The Cambodia Rural School Project
The Sayuri Watanabe School
Mr. Pich Vang, the 48-year old school director of the Sayuri Watanabe School.
Mr. Pich Vang is the 48-year old school director of the Sayuri Watanabe School. He has seven children and his house is in the village next door. It is about 4 kilometers away from the school. He rides a motorbike to school every day.
“I graduated from a teaching school in the provincial town of Kandal in February 1981. Afterwards, I was sent to work at one of the primary schools in Kandal Stung district, Kandal province for three years and then to the cluster school of Beung Khayang, four kilometers away from the present school (a “cluster school” is the main school in a commune whose curriculum the other schools model themselves after). I was promoted to director of this school in the year 2002 when it was finally erected.”
“I was born and grew up in this commune. I studied at the village school and then went on to a junior high school in Kantuot, the district’s town of Kandal Stung, Kandal province and then to a high school in Phnom Penh. I was in grade 10 when the Khmer Rouge took power in April 1975.”
“After the Khmer Rouge took over, my family and I were sent from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville where I was forced to work for them at the train station. I have six brothers total but two of them were killed and one died of starvation during the regime.”
“After the country’s liberation in January 1979, I went back to my home village and decided to work as a teacher because Khmer society at that time was very unstable due to most of the educated people being killed by Pol Pot. Thus, many of the survivors are uneducated. I think that Khmer people need education first before they can return society to what it used to be.”
