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Phnom Penh, Cambodia – On August 8, 2024, UNESCO, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport (MoEYS), announced the national launch of the "Lifting Barriers: Educated Boys for Gender Equality" project in Cambodia. Cambodia is one of the three implementation countries of this global initiative funded by the Global Partnership for Education Knowledge and Innovation Exchange (GPE-KIX). The online launch was presided over by His Excellency Dr. Nath Bunroeun Secretary of State of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, and Mr. Sardar Umar Alam, UNESCO Representative to Cambodia, and attended by representatives from MoEYS departments, alongside international and local development partners.

The initiative will utilize applied research to generate evidence on how to best address harmful masculine gender norms at the school level to keep boys engaged in school and learning and to promote gender equality. Additionally, it seeks to identify the conditions that facilitate successful implementation and broad-scale adoption of such initiatives. The project is led technically by UNESCO at the global level and involves a consortium of partners including Equimundo and the University of East Anglia (UEA). Spanning from April 2024 to March 2027, the project will be implemented in Cambodia, Lesotho, and Malawi. As the intended impact, the education systems in the three countries will be strengthened to be more gender-transformative, efficient, safe, and inclusive. The evidence generated in these three countries will be utilized to achieve spill-off effects in other GPE-supported countries.

Promoting gender equality in education is vital for meeting the 2030 Agenda for SDG 4 to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and SDG 5 to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. While the global community has made significant strides in promoting girls' education, there is growing concern about boys increasingly disengaging from school. Today, there are 6 million more boys than girls out of school globally. In many areas, boys are more likely to repeat grades and often have lower academic performance in key subjects like reading and writing. In 57 countries, including Cambodia, boys score lower in reading than girls.

In Cambodia, progress has been made in expanding access to education, leading to an enrolment rate of 91.6% at the primary level in the 2022/23 school year. Over the past five years, more girls have been enrolling in school compared to boys, highlighting the achievements made in girls’ empowerment while raising concerns over the issues of boys’ disengagement from education. In the latest school year, boys have a lower enrollment rate and completion rate compared to girls across all levels of education, with the gap increasing as they enter into higher grades. Dropout remains a significant challenge, affecting boys more severely. On average, 17% of boys dropped out at the lower secondary school level, compared to 13.8% of girls.

Despite the evidence, there remains a dearth of research aimed at comprehensively understanding effective strategies to tackle boys' disengagement from education. This project examines which interventions focusing on masculine gender norms can make a difference in education. The results will support the development of a global intervention, adapted for local contexts based on locally identified disadvantages for boys at school and their relationship with detrimental gender norms.

Cambodia’s forthcoming Education Sector Plan 2024-2028 supports national efforts to ensure equality and access to education for both boys and girls. Additionally, the GPE 2025 Partnership Compact in Cambodia aims to assess barriers to retention, progression, and achievement in secondary education, with a focus on boys’ academic achievements and continued study.

In Cambodia, the project will partner with the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) to conduct innovation research on the implementation effectiveness and scalability of a Room to Read initiative as well as a country case study assessing the underlying factors contributing to boys' disengagement from education.

By the end of the project, it is anticipated that teachers, school leaders, and education personnel will understand how gender norms influence the experiences, academic outcomes, and educational trajectories of girls and boys. They will possess skills to implement gender-transformative strategies that promote positive and inclusive masculinities, thereby keeping boys engaged in school, enhancing learning outcomes, and promoting gender equality and social cohesion.