CAMBODIA

Women still falling off higher education ladder

According to the United States government's federal research division, at the height of Cambodia's development in 1970 - before the civil war and the Khmer Rouge obliterated the country's educational infrastructure - only 730 of the University of Phnom Penh's 4,570 students were women. The situation has improved since then, but women still lag well behind, write Will Jackson and Vandy Muong for Phnom Penh Post.

Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports' figures show only about one third of university students these days are women and the higher the qualification, the lower the female rate of participation. In the 2012-13 academic year, they made up 39.91% of the 216,053 students studying a bachelor degree, 33.6% of the 23,678 studying an associated degree, 21.49% of 6,160 masters students and only 6.33% of 142 PhD students.

The annual report by the Cambodian National Council for Women released last week said barriers to young women finishing higher education included the scarcity of scholarships, family financial issues and a lack of accommodation close to educational institutions.
Full report on the Phnom Penh Post site