on OER will be jointly developed by ODC and DIT to ensure that data available on OER does not violate copyrights law or is under creative commons license.

In addition, ODC, with our map and data team, will embed the map and develop a centralized database of information of school on MoEYS website. The process will allow for better school administration and management through the use of data and maps. As equally important as that, it will also enable ODC to publish new, updated data concerning education on our platforms for public access.

ODC is also helping DIT identify potential crowdsource funding with an effort to seek funding for textbooks and other learning material for schools in rural Cambodia.

We hope this collaborative partnership will contribute in part to MoEYS’ aim to promote ICT in education and provide additional data which the public can leverage on ODC platform.