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They possess an uncanny ability to regurgitate memorised lines in multiple languages in an effort to squeeze out a few laughs and perhaps a few dollars from besieged tourists, but without the basic fundamentals of a quality education, it's questionable how far these street smarts will take Cambodia's kids.
On a recent trip to Cambodia, my travelling partner and I were constantly harassed by street kids trying to sell tacky trinkets or squeeze us for a few dollars. Sure, we felt like grazing gazelles on the African savannah being constantly stalked by hungry hyenas, but it was hard not to succumb to the street kids' wily charm.
After chatting with a few of these little guys, we discovered that they were full of untapped potential, and we're sure if given half a chance they'd have bright futures. Shame is those opportunities rarely arise. Here's a little snapshot of our experience:
As our motorboat skips along the river surface past the floating village of Chong Keas, a group of skinny kids joke around on the steep muddy banks, dive-bombing into the thick, brown water below. As they swim through the water, it's as if they're splashing about in one of Willy Wonka's chocolate streams while their Oompa Loompa-sized mothers hop up and down on wooden houseboat patios, calling them to do their chores.
We cannot think about raising standards in our schools if we think that teachers don't deserve incentives and rewards for better performance.
In Australia, we are fortunate to have many outstanding and dedicated teachers.
It has meant we have many successful schools and by international standards, a better than good education system.
But given our governments invest billions of dollars of public funds into our education system each year; Australians deserve a system that is better than good.
We can do better.
If we want to improve our standard of living, our productivity and our society, then it is crucial that we confront some of the key challenges facing our education system, including our long tail of students failing in literacy and numeracy, our sub-standard and over-crowded curriculum and our looming teacher shortage and quality crisis.
All of these problems are inextricably linked. Without the top performing teachers teaching the best curriculum, we have lower standards, get poorer student outcomes and have fewer top performing teachers being attracted into classrooms in the first place.
We need Government to understand that Aboriginal stories aren't all of crisis and despair, but also of growth and renewal.
In February this year the Western Australian Coroner Mr Alistair Hope, handed down his findings into tragedy caused by the abuse of drugs and alcohol in the Kimberly region, and again the focus of mainstream media and many of our politicians was narrowed.
The problem being, when their vision narrows they lose sight of all the other stories that are going on, stories of hope and rebirth and opportunity.
We are facing a crisis of drugs and despair which is decades old, but we are also experiencing a renaissance that is decades old. If you look at the mainstream media you'd be forgiven for thinking what the entire indigenous nation is in a state of complete collapse, when in fact through out the country indigenous people are standing up and using the power of education to retell their past and take control of their future.
Let's face it, you ever only realise how fundamental your home grammar is when you study another language, especially one from a vastly different cultural or civilization bailiwick.
Prime Minister Rudd's personal interest in Asia and his two recent trips to the region have highlighted the importance to Australia of understanding why people think and act the way they do there. In Japan in mid-June, Mr. Rudd mentioned that he'd like to see Australia become, over time, the most Asia-literate country in the world.
That's an admirable aim, especially after the damaging slippage in Asian studies over the past decade. But we have a lot of work to do even to point in the right direction, let alone come anywhere near to achieving such a reasonable goal.
A key shaper of public opinion on these matters is the media. If reporters and commentators don't bother to get the names of the region's top people and places correct, opting instead for their own imagined pronunciation, then Australians will be left feeling that it's not a challenge worth taking seriously.
No matter how you look at it, our future will be built on a skilled workforce.
At a time when employers are finding it increasingly difficult to source the skills they need to get the economy moving, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to invest in the dramatic upskilling of our workforce to defend ourselves against, and benefit from, the emerging economic giants to our north.
We have the advantage of being first movers, we already have the tertiary eduction structures in place, but our neighbours are investing massively in improving their education market, and we should be looking at moving further up the value chain to retain competitive advantage.
What is very important is that the prosperity we are enjoying now was built on the educational achievements of our predecessors. For the economy to prosper we need to ensure that those who are going into the workforce have first had access to excellent schooling, so they are ready to take on the challenges and learn throughout their lives.
Putting HECS payments into a trust fund and potentially rolling them over into superannuation may help to slow or prevent the "Brain Drain" from Australia.
There has been much talk about the HECS debt burden placed on students and how much it impacts on their lives. However, Australia suffers another problem with many of our best graduates being drawn overseas to pursue careers because of better remuneration.
An alternative which might help to address both of these problems would be to maintain HECS fees in trust for a period of say ten years after graduation. After that time, if the graduate has residence and a job within Australia, the HECS monies plus interest are rolled into the graduate's superannuation fund.
If however the graduate is employed outside Australia by a foreign company, their initial HECS fee is retained by the government for the benefit of Australia.
The incentive of a potential boost to future superannuation benefits and the disincentive of losing this money if employment is pursued overseas might help to encourage more students into university courses and slow the brain-drain from Australia.
