Documentation Center of Cambodia

 

GENOCIDE EDUCATION IN CAMBODIA
The Teaching of “A History of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979)”

 

Genocide Education Training for Pre-Service Teachers at

Kandal Province, Cambodia

March 29-March 02, 2014

 

Photo by Ouch Makara

The Sleuk Rith Institute (SRI) – a permanent Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), in collaboration with Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) with the support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), is pleased to announce the Genocide Education Pre-service Teacher Training at six Pedagogical Training Center in Cambodia. The five-day training will start its work in March and end in July. Our first training will be conducted on March 29, 2016 at the Pedagogical Training Center of Kandal Province. Approximately one hundred trainees will attend this intensive training program. The next trainings will take place in Battambang, Kampong Cham, Prey Veng, and Stung Treng Pedagogical Training Centers.

 

SRI/DC-Cam will work closely with these six Pedagogical Training Centers to ensure that there are as many participants as possible from each training center who are able to attend this training. The training provides them with greater information about the Khmer Rouge period, as well as versatile teaching methods that will make them even more effective teachers. Through this training, each trainee will learn to be an insightful and effective educator who can guide their students to learn about their history and discuss the past with those survivors who have settled in their communities. Moreover, the trainees will have chance to meet with KR's victims who are currently Civil Party of the ECCC.

 

The history of Democratic Kampuchea (1975-1979) remains present and continues to shape our future. Not a single day passes without the millions of survivors and the younger generation asking why the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime committed one of the worst human rights violations in history. While it is never easy to fully answer to this question, it is critical to institutionalize the practice of teaching this history in the classroom. Teaching this history is important to encourage inter-generational dialogue, to allow survivors a means to memorialize the loss of their loved ones, and to reconcile with the past. However, teaching this history is undeniably difficult. Teachers are faced with great challenges from personal trauma or political affiliation. Some have even been criticized for avoiding debates on certain political topics. The purpose of this training will be 1) to develop skill and knowledge of the pedagogical students a history of DK history as well as to strengthen their capacity of teaching this history inside classroom using students center approach; 2) to encourage participants to use the Civil Party's stories as part of the history lesson so that these stories will be a means to help encourage students to think of building peace, promoting reconciliation, preventing genocide in the future, and also creating a culture of respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and democracy in Cambodia.