This paper examines the current Cambodia's educational policies, basic education commitment, and performance. The article also attempts to investigate educational improvement measures based on fieldwork observation and interview with senior government officials, international consultants, and provincial education directors, conducted in November 2003. The author observes that increasing numbers of participation in the six-year primary education level were remarkable during the late 1990s, however, lingering low retention rates within the constitutionally defined nine-year basic education level is a growing concern among stakeholders over insufficient number of trained teachers and higher-grade schools, educational contents, limited learning and teaching materials, and a lack of intervention policy from the central administration.