Two selected communes, Sekong (Lun village) and Krang Teh, are dominated by Indigenous
People (IP) where the other two communes, Popok and Ta Lam, are inhibited by Khmer ethnic.
Sekong and Krang Teh are remote communes whereas Krasang and Ta Lam are rural communes.
Primary sources of income in all four communes are mostly from rice and other crop production.
Access to forest to collect non-timber forest products (NTFP) and hunting are very common for
remote villagers of Lun and Krang Teh whereas migration to urban areas is a common option to
generate alternative sources of income.
In general, in these communes, access to education is not much improved in recent years. Net
enrollment rate in these communes remained almost at the same level or slightly decreased for
the past four years, and dropout rate of all off the four visited schools increased compare to the
previous academic year (see Annex 1). There are a number of factors affecting the access to
education, including prevalence of poverty, out-migration, seasonality, poor infrastructure and
distance from school, irregular teaching schedules, unattractive school environment, low
awareness of educational benefits, etc. There is no gender discrimination or cultural barriers in
the access to education. In fact, the number of girls at visited primary schools was higher than
that of boys in all schools. However, there is a tradition that girls are usually married at a younger
age (14-15) and, the number of female dropouts at grade 5 and 6 is almost the same as boys. The
majority of boys dropout from school at grade 5 and 6 in order to look for employment.