Prime Minister Hun Sen Proposes More Layman Schools

By Soy Sophea

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has asked the Ministry of Cults and Religions to set
up more layman schools in order to meet ever increasing demands.

The Premier made the proposal while attending an inauguration ceremony in Ang Snoul district, Kandal province. In his opinion, the situation is about to become critical. “It is a real shortfall, so the Ministry of Cults and Religions has to take the problem into account,” he added.

The Prime Minister Hun Sen added that there are shortages of laymen who customarily attend weddings and Buddhist ceremonies. Some of them are not really properly qualified to play a meaningful role in the ceremonies.

“What I am saying does not to look down on monks or Buddhism; on the contrary, it promotes religion,” he said. The Premier said that the lack of laymen was unusual for Cambodia. However,
he was not slow to declare it as an “emergency throughout the country”.

He said that the obligations of fullest extent as they are connected to important occasions in an individual’s life such as weddings or cremations. He said that some laymen are overstretched with work and like everybody else, they sometimes fall foul of traffic jams, leaving the ceremony’s host in trouble.

Dork Narin, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Cults and Religions, said that the ministry will study the possibility of creating more layman schools. He said that there are two kinds of laymen; ones who are responsible for pagodas, weddings and cremations; others are responsible for teaching monks at Buddhist schools.

Referring to laymen teaching monks, he said, “We need at least 1,000 laymen. This puts the current problem into perspective as currently we have less than a hundred of them.”

He said that although Cambodia does not have any specific schools for laymen as yet, the existing laymen are sufficiently knowledgeable to practice Cambodian traditions and customs appropriately. He added that usually the layman learns from the previous generation and the position has thus become largely hereditary. He said that a layman can earn a healthy living
given the increase of marriages.

But he refused to mention how much those marriage laymen earn. Cambodia has 4,000 pagodas
with at least six laymen attached to each.