The Wat Mon Thyean community of Kok Russey Kang Cherng welcomed the SCC team into their village for three days -- January 28-30 -- to facilitate discussions with various focus groups, including local leaders, parents and students, for the purpose of identifying the community's educational needs, problems and potential solutions. Activities, designed using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) methods, involved mapping the homes of children both in and out of school, chronologising the community's education-related changes over the course of the past 12 years, identifying the most influential people in the village, and identifying the villages' resources.
Focus group discussions were held in the villages' open-air community center on the grounds of the local pagoda. Lunches with the participants helped SCC to strengthen relations with the community members.
The assessment is the first step in identifying the community and SCC's roadmap for improving access and quality of education at Wat Mon Thyean primary school. In the coming weeks, the SCC team will follow-up initial findings with case studies and ultimately reveal the joint community-SCC plan.
SCC Project Coordinator, Jay, facilitates a discussion with parents to identify why children in Kok Russey Kang Cherng village drop out of school:
Kok Russey Kang Cherng community members draw a map of their village, indicating the number of children in each house who do and do not go to school:
The completed village map:
Third grade students who participated in a discussion about school attendance and teacher quality enjoy lunch before hurrying off to class:
