The Importance of a High School in a Poor Community

In a world which is full of competition, education is very important. Higher education helps people to get more opportunities to gain employment. Due to the lack of high schools in my community, most students cannot get further education. In fact, most of them finish their educational life in primary or secondary schools, which is considered as a very low level, and unacceptable for most of the firms or organizations. Consequently, they are never able to compete with students in the city, whose education is at a much higher level, where there are many schools, businesses, and jobs. With their educational level, most of them can only get jobs that require manual labor such as being a construction worker, garment factory worker, goods carrier, land digger, stone breaker, etc. Therefore, in my opinion, if a new high school was to be built in my community, it would provide several advantages for all its students.


Firstly, the new high school will give a chance to students in my community to access higher education and to get further education at university if that is what they desire. According to the general education system in Cambodia, students are supposed to finish high school before entering any faculty or university. High school is like a bridge that leads students to a world of universities. Therefore, the students have a chance to study in a faculty if they complete high school. However, if they are unable to continue their studies after high school, they can still find many kinds of jobs which require high school completion. Therefore, the new high school would be a great addition for the people in my community.

Secondly, the school will discourage students to quit their educational life so early. If there is a high school available in their village, it would be less difficult for them to go to school. Generally, in rural Cambodia, if students want to continue their studies in high school, they must travel a long way, sometimes around ten kilometers from their villages to schools. For those who have bicycles, this would not a problem. However, most of the students in my community walk to school because of their poor living standard, thus it must be very difficult for them. Also, if a high school existed in our community, the students would look at their educational life in a broader way as they would find less barriers to prevent them from extending their education. As a result, the presence of a new high school within our community would be a factor to encourage students to strive for higher education.

Finally, building a new high school in a place where standards of education are still very low, would help develop the community since it will improve the quality of education and create better human resources for the future. Best of all, it helps to reduce poverty and improve the living conditions of the people in that community.

In short, building a high school is very important because it will make positive changes to my community, particularly extending educational life of people, their job competitiveness, improving their living standards and reducing their poverty. Therefore, I fully support this plan as the first priority for development in my community.