Day: July 2, 2023

Political parties in Cambodia began their election campaigns on July 1, seizing the opportunity to rally voters’ support for the upcoming National Assembly election, which is scheduled to take place on July 23.

Among the 18 eligible political parties participating in the election, four organised rallies and processions along various streets in the capital city of Phnom Penh, namely the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the Khmer National United Party (KNUP), the Khmer Anti-Poverty Party (KAPP), and the Khmer United Party (KUP).

According to the regulations of the National Election Committee (NEC), the election campaign activities will take place over a period of three weeks, from July 1-27, during which each political party is allowed to organise a maximum of four processions and must register them in advance with the local authorities.

In the upcoming election, 17 political parties will contest with the ruling CPP in the race.

Cambodia holds a general election every five years, with the latest held on July 29, 2018./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

The Philippine economy “returns to its high-growth” trajectory, supported by a strong labour market performance and cooling inflation, Secretary of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Arsenio Balisacan has said.

Balisacan said the country has seen robust gross domestic product (GDP) growth, with output expanding by 7.7% in Q3 2022, 7.1% in Q4 2022, and 6.4% in the first quarter of this year.

The 2022 full-year growth average is at 7.6%, exceeding the government’s target of 6.5-7.5%, while real GDP per capita surpassed the pre-pandemic level in the fourth quarter of 2022, said Balisacan.

In the labour market, the unemployment rate fell to 4.5% in April 2023, down from 5.7% in April 2022, while the underemployment rate also fell to 12.9% from 14% in the same period, indicating improved quality of jobs.

Meanwhile, the inflation has steadily moderated, from “a peak of” 8.7% in January to 6.1% in May. The central bank has expected inflation to return to the 2 to 4% target by the fourth quarter of 2023.

Balisacan acknowledged that these indicators paint a promising picture of a sustained recovery for 2023.

According to the official, the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a number of socioeconomic setbacks, including the higher national debt, fiscal deficit, as well as social and economic scarring in terms of learning losses, business closures, and record levels of unemployment. However, the government is working to diversify the country’s sources of growth by expanding its markets, raising productivity, and enhancing the value added for its products and services./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency

Vietnam understands the value of education and manages its teachers well, British weekly newspaper The Economist wrote in a recent article.

The article noted that Vietnamese children go through one of the best schooling systems in the world, a status reflected in outstanding performances in international assessments of reading, maths and science.

It cited the latest data from the World Bank which shows that, on aggregate learning scores, Vietnamese students outperform not only their counterparts in Malaysia and Thailand but also those in the UK and Canada, countries more than six times richer. Even in Vietnam itself, student scores do not exhibit the scale of inequality so common elsewhere between the genders and different regions.

The author assessed that the distinctive secret of Vietnam’s stellar performance lies in the classroom: its children learn more at school, especially in the early years.

The article cited a 2020 study by Abhijeet Singh of the Stockholm School of Economics, which gauged the greater productivity of Vietnam’s schools by examining data from identical tests taken by students in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam. Accordingly, between the ages of five and eight Vietnamese children race ahead. One more year of education in Vietnam increases the probability that a child can solve a simple multiplication problem by 21 percentage points; in India the uplift is six points.

Vietnamese schools, unlike those in other poor countries, have improved over time, said the paper. The biggest reason is the calibre of local teachers, it noted, adding that they are not necessarily better qualified but simply more effective at teaching.

“Vietnam’s teachers do their job well because they are well-managed. They receive frequent training and are given the freedom to make classes more engaging. To tackle regional inequality, those posted to remote areas are paid more. Most important, teacher assessment is based on the performance of their students.”

In addition, it wrote that provinces are required to spend 20% of their budgets on education, which has helped regional equity. That the Communist Party of Vietnam pays such close and relentless attention also ensures that policies are adjusted to update curriculums and teaching standards.

“All this has reaped rich rewards. As schools have improved, so has Vietnam’s economy,” concluded the article./.

Source: Vietnam News Agency