PUNCTUATION IS THE KEY TO DEVELOPMENT: Context of Cambodia and these Developing Countries

Re:  Over 70% fail Cambodian national exam and

បទ ​វិភាគ៖ តើ​ កត្តា​អ្វី​ខ្លះ​ ដែល​ធ្វើ ​ឲ្យ​គុណភាព​ អប់រំ​ នៅ​កម្ពុជា​ មិន​ទាន់ ​ប្រសើរ? What causes the poor education in Cambodia?

https://app.box.com/s/8rrbhfqe8wgdnh0udd9g

Context of Cambodia and these Developing Countries

Several attributes contribute to the language deficit in Cambodia and other developing countries. 

Third, the policymakers in education tend to function in a developed language (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, German, etc), usually English, and thus their entry point into education policymaking is too advanced.  

One of the development sectors normally associated with language is formal education.  Currently, when education policies in developing countries like Cambodia are developed and implemented they tend to focus on physical infrastructure of schools, books, transportation or access for girls and teachers’ salaries.  What is completely taken for granted and amiss is the focus on functionality, comprehension, and ease of reading of the local language.

Understandably so.  The local elites who are policymakers tend to be knowledgeable of either English or French, and unconsciously, fluidly use the second more developed language for higher education and refined thinking.  In many of these societies, Cambodia being the prime example, it is rare to have an educated Cambodian (or Laotian, etc) who only knows her respective language.  Higher education is always reliant on a second, more developed language.

Similarly, the donor representatives of USAID, the European Commission, UNICEF, UNESCO, et al, tend to have multiple advance degrees and be fluent in at least English, French or both.  Their entry point to the issue of basic education is within their developed language context of 600 years of punctuation and text development, long enough for all of them to believe that punctuation has always existed.

Fourth, the grammar of these local languages has never been scrutinized to the same degree of developed languages.  Or, in the rare occasion when punctuation is lightly raised in the context of the local language, it is quickly and confidently dismissed as contrary to culture or incongruous to that local language.  This confident wrong answer quickly ends any further inquiry as no one wants to be insensitive to another’s culture or identity.