The New Generation School Program is an educational program with high educational standards, strict evaluation criteria, and a curriculum appropriate for the 21st century in Cambodia. Teachers, principals, and schools are evaluated once every year. In the recruitment process, teachers undergo a clear interview process based on selecting teachers with quality educational qualifications. In performing their duties, teachers receive incentive payments, scholarships for further study, opportunities for study visits both domestically and internationally, as well as other teaching and learning programs that support teachers in developing their competencies.
Regarding study hours, students are required to study 36 hours per week at the primary level and 40 hours per week at the secondary level because the program has added more instructional hours for each subject. For example, in general schools, Physics and Chemistry are taught for three hours per week combined, whereas in New Generation Schools, Physics is allocated three hours and Chemistry three hours separately for secondary education. This situation causes students to study both morning and evening from Monday to Friday, including Saturday mornings, and also leads teachers to teach more hours as well.
In addition, teachers are required to prepare lesson plans that incorporate innovative teaching methods appropriate to Cambodia’s 21st-century education context. These may include student-centered approaches, inquiry-based learning, constructivist learning, project-based work, study clubs, educational field trips, practical experiments to verify theories from textbooks, the use of 21st-century libraries, and the integration of technology for teaching and learning. Practical applications are also implemented in subjects such as Home Economics, where students practice cooking, as well as life-skills education such as vegetable gardening and fruit cultivation.
New Generation Schools are also required to use computer programs for education in order to improve effectiveness in administration, teaching, learning, and assessment. Certain programs have been designated by the Ministry for this purpose, such as Literatu and 3D Classroom SMAS programs. Moreover, teachers are required to carry out new forms of work, strict professional responsibilities based on standards, restrictions on unofficial income generation, and heavier workloads than they expected, especially for newly recruited teachers in the New Generation School Program (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, 2018).
At the same time, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has established policies on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education to enhance knowledge and competencies in these fields and strengthen the education sector in Cambodia (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, 2016). The Ministry has also established Teacher Professional Standards as an important tool and benchmark for teacher training program developers and for planning teacher capacity development (Department of Teacher Training and Professional Development, 2010). Furthermore, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport has provided greater autonomy and funding for the selection of “New Generation Schools” with the aim of promoting innovation in curriculum, teaching, and resource utilization to improve learning outcomes and prepare students for the 21st-century labor market (Donaher & Wu, 2020).
In the teaching and learning process, there are newly recruited teachers who have just graduated from teacher training institutions, as well as experienced teachers who are newly employed in the New Generation School Program. In reality, they often face challenges and have different needs during their daily professional duties.
There have been many studies conducted in foreign contexts regarding the challenges and needs of new teachers in their respective educational settings, indicating that new teachers frequently encounter difficulties in their daily work. New teachers have left programs that were believed to be beneficial and well-prepared for students (Lew & Nelson, 2016). Similarly, new teachers encounter their first professional assignments in contexts that present obstacles to achieving their goals with diverse groups of students (Athanases & Oliveira, 2008). Other researchers have also shown that in recent years there have been reports of a significant increase in the number of teachers leaving the profession after their first three years of employment (Fantilli & McDougall, 2009). This phenomenon has attracted attention, and it is necessary for educators to identify the challenges surrounding new teachers and provide support to help them.
For new teachers who lack the ability to respond to social advancement and the influx of diverse cultures, they often face challenges in classroom teaching, curriculum implementation, work performance, evaluation, and workload. These factors contribute to new teachers leaving the profession after only two to three years of teaching experience (Lew & Nelson, 2016). Furthermore, another opinion stated that newly recruited teachers who lack experience in a new working environment often experience anxiety and stress, which may lead them to leave the program due to insufficient support, care, and attention from school administration, lack of professional development opportunities, and difficulties dealing with classroom management issues (Dias-Lacy & Guirguis, 2017).
Likewise, the departure of new teachers who face daily work challenges during the beginning of their careers, including heavy workloads and the need to meet students’ demands, has been identified by researchers as causing stress, hardship, and emotional exhaustion, which can result in professional failure and repeated teacher recruitment. Therefore, they require support from pedagogical mentors. In addition, teacher attrition creates a negative image within the education sector and leads to economic costs. Authorities in the United States estimated that more than two billion US dollars are spent on recruiting replacement teachers for those leaving the profession (Harris & Hanley, 2004).
Although there has been progress in teaching and learning within Cambodia’s education sector, research on the challenges and needs of newly recruited teachers in the New Generation School Program at the upper secondary level has not yet been conducted until now. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a study on this topic in order to identify the factors contributing to the challenges and needs faced by new teachers in the New Generation School Program. Such findings can serve as a foundation for providing encouragement and targeted support that appropriately addresses the challenges and needs they experience, thereby contributing to the success of the mission and vision of the New Generation School (NGS) Program.
