During the Khmer Rouge regime (Pol Pot), all infrastructures in Cambodia were almost destroyed such as schools, hospitals,
Therefore, this project is proposed for building a new primary school in Korkisom village, Svay Teap district, Svay Rieng province in Cambodia to increase the literacy level in the primary education in this community which funds will be sourced from the World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB). The length of this project is for two-year plan which commences from January, 2009 to the end of December, 2010. Human resource development is one of the most priorities for Cambodian government to provide the basic education to all Cambodian people (MOEYS, 2008). Thus, this project fits into the government’s strategies to restore education for developing the economy and for poverty reduction, which is one of the most effective ways for country development.
Particularly, this school project will help the local community who live in extreme poverty are able to attend the school for their future development. This project aims to increase in the level of literacy, enrolment and retention rate in the primary education, provide increased and better access to school at close proximity, and establish a school management board for future sustainability in the community. Hence, the children and disadvantaged groups who live in this village are able to enroll and attend the primary education in order to help them improve and change their future and lives in the long term. As a result, there will be an increase a literacy level and school enrolment rate in the community. Therefore, the illiteracy and poverty will be reduced respectively in the future.
1.1 Background
This project is managed by the American Assistance for Cambodia (AAC) which is a non profit organization helping to improve the opportunities for the Cambodian children and the poor to be able to attend primary education. Since Svay Rieng province is one of the poorest provinces in Cambodia, this project is proposed to build a new primary school at Korkisom village, Svay Teap district, Cambodia to help the local community to attend primary education and increase the literacy level in this village. Three main factors such as geographical factor, and insufficient primary education school have been primarily considered by ACC.
First, the geographic factor; Korkisom village locates in Svay Teap district, Svay Rieng province in the Southeast of Cambodia. The total population of Svay Rieng province is around 478,252 which are 4.2 percents of the whole population of Cambodia. Korkisom village is one of the poorest villages in this province. 90 percents of those who live in this area are farmers. So, their main source of income is from farming (NRDB, 2008). This village faces a lot of difficulties almost all sectors, particularly poor infrastructure, low level of living standard, high illiterate rate et cetera. Given this area is remote and rural from the heart of the city, there is less independent organization, civil society, or either the government institutions have not yet taken for development. Therefore, there is almost all sectors in this area are not developed by the government or any non-government organization which leads to an extreme poverty and high illiteracy rate for the people who live in this village.
Second, insufficient primary school; in this province, 67 per cent of the whole population has not completed the primary school due to the lack of school infrastructure and poverty (Province Guide, 2008). Thus, it is of a high concern of providing education particularly, at the remote and rural areas. Therefore, this project proposed to build a new school in this village to increase the number of enrolment in the primary school, and reduce the poverty in this community. Due to these reasons, this village is highly taken into account to build a new school so as to increase the primary education enrollment rate and provide the local community to be able to attend school for their long life future.
2. Project Rationale
This project mainly aims to increase the literacy level and school enrolment and retention rate in this area by 80 percents by 2010. There will be more chances for the local community including children, the disabled, and the disadvantaged groups to attend primary school. In addition, this project will also provide a closest access to school in the village. Therefore, a walking distance to school will be reduced from 10 kilometers to about 200 meters by January, 2010 and the school enrolment ages reduced from 7 years to 5 years which enable the local community able to join school. Hence, more children will be beneficial for education and they would be able improve their lives for their future and overall, the illiteracy level, and poverty will be reduced respectively. This project will also be a model to attract government institutions and non governmental organization to provide further development in order to promote education and improve the living standard as well as infrastructure for this community.
Therefore, ACC is not only looking for sources from the WB and ADB but also further assistances from the government institutions, other international organizations, and relevant educational institutions which get involved in education and development at the primary school level.
3. Stakeholders Involvement
ACC will be taking fully responsible for managing this project and working with relevant stakeholders. The length of this project has been set up for two-year plan which will be held from January, 2009 to the end of December, 2010. ACC will work with its own staff and relevant stakeholders including local community, local leaders, religious leader, and contractor as a community networks from the earlier stage to the evaluation stage. Moreover, relevant government institutions and donors such as the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports (MOEYS), District Education Department (DED), Provincial Education Department (PED), Ministry of Environment (MOE), Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF), Ministry of Health (MOH), and Ministry of Public Works and Transports, WB, and ADB are also contributing in term of advices or technical assistances. ACC cannot work alone without getting supports or helps from the community or relevant stakeholders. Thus, they need to cooperate closely with all these stakeholders to ensure an achievable outcome of this project.
