Country: 24 provinces, 185 districts, 1,621 communes, 13,886 villages
Population: 14.1 million
Capital: Phnom Penh
Ethnic groups: Khmer 90 percent, Chinese and Vietnamese, small numbers of Mon Khmer hill tribes, Chams, Burmese.
Head of state: King Norodom Sihamoni
Head of government: Prime Minister Hun Sen
Legislative body: Bicameral parliament consisting of the National Assembly with 122 members (17% are women) and the Senate with 61 members (18% are women).

Most Cambodians consider themselves to be Khmers, whose Angkor Empire extended over much of Southeast Asia and reached its zenith between the 10th and 13th centuries. Subsequently, attacks by the Thai and Cham (from present-day Vietnam) weakened the empire ushering in a long period of decline. In 1863, the king of Cambodia placed the country under French protection; it became part of French Indochina in 1887. Following Japanese occupation in World War II, Cambodia became independent within the French Union in 1949 and fully independent in 1953. After a five-year struggle, Communist Khmer Rouge forces captured Phnom Penh in April 1975 and ordered the evacuation of all cities and towns; at least 1 million Cambodians died from execution, enforced hardships, or starvation during the Khmer Rouge regime under Pol Pot. A December 1978 Vietnamese invasion drove the Khmer Rouge into the countryside, led to a 10-year Vietnamese occupation, and touched off almost 13 years of civil war. The 1991 Paris Peace Accords mandated democratic elections and a ceasefire, which was not fully respected by the Khmer Rouge. UN-sponsored elections in 1993 helped restore some semblance of normalcy and the final elements of the Khmer Rouge surrendered in early 1999. Factional fighting in 1997 ended the first coalition government, but a second round of national elections in 1998 led to the formation of another coalition government and renewed political stability. The July 2003 elections were relatively peaceful, but it took one year of negotiations between contending political parties before a coalition government was formed. Nation-wide local elections are scheduled for 2007 and national elections for 2008.

Education in Cambodia was traditionally offered by wats (Buddhist temples), thus providing education exclusively for the male population. The 1917 Law on Education passed by the French colonial government introduced a basic primary and secondary education system modeled on the French system. After independence a universal education system was established, complemented by the development of a network of vocational colleges such as the School of Health (1953), the Royal School of Administration (1956), the College of Education (1959), the National School of Commerce (1958) and the National Institute of Judicial, Political and Economic Studies (1961). However, apart from a Buddhist University established in 1954 to provide education for monks, Cambodia had no public institution of higher education until 1960s when the Khmer Royal University was founded. When the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975, they abolished education, systematically destroying teaching materials, textbooks and publishing houses. Schools and universities were closed and their buildings put to other uses. During this period large numbers of qualified teachers, researchers and technicians either fled the country or died. When the new Cambodian government came to power in 1979 it had to completely reconstruct the entire education system. Pre-school, primary and secondary schools were first to reappear, followed by non-formal education for adults and a network of colleges and universities. The constitution of Cambodia now promulgates free compulsory education for nine years, ensuring the universal right to basic quality education. The Cambodian education system is organized in a decentralized manner, with three levels of government - central, provincial and district - responsible for its management. The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports is responsible for establishing national policies and guidelines.

For a grahical representation of Cambodia's education system, click here.