Monireth Brings Home the Gold at ISF’s English Speaking Contest
Monireth Brings Home the Gold at ISF’s English Speaking Contest
Monireth* was the winner of ISF’s most recent English Speaking Contest, held in December 2019. Her competition-winning speech focused on how access to education has changed her life. She considers English fluency an important currency in Cambodia’s emerging labour market. The lucrative career opportunities fluency could bring in the future make her enthusiastic.
This ambitious 14-year-old was born into a family of four in Phnom Penh. Her mother is a homemaker and her father earns a living catching river fish. He sells them at a local market near our Chbar Ampov campus. Financial hardship forced Monireth to quit school at grade four. Realising the importance of an education for her child’s future, Monireth’s mother didn’t stop searching for a way to send her to school. Through the community outreach campaigns we run, the determined mother heard about ISF. With our support, her daughter got back to school at the age of 11. Monireth later graduated from our Catch-Up Education Programme and re-entered Cambodia’s public education system.
Since English has always been her favourite subject, Monireth likes to practice speaking with her teacher and friends. She also enjoys learning new words and their meanings in both English and Khmer. With such a keen interest in linguistics, it’s no surprise that Monireth won our English-Speaking Contest. When asked how she prepared, the young girl effused, “I’ve worked hard for this contest. But the thing that keeps pushing me to work hard is motivation from my family, teachers and friends. And importantly, participating in the previous year’s contest taught me to be more confident, courageous, and for sure, well-prepared.” Apart from English, she also maintains an acute interest in History.
“I’ve worked hard for this contest. But the thing that keeps pushing me to work hard is motivation from my family, teachers and friends.”
The Importance of Foreign Language Education in Cambodia
According to Cambodia’s government, its highest priority is providing youth with technical, vocational and life skills. “We live in an economic world which speaks English and Chinese,“ says HE Dr. Hang Chuon Naron, Ph.D, ACII, LL.M, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports. When speaking on the importance of foreign language education, he expounds, “when we talk about improving the quality of education, we want to focus on studying foreign languages like English, French or other languages, especially after Grade 4.” In alignment with that vision, ISF’s holistic educational approach provides students with employability and foreign language education. The goal is to give them the skills they need to break the cycle of poverty they grew up in.
*Names of children under 18 years old have been changed.