4. Goal and Objectives
The main goal of this project intends to provide a primary education to the local community in order to increase the literacy level by 80 percents by the end of December, 2010. When the school is constructed, more children will be able to have chances to attend school. Thus, more children will be educated and the illiteracy level will be reduced accordingly. To achieve this goal, three main objectives needed to be addressed.
First, we aim to increase the enrolment and retention rate by 80 percents by the end of December, 2010. It is necessary to bring education to the rural children who have been deprived from the educational facilities. Most of the people in this rural village are uneducated. Most of them live in poverty and are difficult to afford themselves. The majority of people are doing farm. When the children come to a school age, they help their families to do farming in stead of attending school due to a long distance. However, after this school is constructed, more children in this community including pupils, disadvantaged and ethnic group will be able to join education. Hence, it is expected that the school enrollment rate will be increased by 80 percents by the end of December 2010.
Second, one of the objectives intends to provide an increased access to school at close proximity. Most of the people who live in this remote and rural village meet lots of difficulties for their lives and suffer from a lack of education particularly. In addition, there is no official school in this village which caused them to give up attending the school. Only the community school has been set up without qualified teachers and school materials. The school has no roof, tables, and insufficient materials for teaching. There is one government school which locates about 10 kilometers from this village. Therefore most of the children are not able to attend school. Moreover, most of girls have less chance than boys to attend school due to a long distance. When the school is available for this village, a walking distance to school will be reduced from 10 kilometers to about 200 meters. The school enrolment age is also reduced from 7 years to 5 years. Hence, the children will be available for having chances to attend school.
Third, this project aims to set up a school management board for sustainability by April, 2009. The school management board is set up to be responsible for all the school activities involved, for instance, drawing up the school plan and management for the benefit of the students. Particularly, this team ensures the functioning and sustainability of school in order to achieve the main goal and objectives of this project. The team needs to be joint by five members including a teacher representative, a local education representative, and other two external representatives to ensure the effectiveness of school functioning and management. The above main objectives are the significant indicators to ensure that the goal and objectives are achievable. However, the proposed detailed activities are needed to be implemented to ensure achieving the above goal and objectives.
5. Project Activity Summary
Some activities are implemented to respond to the above goal and objectives of the project. These activities will be discussed in details as follows:
5.1 Objective 1: To increase enrolment and retention rates
5.1.1 Conduct initial meeting with local leaders
Holding an initial meeting with the local leaders in advance to introduce the purpose of the coming educational campaign, which will be held on semesterly from January, 2009, is significantly important for coordinating the educational campaigns. The first meeting will be conducted early January, 2009 and second and third meeting in July, 2009 and January, 2010. The meeting aims to keep the local leaders and the community about the project plan and activities. So, that the information will be well-informed and the team has enough time for the preparation of the upcoming educational campaign. More importantly, it is quite important that all the local communities including parents, villagers, local leaders, and provincial and district education department representatives participate in this campaign in order to promote and improve the awareness of the importance of education for their children.
5.1.2 Conduct educational campaign
To raise and improve the awareness of education is significant for achieving the goal and objectives of this project. It is difficult for the local community particularly, in the remote and rural area which most of them are less educated and far behind the awareness and importance of education. So, ACC needs to work hard with relevant stakeholders such as the local leaders, local community, and provincial and district education department to enhance the effectiveness of this campaign and ensure that the information reaches all the local people and near by the villages and districts. This campaign will focus on the awareness and importance of primary education for their children. Hence, the campaign plays an important role in promoting education’s awareness for the whole community. Given to a deep understanding of the importance primary education among the local communities, the school enrolment and retention rates will increase gradually.
Therefore, 4 educational awareness campaigns will be held each quarterly from March, 2009 to improve the awareness and importance of education for primary education for the local community. Given the understanding of the importance of education from this campaign’s delivery, there will be an increase in school enrolment. Hence, the literacy level will be increased in the community.
