Dy Kuchsa Won Gold Medal for Cambodia

NEWS FROM CAMBODIA

Khemara Jati
Montréal, Québec
April, 20th, 2006

Dy Kuchsa won gold medal for Cambodia in science at IJSO - his international achievement for Cambodia is underappreciated by the gov't

Dy Kuchsa, recipient of the IJSO gold medal, proudly displays his medal and his award certificate. (Photo: Kim Poeuv Sotan, RFA)

Kuchsa (R) and his father (L) at their home. They expressed their deception to the fact that Cambodia has only shown a token appreciation of Kuchsa's international feat. For his achievement, which could not even be emulated by Thailand and Vietnam, and in spite of the lacking in his study, Kuchsa said that the Cambodian ministry of education had provided him only a meager $250 encouragement prize. (Photo: Kim Poeuv Sotan, RFA)

Cambodian student won gold medal in science at IJSO

19 April 2006
By Kim Poeuv Sotan
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by KI-Media

Cheers and applauds exploded during the announcement of the gold medal recipient for Dy Kuchsa, a young man from Cambodia, one of the world’s poorest country, who was honored for his participation in the international science contest.

Dy Kuchsa just received his gold medal in the science contest which lasted 10 days in Indonesia organized by the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO), in which physics, chemistry, and biology tests were administered to youths under 16 coming from all over the world for 10 days in December of last year.

Kuchsa proudly showed his gold medal and his award certificate, saying he could not believe he obtained them for himself, his family, and for Cambodia.

Kuchsa said: “After receiving the gold medal, I am very happy and proud of myself, my family, and the country … because our neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Thailand did not receive the gold medal.”

Dy Kuchsa’s father who was sitting next to him added: “… before my son left, we were worried once already … near his return, the ministry of education told us in advance that his name featured among those who received the gold medal. Before we even saw our son’s face, we were already happy … in the future, we need to find the means to have him continue his study…”

Dy Kuchsa, 16, is a student from Tuol Tompoung high school in Phnom Penh. His father is a former soldier and his mother is a cake seller. He lives in an old and cramped wooden house in Beung Keng Kang district, Khan Chamkar Mon, Phnom Penh.

Every morning, Kuchsa wakes up very early to study and do his homework. Besides going to class and attending some minimal tutoring classes, Kuchsa reserves the bulk of his day to self-study such as doing research and practicing by himself.

Kuchsa said: “… in general, I do not go out much, I save most of my time to study at home. I take minimum tutoring classes, I save time to study at home and practice with books and correct myself with answers notebooks.”

Thlang Sang Dy, Kuchsa’s father, is the one credited for contributing the most to his son’s study. He said that he prevented his son from watching TV, and he follows his son to school, and provides him with all his needs in his study.

Thlang Sang Dy said: “We pay attention to him, we are close to him, we encourage him to study hard and we explain to him that study will provide good results, because in the end, he would not have to do hard labor. We took him to see laborers working very hard such as cyclo people, people who had to dig earth, we explained to him that he had to study hard then his life would not be as hard [as that of a laborer], and he should not watch TV, or waste time to go out…”

The 10-day contest in Indonesia took place last December, and was participated by 196 contestants coming from 36 countries in the world, including European and Asian countries.

Gold medals were obtained by China, South Korea, Indonesia, Russia, Croatia, Brunei, and Cambodia also received this honor. However, Vietnam, the UK, Thailand, and France did not receive any gold medal in the science contest.

Kuchsa said that this was unbelievable because his study in school concentrates mainly on theory and he never had any real experimental practice since public schools do not have experimental equipments for students.

Kuchsa said: “Even though we do not have any experimental equipment, we can still obtain a gold medal. If we were to have them, we would be even more advanced than other countries. During the first test, I did not have much hope, the most I can dream of is a bronze medal because I heard that the level of education [in other countries] is much higher than ours … I was worried about contestants from Europe, for example those from the UK, they are usually very strong. I suggest to the teachers to concentrate on both the theory and experiments, they are both useful because in science, the theoretical study alone is not sufficient, we need to have experiments, we need to know how to do everything by ourselves…”

Even though obtaining the gold medal at the IJSO is recognized as an international feat in Indonesia, in Cambodia, the ministry of education had only provided a token encouragement prize of 1 million riels (US$250) to Kuchsa.

Kuchsa and his father said that they are deceived that there is not much encouragement for Kuchsa in Cambodia [on his achievement], they also said that they do not hold much hope for what is in store for them in the future.

Posted by Khemara Jati