Our connection to the public school system
Why are some of our beneficiaries studying in public schools ?
When a family requests to join PSE and have their children registered, our social team will confirm that they are matching our criterias, and analyze their needs.
PSE offers a lot of different programs, and all the beneficiaries meet each program criteria that we provide them, and that’s the same for education.
To know more about our social team work, read our article: https://www.pse.ngo/humanitarian-association/working-our-beneficiaries-core-mission-social-team
If our pedagogy and social team realize that the level of a child matches his or her age, we will highly recommend them to register to study in public school, with our support.
Indeed, PSE is not trying to replace public school, but to support children with a big gap with their school level to take intensive remedial school with our teachers to reach it and, when possible, join the public schooling path.
Some children never went to school before. If so, they join our remedial school without level evaluation. But the majority of the children joining PSE already went to school at some point, and some are even already studying in a public school. If so, we don’t disturb their schooling path, and support them financially to pursue, and provide a close follow-up.
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Studying outside of the campus, but still supported by our social team
In 2025, PSE supported more than 4 000 children, from 6 to 18, to study in public school, for a cost of 29 dollars per year per student, as an average. At school, they wear either a PSE uniform, or a public school uniform with PSE logo that we request to add on it.
PSE social team has Students Engagement Officers, especially dedicated to follow-up with our beneficiaries studying in public schools.
Every week, they check the student’s situation : their absenteeism, their exam results. If they have a problem at school (to catch up with the class, bullying problem, wanting to drop out…) our team is available to listen to them, try to find a solution, and even set up a study plan for extra educational support. Indeed, PSE provides an extra-class program for around 500 students in grade 7 to 12.
After school, PSE provides extra classes of English on our campus, in collaboration with Westline, for the students who are able to join on their own after their school day.
To know more about this program : https://www.pse.ngo/education/evening-english-classes
“Concretely, if some of them want to drop out, we provide counseling, if their academic level is getting lower, we support them… We have many ways to answer their needs, and make sure not to leave them behind.”
Sinoun, Social Operations Manager
Our officers provide individual support, visiting the students at the school, and at home as well, even though most of these students live very far away from Phnom Penh.
Indeed, our challenge today is that a lot of children supported in public school are very far away from us, and sometimes there are only one or two PSE students in each school. It makes it also more difficult to provide support programs like supplementary classes on our campus for example.
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And after public school ?
When they reach grade 12, we don’t decide the next steps for them. Indeed, we provide orientation support from our orientation team, and discuss their wish to pursue their studies or not, depending on their academic level as well.
If they want to go to university, we can keep supporting them, after a check on their situation matching our criteria, and their exam levels to make sure that they will be less likely to drop out.