5.1.3 Establish a counseling office
About 80 percents of those, who live in this remote and rural village is uneducated and seriously effects from the Pol Pot regime and the above educational campaign conducted, is not enough for them to faster understand on the awareness and importance of education for their children’s future. Hence one counseling office will be established to enhance the retention rate and counsel the local people on the importance of education. This office will deliver educational counselling services to the local community including children, parents, students, youth leader and local leaders. Particularly, for those who experience lack of the understanding of education. The services of this office particularly implement and increase the awareness of the importance of education which enhance the local community’s understanding and decrease the illiteracy rate among this community. Moreover, ACC needs to work closely with the district education department, provincial education department, and MOEYS to help improve the awareness of the importance of education and better understanding on the education among this community. Thus, it will gradually increase and help improve the local community’s understanding on the awareness and importance of education. So, it is expected that the retention rate will be enhanced by December, 2010.
5.1.4 Conduct training for local leaders on children’s rights
Moreover, in order to increase the school enrolment rate, it is crucial that ACC needs to conduct the training for the local leaders on the children’s rights on education access for a long term goal. So, that they could understand more the importance of children’s right particularly, when their children reach the age for education. This training aims to equip the local leaders’ knowledge on the awareness and importance of education so that they can train and lobby the local community particularly, parents, children and villagers to well understand on their children’s rights on access to education and how this could change their children’s future. They will promote and deliver education’s services for better understanding among the community. Hence, given to a more understanding and awareness of the importance of education among the villagers and communities, the school enrolment rate will be increased accordingly which leads to an increase in the literacy level.
5.1.5 Support children’s forum
The school management board coordinates to set up the children’s forum for the academic discussion competition for children which will be conducted quarterly from January, 2010 to the end of December, 2010. This forum is prepared by the school management board. The purpose of this forum aims to encourage the children to challenge each other in terms of primary education. So, that they would be able understand more about the advantages of education, and could work closely with their team to solve the problems. In this context, they can discuss and compete with their friends in the class and the whole school. Their teachers will explain them the importance of education and teach them how to use the available resources available for them and their local communities. Then, they would be able to spread out the information with their friends and parents in the community. So, this forum is one of the necessary forces for spreading out the information and awareness of education for their friends and the local communities. Moreover, the forum will provide them an improvement for their lives to help their communities.
5.2 Objective 2: To provide increased access to school at close proximity
5.2.1 Identify land site for school
At this stage, ACC will work closely with relevant stakeholders such as local leaders, provincial and district education department and MOEYS to identify the appropriate school land site for construction. They will also consult with MOH, MOE, and MPWT on any future effects or issues which might occur. Thus, a feasibility study of land site for school is conducted by ACC, MOEYS and MPTW. The land site for school construction needs to be abided by a master plan of MPWT and MOEYS. The school site should provide learning and community involvement. Moreover, the site should be closest to the village hub, educational needs and the poor condition of facilities, and future sustainable development. After the school is constructed, it is expected that it will provide an easy access for the local community to attend school. Thus, it will provide an increased access to school at close proximity and promote a partnership with the provincial and local education department and other communities. So, the land site for school construction will be identified by January, 2009.
5.2.2 Select contractor for school construction
Selecting a qualified contractor for school construction is very difficult in Cambodia since most of the school contractors have not officially received a license from the government. Therefore, ACC will work closely and consult thoroughly with provincial and district education department, and particularly, with MOEYS on selecting the precious experienced, qualified, and licensed school construction contractor for this project because the contractor who has licensing in school construction is very important to ensure that the project run smoothly during the implementation process, and more importantly ensure the school building infrastructures have standardized according to the project design. The contractor is daily responsible for building the school and abided by the project design which ACC provided. The contractor selection process needs to finish by the end of January, 2009. Hence, choosing a qualified school contractor will contribute and ensure to achieve the objectives of the project.
