In Cambodia's Floating Villages, Students Pilot Their Own School Boats
Cambodian children in floating villages navigate Tonle Sap lake by boat to school, but rising fuel prices and economic pressures are pushing some to drop out.
On Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake, daily life revolves around water. For schoolchildren in the floating village of Kampong Prahok, that means a boat ride to class.
Most mornings, a gas-powered boat weaves through the stilted and floating homes, with students—some no older than their passengers—taking turns at the helm. They pull up alongside houses where classmates in neat uniforms step aboard, carefully shielding their backpacks from the water.
The routine, however, is becoming harder to sustain. Rising fuel prices, driven in part by the Iran war, have made the commute more expensive. Some families, already stretched thin, are pulling their children out of school to work and help make ends meet.
The strain extends beyond households. Governments across Asia, facing tight budgets, are struggling to fund education programs and school meal initiatives that have been crucial in keeping millions of children in classrooms.
For now, the boat still runs each morning, carrying young learners across the lake—but the cost of that journey is climbing, and with it, the risk that some may not make the trip at all.