THE Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has requested that the Phnom Penh Municipality provide armed forces to maintain order for a two-day secondary school examination that will take place starting September 19 at 33 examination centres around Phnom Penh.

Oum Heung, director of the Department of Education, Youth and Sports, explained that the use of security can help prevent cheating that has previously occurred during testing.

Oum Heung noted that people throwing photocopies from nearby shops into the testing rooms can "interrupt the candidates".
He asked for the deployment of 15 to 20 police to keep order during the two days of testing.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Choup Khon agreed, saying that "it is necessary to keep social order", adding that "the photocopy shops nearby the schools can cause anarchy, and authorities will close down all shops near the school until the examination is ended."

No bribes please
The Ministry of Education has also issued a news release asking parents of secondary school students not to give bribe money to their children to pass on to their teachers.

Chey Chap, undersecretary of state at the ministry, said education officials want parents to encourage their children to study rather than pass their exams by bribery.

Rong Chhun, president of Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, says he does not believe that the government has the capacity to stop exam-related corruption.
Bribes are frequently given to teachers for test answers or passing marks.

THE Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports has requested that the Phnom Penh Municipality provide armed forces to maintain order for a two-day secondary school examination that will take place starting September 19 at 33 examination centres around Phnom Penh.

Oum Heung, director of the Department of Education, Youth and Sports, explained that the use of security can help prevent cheating that has previously occurred during testing.

Oum Heung noted that people throwing photocopies from nearby shops into the testing rooms can "interrupt the candidates".
He asked for the deployment of 15 to 20 police to keep order during the two days of testing.

Phnom Penh Deputy Governor Choup Khon agreed, saying that "it is necessary to keep social order", adding that "the photocopy shops nearby the schools can cause anarchy, and authorities will close down all shops near the school until the examination is ended."

No bribes please
The Ministry of Education has also issued a news release asking parents of secondary school students not to give bribe money to their children to pass on to their teachers.

Chey Chap, undersecretary of state at the ministry, said education officials want parents to encourage their children to study rather than pass their exams by bribery.

Rong Chhun, president of Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, says he does not believe that the government has the capacity to stop exam-related corruption.
Bribes are frequently given to teachers for test answers or passing marks.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The United States has agreed to give $1.8 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal, its first contribution to the long-awaited trial of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen for the atrocities of the "Killing Fields".U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said on Tuesday concerns about corruption at the court were now outweighed by the need for Washington to participate in the closing pages of one of the 20th century's darkest chapters.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, starvation or disease during Pol Pot's disastrous four-year agrarian revolution in the late 1970s.

"There have been some issues about the management of the court but these are not reasons to the level where we felt that justifies withholding any contribution to the court any further," Negroponte said during a visit to the southeast Asian country.

As well as meeting Prime Minister Hun Sen -- a former Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975 -- Negroponte visited S-21, the high school that became the ultra-Maoist regime's main interrogation and torture centre.

The tribunal, a complicated mix of Cambodian and international law, is trying to secure an extra $87 million in funding on top of an initial budget of $56 million to allow it to run to 2010.

Five top Khmer Rouge cadres have been charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity and are now in custody, awaiting trial. Pol Pot himself died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng on the Thai border.

PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The United States has agreed to give $1.8 million to Cambodia's Khmer Rouge tribunal, its first contribution to the long-awaited trial of Pol Pot's top surviving henchmen for the atrocities of the "Killing Fields".U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said on Tuesday concerns about corruption at the court were now outweighed by the need for Washington to participate in the closing pages of one of the 20th century's darkest chapters.

An estimated 1.7 million people were executed or died of torture, starvation or disease during Pol Pot's disastrous four-year agrarian revolution in the late 1970s.

"There have been some issues about the management of the court but these are not reasons to the level where we felt that justifies withholding any contribution to the court any further," Negroponte said during a visit to the southeast Asian country.

As well as meeting Prime Minister Hun Sen -- a former Khmer Rouge soldier who lost an eye in the final assault on Phnom Penh in 1975 -- Negroponte visited S-21, the high school that became the ultra-Maoist regime's main interrogation and torture centre.

The tribunal, a complicated mix of Cambodian and international law, is trying to secure an extra $87 million in funding on top of an initial budget of $56 million to allow it to run to 2010.

Five top Khmer Rouge cadres have been charged with war crimes or crimes against humanity and are now in custody, awaiting trial. Pol Pot himself died in 1998 in the final Khmer Rouge redoubt of Anlong Veng on the Thai border.