5.2.3 Coordinate procurement process for school materials
ACC mainly coordinates the procurement process with relevant school material suppliers in a well-advance due to a long distance of the village and roads’ infrastructure. They will liaise with the suppliers regarding the contracts to make sure that the school construction materials are delivered to the construction site by January, 2009 and have special prices for this project. Then, the school construction material suppliers should be better informed about the difficulties of school construction materials’ delivery due to a long distance and bad roads to the construction site. A contractor manages the school construction and report to the project team if any further construction is more needed or changed. So, ACC is responsible for ensuring that the procurement process of the school construction materials is delivered to the construction site by the proposed schedule. Moreover, ACC needs to work with the contractor to help with the procurement process for buying all the construction and school materials. The procurement process is needed to be abided by the procurement guidelines.
5.2.4 Avail teachers for school
ACC will be responsible for coordinating with the provincial and district education department to provide ten primary teachers for this school and the teachers will be available by July, 2009. To ensure the sustainability of teachers for this school in this village, the district education department needs to select the teachers from the district or village. Due to a geographic and human resource factor, it is not an easy to find teachers who live in this village or in this district. However, the district education department needs to cooperate with the provincial education department to avail some teachers to be available for teaching by January, 2010. In this context, there should have a teacher training program for at least six months and the provincial and district education department need to cooperate closely with MOEYS to provide the qualified primary teachers to conduct the training. Therefore, in the long term plan the community teachers will be upgraded and increased in order to support and provide education for their local community. And the commitment of the local teachers in promoting and providing education could bring confidences for the local community to attend and support their children to join education. Thus, it is significantly important that the teachers are contributing to the ingredient of education in the light of expected increases in primary school enrolment rate.
5.2.5 Provide better access to education
According to (MOEYS, 2008), only 26 percents of children who ages from 12 to 14 could attend primary school which is the lowest primary education access in the region. There is a big gap primary education access between the urban and rural children. The barrier of this access contributes to a very high dropout rate in the primary education. So, it is important that when the school is constructed, the local community, especially the disadvantaged groups, children will be able to join the primary school. Due to a geographic factor, the primary dropout rate is very high. Moreover, their parents do not intend to let their children go to school particularly, girls due to a long distance; the nearest schools from this village is about 10 kilometres far away. The project also aims to improve the school facilities such as library resource available for students to read and research to enhance their further understanding. Particularly, building this school will gradually expanding access to primary education for the disadvantaged groups for this remote and rural village by providing schools, classroom, library, and carrying out the educational campaign, setting up the school management board for future sustainability which is far behind the government’s primary education development, especially, MOEYS and international non governmental organizations.
In this regards, the disadvantaged groups and villagers will have more opportunities to allow their children to attend school, thus the dropout rates will be cut by providing closest school access to their village and the poverty will be gradually reduced in the community in the future.
5.2.6 Strengthen primary education
In the long term goal, strengthening and improving the primary education for the whole community is significant. The school board management is responsible for working with relevant provincial and district education department and MOEYS to provide additional resources such as books, school materials, computers, and further academic curriculum development and textbook improvement. Moreover, strengthening and enhancing primary education, MOEYS plays an important role in building capacity of the provincial and district functioning in terms of educational planning and teacher training since they have legitimate rights to the relevant education institutions. The teacher training should be conducted with the technical assistance from MOEYS and the school management board which aims to improve educational quality and curriculum development. In the mean time, most of the regional teachers are unqualified. Although, it might be difficult for the project team to liaise with the provincial and district education department in order to further strengthening the quality of education at the primary level but it is not expected to receive an immediate result and achievements but it will be gradually improved from January, 2009.
5.3 Objective 3: To establish school board management for sustainability
5.3.1 Conduct election of school management board
ACC will be responsible for coordinating to set up the school board management election which will be held early April, 2009 to provide for the educational needs of the local community. The school board management will be held every four years in conjunction with the provincial and district education department. The application will be publicly announced by the provincial and district education department for this school board members’ selection. The application must be met the requirement which set by ACC to ensure the effectiveness of management of the school. To ensure the sustainability, the members must reside within this province when they are joining the election. So, it is expected that the school board management will be set up by end of April, 2009.
