Cambodia: World Education
and WGBH Partner to Bring Educational
Children's Television to Cambodia
"World
Education is bringing a whole new
world of exposure to WGBH. We don't
have the skills or resources to reach
the Cambodian audience on our own,
but through our partnership with
World Education, we can bring high
quality educational television to
Cambodian parents and their children."
- Julie Benyo, Director of Educational
Outreach at WGBH
Over the last few years, the importance of
early childhood education has gained recognition,
as research has shown that it can significantly
reduce dropout rates in primary school. Yet,
access to quality early childhood education
in Cambodia remains extremely limited and
less than 15% of Cambodian children attend
pre-school.
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Parents
and children experimenting
together during a live action
shot in a Peep and the
Big Wide World episode.
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In a unique partnership, World Education
and WGBH television are using educational
television to prepare Cambodian children
between 3 and 8-years-old for primary school.
Despite widespread poverty in Cambodia, over
90% of the population has regular access
to television. As communities often share
a television and families watch together,
television seemed a natural way to reach
parents and their children. Currently, almost
all TV programs in Cambodia are targeted
to adult viewers. Educational television
can help children develop problem-solving
skills, improve vocabulary, and learn new
activities. For parents and teachers, it
can provide a concrete example of the type
of interactions that best promote children's
early development.
As part of the Cambodia Educational Media
Initiative, World Education is leveraging
WGBH's resources and expertise to use media
in Cambodia to promote quality education.
According to Julie Benyo, Director of Education
Outreach at WGBH, "World Education and
WGBH have found real synergy in how we can
work together to educate children and parents."During
the early stages of the partnership, World
Education found that Peep and the Big
Wide World, a production of WGBH, was
popular with Cambodian children and well-aligned
with the Ministry of Education's national
learning standards.
Peep and the Big Wide World is the
first media project in Cambodia to be developed
by a panel of more than ten national Early
Childhood Education experts and the Ministry
of Education. It is based on a curriculum
targeted solely to preschoolers to help them
develop the essential skills they will need
by the time they enter primary school. After
launching Peep in 2007, research
demonstrated the positive learning impact
of the series on young Cambodian children
and how it prepared them for school. Findings
suggested that pre-schoolers who watched Peep not
only love the show, but tend to demonstrate
greater skills in problem solving, perseverance,
curiosity, and experimenting compared to
children who had not seen Peep.
WGBH originally produced Peep in
the United States with the goal of preparing
young children for school. The series features
a chicken named Peep, a robin named
Chirp, and a duck named Quack living in a
large urban park. Episodes consist of two
animated stories that explore specific science
concepts, each of which is paired with a
live-action film presenting real children
playing and experimenting.
In order to adapt Peep for a Cambodian
audience, World Education dubbed the animated
material into Khmer and filmed new live-action
scenes with Cambodian children and parents.
When parents watch, they learn how to better
engage their children in learning and nurture
their curiosity. The theme song was even
modified to reflect Khmer style and WGBH
was thrilled with the final product, "They
kept the spirit and the flavor, but totally
made it theirs,"notes Julie Benyo. This
spring, World Education and WGBH are re-broadcasting Peep
and the Big Wide World for the second
year in Cambodia.
The Cambodia Educational Media Initiative
receives funding from UNICEF and technical
assistance from the Early Childhood Education
Department of the Ministry of Education.
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