Phnom Penh (FN), Feb. 26 – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced the cancellation of the “Modern Learning Centre” initiative, a collaboration between the public and the private sector, citing its impracticality and the loss of state management control.

The premier spoke on Wednesday (Feb. 26) at the closing of the MOEYS’s 2024 annual meeting at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia.

“The issue of the Modern Learning Centre—I cancelled it the other day. This initiative was an effort to establish a partnership between the public and the private sector to address certain challenges, but this arrangement is not feasible,” the premier underscored.

The Modern Learning Centre had previously been granted permission to collaborate with several public schools nationwide, from kindergarten to secondary level. It provided a full-day curriculum in partner public primary schools, combining the national curriculum, which operates on a four-hour shift, with the modern curriculum, which runs for three hours, across a five-day school week from Monday to Friday.

Samdech Thipadei instructed the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to ensure that any mechanism it implements guarantees full state ownership at the local level, without allowing private sector involvement in leadership. He further stressed that public-private partnerships in education must not result in the Royal Government losing control over local management.
=FRESH NEWS