5.3.2 Identify school board management’s responsibility
When the school management board is elected, this team is able to manage the general activities of the school to ensure that this school meets the community’s needs. The team has a primary function for making school policy through the decisions which are open to the public. In addition, this team needs to deal with the relevant matters such as personnel, finance, facilities, and curriculum and is also responsible for employing the necessary teachers and other staff for the school. They could select the local community teachers to join the teacher training program. Therefore, the school management board plays an important role in sustaining, maintaining the sustainability of the project’s outcome in the long term goal, and reinforce the community’s involvement and responsibilities for their children’s education.
5.3.3 Develop structure, procedures, and regulation for school
When the school management board is elected and set up in April, 2009, their main responsibilities are to develop the school structure, procedures, and regulation which is needed to abide by MOEYS. Developing the school structure, procedures, and regulation aim to articulate a common vision and provide a school framework for the local community. It is important to ensure that the staff, students, and relevant members are aware of any causes of staff harassment, inappropriate individual behaviour which could lead to be responsible for the school regulation. More importantly, due to a lack of teachers in the community, the team needs to closely work with the provincial and district education department for recruiting teachers and conducting training teachers in the community.
5.3.4 Improve the quality of education
Most of the Cambodian primary school lacks of library resources and curriculum development and particularly qualified teachers. So, the school management board will work closely with the provincial and district education department about the providing the quality of primary education. It aims to provide the local community with better education and achieve the learning outcomes necessary for the future. Therefore, the qualified teachers are needed and library resources should be available for the school. The school equipped with adequate resources such as books, and other study materials to stimulate students for further learning. Thus, it gradually increases the learning outcome for the students in the whole community.
6. Gender Analysis
In Cambodia, women’s involvement in management and controlling in the work society is less due to some factors such as education, family’s responsibilities, and particularly culture. Most of them are mainly responsible for taking care of their family and children. However, in this project, women’s involvement in the school management board committee and project decision-making process is highly considered. Women have equally rights in controlling and managing in any project’s activities to enhance the project’s achievement to reach the project’s goal and objectives. Women’s participation in this project is also highly encouraged. For instance, the women’s participation of the educational campaign is very necessary for helping to promote the awareness of the education to the local community since women can get involved deeply and closely with most of the people in the village. According to Moser argues that the roles of men and women in the third world society could offer the tools of the concepts and methodology to incorporate gender into planning (1991, p. 323). Hence, this project aims to have a gender balance for both men and women to join all the project activities in order to provide different perspectives and contribution to reach the goal and objectives of the project. The awareness for women and men are crucial for sharing common understanding for the purpose of this project which enhances an opportunity to make the project’s implementation a success.
Due to a very long distance of primary school in this village, the majority of women have not attended school. When the school is constructed, it will provide the closest proximity to the communities. Thus, more women will get an opportunity to attend education comparable to men who have always had the opportunity. The women are equal beneficiaries of the school as a resource too. Regarding the welfare, both women and men will be equally enhanced. They have equally rights to attend education. The detail of the gender analysis is provided in annex 2.
7. Risk Management
According to the study of ACC, it is clearly identified that this project will face some difficulties resulting from a number of issues which might reduce the effectiveness of the project’s goal and objectives. Therefore, this project has been designed to overcome these difficulties and provide a solution to the risks which might occur during the project implementation.
7.1 Environment risk
Some risks might exist during the project implementation. For instance, the environment risk in terms of flooding might occur during the project implementation which might effect on the infrastructure of the building or projection’s functions might prolong. A research by a natural disaster office shows that the flooding in this village rarely happens. However, the local community advises that flooding might occur during a raining season. Given to this circumstance, an emergency mitigation plan has been developed to prevent the school infrastructure.
7.2 Administrative risk
Due to a poor stakeholder perceptions, it is anticipated that the relevant stakeholders particularly, the local leaders, local community, and relevant government’s institutions might not cooperate or work well with the project team. They might be reluctant to participate due to limitation of their staff, and their time and commitment. Importantly, they will not provide their resources or time without getting any benefits. For instance, the district education department might not send their staff or representative to participate in the project’s campaign or meeting since this project location is in the remote area. Thus, ACC will refer the previous project design activities and implementation to study on the issues which might occur with the stakeholder’s participation.
