New Hope of Children Association

The Cambodian education system is struggling. The education system has never recovered from the Khmer Rouge's systematic destruction of infrastructure. Since 2007, Cambodia has made strides in the right direction, including doubling preschool enrollment rates. Yet they still struggle. At the primary level, nearly 25% of children in Grade 3 cannot write a single word in a dictation test. Only 27 % of 3 to 5-year-olds are developmentally on track in literacy and numeracy, and by the time they are 17 years old, 55 % of adolescents will have dropped out of school.

Wikipedia: 

Due to a lack of resources and minimum government funding for schools, there is a shortage of teaching material and school facilities. According to UNESCO, merely 1.6% of Cambodia's GDP (gross domestic product) is spent on education. Even though the Cambodian government promises to provide $1.50-$1.75 per student per year to each primary school for teaching materials and operating costs, the sum is often insufficient to cover the basic operational cost of the schools. Teachers often have to use their own money to buy items like chalk.

Teachers in Cambodia earn US$120 to US$150 a month. They resort to collecting informal school fees of $0.02 to $0.05 per day from students to supplement their salaries. This is for teachers in the city only, and it is spreading to some of the provincial ones. This further deters children from attending schools as they cannot afford to pay for the informal school fees. With an average of three children per household in Cambodia, the informal school fees will add up to a significant amount, making it almost impossible for parents to send their children to school. Though there are efforts by the Cambodia government to promise free provision of education, the collection of informal school fees is a huge deterrence for children to attend school. 

Close to 20% of Cambodian children ages 5–9 are employed. The figures then rise to 47% for children between ages 10–14 and 34% for ages 15–17. Among the number of working children of ages 5 to 17, only 45% have the chance to attend school. 

Why they Need English (which is not taught in public school):

The low 40% enrolment rate at secondary level and 5% at tertiary level has caused the majority of the Cambodian population not being able to converse in English, which is the common language used in the commercial industries.

Bill Hayden, Australian's foreign minister said in 1983 that "the only way for Australia to help Cambodia in the reconstruction is to help them to learn English", so that they can request aid, access modern technology and the commercial world, as well as share knowledge to help Cambodia develop.