The 2026 China-ASEAN STEM Teacher Training Program brought 43 Cambodian school principals and educators to Southwest China’s Guizhou province to study how regional geography, infrastructure, and culture can be integrated into everyday classroom science and mathematics lessons, according to reports from China Daily.
Cambodian Educators Explore Guizhou Infrastructure for STEM Lessons
Running from July 30 to August 6, 2026, the professional development initiative was hosted by Qiannan Normal University for Nationalities (QNUN) as a key event of the 2026 China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week. Traveling through the karst mountains of the Qiannan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture, participants examined how local physical landscapes and massive engineering projects can serve as active learning materials.
During a field visit to the Pingtang Bridge in Pingtang county—which stands more than 300 meters above the valley below and features the world’s tallest concrete bridge tower—educators studied the structural engineering behind the regional transit challenge. According to participant Kith Sokunthy, a mathematics teacher, the experience transformed her perspective on everyday environments. “Back in Cambodia, we had seen projects like this before, but we never looked at them from a STEM perspective,” she stated, noting that the program revealed science and mathematics in familiar surroundings.
Shifting Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and Classroom Workloads
The training combined lectures on artificial intelligence with hands-on lesson design and institutional visits. Yin Soriya, a teacher at Mekong Science, an online school, who participated in the delegation, initially worried that students might leverage AI tools to cheat on their assignments. After a week of lectures and group discussions, however, his view evolved. He came to see artificial intelligence as a tool whose educational value relies directly on proper teacher guidance, according to China Daily reports.
At Duyun No 2 Primary School, visiting instructors observed younger students engaging with smart boards for game-based assessments. Older students participated in after-school robotics and mathematics clubs designed to link academic knowledge to practical applications. Kith noted particular interest in how the host school managed to reduce the students’ homework load while maintaining strong academic performance, offering a practical model for managing student stress.
Localized Approaches to Curriculum Development
Program team leader and QNUN associate professor Zhang Xiaodong distributed cards to participants during field trips, prompting them to record their observations and think about how those observations could be developed into classroom projects. According to Zhang, the curriculum aims to leverage the rich cultural resources inherent to every country, encouraging teachers to draw on their own communities to ground abstract theories in tangible experiences.