Due to a geographic distance from business area, the unavailability of school materials and equipments supply is of medium concern. Therefore, ACC will have an advanced dialogue with the district education department to contact and assign the school materials and equipments’ suppliers which will be available for students by January, 2009. Similarly, the unavailability of project supplies and construction materials might not deliver to the village in time. Hence, ACC needs to contact with the construction companies in advance and establishes an agreement with them in order to deliver project supplies and equipments for school construction by January, 2009. Regarding the selection of the contractor for school construction, ACC has identified that it might not have a delay in processing this selection since they will have a tender committee to manage the process of tendering. They also experienced with a similar cases from previous project approval.
7.3 Social risk
It is also of medium concern that a low participation of the local community involved in the project’s activities due to a lack of awareness and education, and poor living condition. Most of them might not be interested in participating in the project educational campaign or the project activities since they almost cannot afford themselves for their living. Therefore, ACC needs to work with the local leaders and provincial and district education department to conduct the consultations, community’s involvement, and the community participation’s importance to assist the local community, individuals, and households to better understand the importance of education for their children in order to improve their living standard and the community for a long term goal.
7.4 Budget risk
Although, there is a low level of approving project budget from the sponsors, however, ACC experiences that it might occur. Therefore, the project team needs to assure that the prior approval of project budget needed to be done in advance.
Since there might have some difficulties or risks during the project implementation which might impact on the project’s achievement and effectiveness. Thus, some foreseeing risks have been identified and a mitigation plan is planned to minimize and resolve the risks. Further details of the risk matrix is enclosed with annex 4.
8. Sustainability
When the project finishes, AAC is concerned about maintaining the effectiveness of the project’s goal and objectives. The literacy level and school enrolment rate might decrease in this community. The local community might less focus on educating their children and the relevant stakeholders are less involving in this community. So, only the government and local leader’s role are significantly important for sustaining, developing, and increasing the literacy level and school enrolment rate in this community.
8.1 The roles of local leaders
The local leaders such as village representative, youth leader, and women leader are able to sustain and maintain the effectiveness of the project’s goal and objectives when the project finishes. Since they have been provided some training on the children’s rights, awareness and the importance of education prior to the education campaign, therefore, they can use their knowledge to lobby the local community particularly, parents, children and villagers to understand more on their children’s rights on access to education and how this could change their children’s future. Thus, they have the important roles to promote and deliver education’s services for their community. However, the village representatives, youth leader, and women leader need to work closely and regularly to maintain and sustain the effectiveness of this project. For example, they can set up a quarterly schedule for meeting to follow up any activities on promoting the awareness and importance of education for the children. Thus, sustainability of this project will be maintained, the literacy level rate and school enrolment rate will keep increase respectively.
8.2 The roles of government
The government has a major responsibility and power for sustaining and maintaining the project’s effectiveness because they can strengthen the education through the provincial and district education department to be responsible for improving the education in this community. Since the school is available, they could provide further supports or facilities either through the provincial and district education department. For instance, they can conduct further training for the local leaders and promote an educational campaign for the local community to keep them informed about the importance of education. To maintain the awareness, the government can endorse the relevant education departments in this village to have a regular monitoring and promotion of education. Moreover, the government and its counterparts need to take into account to the remote and rural areas to eradicate poverty and increase the opportunities for all the people to attend education.
Hence, the government and local leaders have significant roles in maintaining and sustaining the outcome of this project. Particularly, MOEYS could provide intensive supports to the provincial and district education department to keep improving and enhancing the awareness of education and also provide the school material resources since they have a legitimate power to implement the innovative education intervention. Thus, the literacy level and school enrolment rate will be increased, and the poverty will be reduced. Thus, the living conditions will be improved in this community in the future.
9. Monitoring and Evaluation
9.1 Monitoring
Project monitoring is crucial to make sure that the project implementation and guideline are carried out as planned whether the goal and objectives of the project have been achieved. So, the project monitoring has been divided into two stages as follows.
First, the monitoring and evaluation team of the project will monitor the implementation process of the project whether the implementation activities have been carried out by the project guideline and procedures. The monitoring should be undertaken before and during the project is implemented and form the monitoring and evaluation system base. It is so important that if any issues come up during the project implementation, the team would be able to identify the problems and to recommend or advise if any changes needed to be done during the project implementation. So, that the rest of the project implementation process and activities could be directed or amended to meet the overall goal and objectives of the project. For example, if there is a low participation of the local community to participate in the educational campaign, they need to find out what is the weakness of campaign. It might lack of communication between the local leaders and the local community or the message is not spread over the whole community.
