NTEU assistance to adult education in Cambodia
With assistance from the regular members donations by the NTEU combined with support from the AEU and AusAID, APHEDA-Union Aid Abroad is assisting a project in Cambodia which is teaching literacy and employment skills training to over 5,000 people over three years. In this project, 3,700 poor rural women, 1,110 poor urban women and 1,250 poor rural men are being trained. Donations from individual NTEU members for this project totaled $5,100 last year.
The training is taking place at the rural district level and provincial town level in seven rural vocational training centres in five provinces in Cambodia. All courses include literacy and numeracy where needed, as well as training in one of a number of vocational skills. These include office skills such as English, computer skills and typing; tailoring or dressmaking; weaving, hairdressing, motorbike repair, TV/radio repair, and small electrical motor repair. Training in HIV/AIDS is included in every course as this is a growing problem in much of Southeast Asia. Most of the courses are of six-month duration, but for those who need extra literacy training, courses are up to nine months.
Part of this project has included the training of the teachers to run the courses. Twenty teachers from the Women and Development Centres in these provinces have been trained to teach the literacy and the HIV/AIDS courses, while 60 trades people have been trained in technical teaching methodology and curriculum. A further 50 technical/vocational teachers are being trained in 2001.