Community Participation in a Community Learning Center, Cambodia

In order to understand deeply community participation in education, by viewing the case of CLC in Ksert commune, this study aims to find out how communities participate in their learning center, what methods the CLC committees use to mobilize such resources to maintain project activities and what factors foster or hamper that participation. A number of methods was used. Main findings are: 1) people liked to be involved in the meeting mostly after using services, though their contribution to the CLC with both money and labor force is still limited (as they care for their family income), and people involved in the decision-making stages were more active; 2) committees' methods of resource mobilizing are more effective, as they have built community awareness of CLC benefits; and 3) the factors of participation were of strong communication networks between CLC and local community people and of high communities' awareness on CLC. CLC provide interesting courses oriented towards developing life skills and vocational skills, the obstacles that impede the community participation being: people are busy working; they are not invited; and there is no feeling of ownership.