As you may have gathered over the last few months I am not doing things the way I am expected to - or indeed the way I expected to. I now talk to those who are here, listen to what they want and try to support them in giving it. Most of my colleagues still present themselves - I don't.

When I am in Kampong Speu Bunthorn often presents but alongside someone from the POE. Here in Kep I haven't time to work with Sitha so he can present - shame really as I think he would be excellent. He has that certain presence that mean people listen to you. So I sat with the DOEs and they are both giving training on the Expected School Standards this week.

Sarak was very good this morning and no-one would disagree with the expected standards. He worked with the participants and really expected them to take part. It was at a good level and most of those in the room were involved.

Just as I said to myself, "wow this is going well!"

He asked a simple question - "These are the minimum standards expected - what does minimum mean?'

The answer he got was "quality" - it was obvious that many of those in the room did not understand the concept of minimum - I must stress it was all in Khmer - it was the concept of minimum that was the issue not the language.

The main issue with education within Cambodia at the moment isn't resources - (although these can be very bad at times) curriculum (not great but not bad) or indeed corruption (not saying anything there) it is the lack of educated people to educate the people. I am sure I have said it already in my blog but when genocide takes all those who are educated, those that are ambitious and those that have/ are skilled, it takes more than one generation to recover. Older teachers here were untrained - because there was no-one to train them. Now teachers are being trained but often by untrained trainers. NGOs come in but do not speak Khmer so…………

I will get off my hobby horse and finish by saying - all now know what minimum means and I think I can say, "WOW that was good!!)