In Cambodia, like elsewhere in the developing world, rural communities are characterised by higher rates of poverty and lower levels of development relative to urban areas. These inequalities are mirrored in the school system.

Rural schools often operate in makeshift buildings with poor to non-existent electricity and Internet connectivity, under-qualified teaching staff, and few resources. These schools struggle to attract qualified English teachers, so the standard of in-school English education is very low. Teachers also often lack basic digital skills and competencies, while schools lack the funds to provide digital learning resources.

At the same time, most children are unable to access alternative solutions, including costly commercial language schools, after-school tuition and online English lessons. This contributes to a huge divide in educational outcomes between rural and urban students and, in turn, their post-school outcomes.

Most rural children will have have left school without even the most basic English language or digital skills. Yet, it is these skills that are increasingly required or, at the very least, advantageous in gaining the kind of secure work (and the level of income) that will allow them to achieve upward social mobility.

Instead, their best hope is to find casual or seasonal work on the poorly paid, under-regulated fringes of the farming, manufacturing and informal economies— the kind of work that confines them and their families to a life of interminable poverty.

That’s why we believe it is important to make English literacy skills education and digital learning more accessible for children in marginal communities. Not only does this open doors to economic opportunities and change, but in a world transformed by digital technologies and dominated in many ways by the English language, it allows children in non-English speaking countries across the developing world to be better informed and have greater control over their lives and future.