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GENOCIDE EDUCATION
2004-present
Cambodian schoolchildren are taught that 3.3 million people were
killed under the 1975-1979 Democratic Kampuchea regime (most scholars
place the number at around 1.7 million). But the Royal Government of
Cambodia, which prepares school
texts,
has done surprisingly little to educate people born after the regime
about the genocide. For example, the entire 9th grade text
on the regime for the year 2000 reads:
From April 25 to
April 27, 1975, the Khmer Rouge leaders held an
extraordinary Congress in order to form a new Constitution, and
renamed the country “Democratic Kampuchea.” A new government of the DK,
led by Pol Pot, came into existence after which Cambodian people were
massacred.
By 2002, coverage of the regime had disappeared from junior and senior
high school texts (the section on modern history was torn out as a
result of an intra-government dispute over the treatment of the 1993
elections). No new texts were published in 2003 or 2004.
With the passage of time, both the leaders of the Khmer Rouge and its
victims are growing older. Without a concerted effort, students of
this and future generations may know little – if anything – about the
history of Democratic Kampuchea.
Cambodia’s many pressing developmental needs have meant that the
Ministry of Education’s resources are stretched thin (few teachers are
properly trained on teaching such sensitive but critical subjects as
genocide). Thus, the Ministry has sought DC-Cam’s assistance in
providing supplementary text on the Khmer Rouge and other educational
materials related to genocide. This project will seek to enhance the
capabilities of teachers and the Ministry of Education to convey the
regime’s history through the provision of ideas, materials,
recommendations on curricula, a short text on Democratic Kampuchea,
and a collection of survivors’ stories.
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