Second, the team will conduct a field monitoring to monitor on the impact of the educational campaign which has been promoted to the local community. The purpose is to make sure that the local community, parents, villagers are aware of the importance of education for their children. This monitoring will be conducted for a semester base. So, there will be an increase in the primary school enrolment. Thus, the literacy level will be improved and the living condition of this village will be enhanced for the long term goal. After the monitoring, the team needs to come up with the reports for the project team and donors; the World Bank and ADB, and MOEYS.
9.2 Evaluation
The evaluation process can highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the project’s implementation process to improve the future of the project design (Bamberger & Hewitt, 1986). Thus, this evaluation will study the outcome of a project; an increase in literacy level and an increase in primary school enrolment rate which would lead the local community to reducing the poverty and improving the living standard in the long term plan. The evaluation will be conducted semesterly by the monitoring and evaluation team, which will be held at the end of each year. It is important that the donors, district education department, and local leaders will be invited to participate in the evaluation meeting. The purpose of the evaluation is to make sure that the project implementation and activities are abided by the project guideline whether the goal and objectives of this project is highly achieved. The evaluation mechanism is based on the quarterly, yearly report, primary and secondary sources, and survey to evaluate the project’s outcome and the increase in primary enrolment rate. Importantly, the interview will be conducted with relevant stakeholders such as the local community, local people, village chief, and pupils to get better interaction of the outcome of the project and from the expression of the community. It is one of the most important parts of the evaluation, since it is most reliable for evaluation and assessment in order to have further judgment.
10. Personnel
The engagement of all stakeholders in various stages is significant to make this project run smoothly. Therefore, the project management designs to have all the relevant stakeholders actively involve from the early stage to the end of the project such as preparation, implementation, evaluation and monitoring. Thus, three main teams have been identified such as advisory team, management team, and implementation team. First, the main role of advisory team is to liaise with the major stakeholders’ representatives on the consultation, advice, and guideline for the whole process of this project. Therefore, this team should be attended by the representatives from each major stakeholder such as donors, MOEYS, MOH, MOPW, MOEF, MOE, and LL. Second, the management team plays an important role for taking fully responsibilities for the project management and implementation. This team will work together to ensure that the project activities are followed by the project guidelines and procedures. Third, the responsibilities of implementation team mainly involve in carrying out the activities of the project and ensure that the project activities are abided by the project guideline and procedures.
11. Cost and Benefit Analysis
Cost and benefit analysis is a useful tool to analyze relevant expenditures of the whole project including project preparation, implementation, and evaluation cost. It estimates the benefits and costs of the equivalent money value for the projects (Thayer, 2008). The main purpose of this tool is to minimize the cost but efficiently achieve the goal and objectives of the project. Some major considerations on a high cost are the expenses on staff, administration, transportation and project activities. Since this village is located in the remote and rural area, the management cost and administrative cost are highly expensive. For example, the project staffs are reluctant to join the project team in that area due to the distance and infrastructure unless high salary is provided. Regarding the construction and material cost it is estimated that it is not high due the current market situation and it is officially estimated and used by MOEYS which they normally spends this amount of funds to build a new primary school with 5 rooms. However, it is also advantageous that the project activities implementation is low expense since there will be more local communities, local people are happy to contribute their time and strength and join this project, particularly during the project campaign. Thus, there is a small amount of expense on these activities such as providing some drinks.
12. Budget Summary
The total expense of the whole project is estimated USD 296,200 (two hundred ninety six and two hundred thousands US dollars) for two-year plan commencing from January, 2009 to December, 2010. USD 139,650 is estimated to expend on the building construction materials including bricks, stones, sands, et cetera. USD 84,000 expends on the project management and staffs. USD 68,550 will expend on the administration cost such as office rent and purchasing the office equipment for the project team. The cost of the campaign is less compared to the other expenses which cost about USD 4,000. The fund of this project will be sourced from the WB, ADB and other educational institutions. Further detail of the budget summary is attached in annex 5.
(By Bong Angkeara)
