A 2019 study by the Minority Rights Organization among 301 ethnic Vietnamese respondents in four provinces found that only two percent of children accessed public schools.84 While more affluent urban members of this community are likely to have better access to schools, this statistic points to a deep-rooted problem of exclusion and denial of rights. This situation has not significantly improved since. Similarly, in the RWI study cited earlier, the majority of children from adult respondents in the study were either not in school or visited occasional informal community schooling, including at missionary schools.85 Field research by the NGOs Khmer Community Development (KCD) and Women Peace Makers (WPM), including in other geographical areas, confirms such findings.86 Even for the few who were let into public primary school without a birth certificate due to local level discretion, it was almost impossible to move on to secondary school without a Cambodian birth certificate. WPM interventions also found respondents reporting discrimination at school due to their minority status.87 Civil society interventions supported some creative workarounds to enable children of Vietnamese origin to access public primary school. While most local authorities refuse to officially register the birth of ethnic Vietnamese children, some local authorities had begun issuing simple letters attesting to a child’s birth in Cambodia (from parents with PRCs) that parents then used to enrol a child into a public primary school. There has been some work carried out to upscale these initial pilot experiences in Kandal and Kampong Chhnang provinces. While these workarounds may provide some shortterm relief, more official documentation is required when children seek to move on to secondary school. The field observations also indicate that long-term exclusion from educational and labour market opportunities has affected the attitudes of many parents in the communities toward education more generally. Many no longer value the importance of education and instead involve their children in livelihood or income-generating activities. Some parents are so poor that they feel they can no longer send their children to school. Overall, the non-registration of births remains a significant challenge to accessing public education in affected communities, as they cannot prove birth on Cambodian territory, thereby perpetuating educational disadvantages and statelessness over 83 See Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Women Peace Makers (2024) ‘Rights to Education and their Interrelationship with Legal Identity and Statelessness in Cambodia’, Roundtable Briefing Paper, Phnom Penh, 6 June 2024. 84 Minority Rights Organization, ‘General Condition of Education for Stateless Ethnic Vietnamese Children in Cambodia’, May 2019. 85 RWI Scoping Study 2023. 86 WPM Voice and Visibility 2024. 87 WPM Making the Space 2022. 24