Programmes

Funds donated by our generous supporters in Ireland support the following programmes in addition to financing the low operating costs of the Irish organisation.

Transform Education Programme

SeeBeyondBorders is seeking support to implement its new Transform Education programme. It builds on 13 years of experience in effective interventions transforming maths and literacy teaching and children’s learning outcomes. The programme will be implemented in two rural districts in the Northwest of Cambodia that our team has identified as having a significant need and the greatest opportunity to make transformational change. The programme aims to establish Communities of Practice Learning Centres to bring together teachers and school leaders to drive the sustainable improvement of school teaching and learning. Evidence shows that communities of practice can increase educators’ ownership of interventions, improve student achievement sustainably, increase teacher satisfaction, and create a more collaborative school culture. Teachers and leaders will complete foundation and technical teaching initiatives to improve their competence and confidence in teaching and leading. These initiatives will cover a range of salient topics, including maths, literacy, assessment, classroom management, mentoring, teacher identity and leadership. At the end of the programme, teachers will have increased student test scores by, on average, 40%.

Quality Teaching

Quality Education Driven by Quality Teaching The Quality Teaching Focus Area develops confident and competent communities of teachers committed to quality teaching and ongoing professional development.

Our team teaches Cambodian teachers the school curriculum, and best practice teaching methodologies. In order to improve their skills, however, teachers need more than just workshops. They need ongoing support to ensure that they are putting their learning into practice. SeeBeyondBorders is the only organisation in Cambodia that trains existing teachers to become mentors, so that they can guide fellow teachers to improve their performance.

Our Quality Teaching Focus Area hinges on two factors:

Firstly, our ability to train: We train teachers, train mentors, train mentors to become senior mentors and train senior mentors to train mentors, not forgetting training our own staff. Training is central.
Secondly, the quality of our resources: We produce quality teaching resources in the form of reference material for teachers including activity books for different maths strands, daily guides in literacy, as well as maths and literacy classroom resources. We also provide training guides and associated materials.

Literacy

In 2017 The Cambodian Ministry of Education carried out Early Grade Reading Assessments. The results were startling with “half of Cambodian children in grades 1 and 2 unable to read a single familiar word”

The teaching of reading in Cambodian schools typically focuses on memorising vast numbers of letter combinations and words in isolation rather than in context. We want to ensure that every child leaves school with the ability to read and write in their own language.

The goal of SeeBeyondBorders’ Literacy Programme is to improve the professional knowledge, practice and engagement of teachers teaching literacy. It incorporates reading, writing, listening and speaking. We have introduced teaching techniques used in other phonologically based writing systems and adapted them to suit the unique Khmer context. This approach has the potential to revolutionise Khmer literacy teaching so that students can learn in a more intuitive and engaging way, reading for meaning and with enjoyment. Our overall aim is to effect systemic change in the Cambodian education system, adding literacy to both our maths and mentoring programmes.

Community Engagement

SeeBeyondBorders seeks to increase school participation and attendance in an environment that is safe and accessible to the whole community. We stimulate sustained community engagement in the long term physical and education development of Cambodian schools. We improve school participation and help families engage with education through school development planning, health days, infrastructure improvements and conditional scholarships. We promote equality for the most vulnerable in society including those with disabilities, and seek to provide equal access to school for all.

Recognising the need to engage local communities to ensure the continued strengthening and valuing of the education system, our Community Engagement program improves participation at school, helping families be better prepared to embrace education through health programs, scholarships, and sports activities. Communities are encouraged to be involved with their school’s development planning, supporting infrastructure improvements and raising the accountability of teachers and school management.

Educational Technology

In 2020 SeeBeyondBorders launched a Pilot Educational Technology Programme at Rohal Soung Lech, a rural primary school on the outskirts of Ek Phnom District. The project aimed to build teacher capacity using educational technology and digital resources.

In this programme, teachers are provided with a range of digital resources and lesson plans using a learning management system and a tablet. Teachers can display this content to the children in their class through a portable projector allowing SeeBeyondBorders to provide better quality resources to teachers. Data is collected from the learning management system, Moodle, showing the date and time that teachers access each resource. During the day, teachers regularly access resources between 7 am, and 11 am. Teachers also access resources between 7 pm and 11 pm, demonstrating that they prepare for the next day’s lessons by using their tablets at home. This programme has been very successful in improving children’s levels of engagement in the classrooms and in addition to providing teachers with more sustainable teaching resources builds their technical skills and competencies. Here in Ireland, ElectricAid has played a significant role in the expansion of educational technology into new districts from 2024.

Educational Changemakers

The Educational Changemaker Graduate Programme will engage passionate Cambodians with an undergraduate degree, leadership potential and a conviction to create positive change in education in Cambodia.

Based in Battambang province, SeeBeyondBorders’ Educational Changemaker Graduate Programme is a two-year programme that will enable Cambodian women to develop a toolkit to become future Changemakers and pursue their dreams of making a difference in education within a supportive community that recognises the courage and intrinsic value of women in leadership.