Background on Cambodian education:
In the 1970's the Khmer Rouge obliterated the Cambodian educational system. While other totalitarian regimes targeted intellectuals, the Khmer Rouge was particularly ruthless in wiping them out. Within four years there were virtually no college graduates left in Cambodia and, since even the ability to read was threatening, few people with any level of education were left. When Cambodia emerged from civil war fifteen years later, money was sparse and expertise was even more sparse. As a stop gap measure, the ministry of education dictated that anyone could teach up to their level of education. In other words, those with a third grade education could teach up to third grade, those with a 6th grade education (the level that about half of Cambodians attain) could teach up to 6th grade, and so on. Currently about 80% of Cambodian teachers lack a bachelors degree and about 25% lack even a high school diploma. The brain drain is most acutely felt at institutions of higher education where most professors lack graduate degrees and many senior faculty were given jobs based on political status rather than qualifications. Even those with bachelors degrees often obtained them from institutions that would not meet accreditation standards in the West. The result is faculty from kindergarten through universities who don't know their content and have little or no training in effective teaching. When teachers don't know their content, they tend to rely on lecture and emphasize rote memorization. Not surprisingly, that is the dominant mode of instruction at all levels in Cambodia. Cambodian education is also rife with corruption. Teachers everywhere are chronically underpaid but Cambodian teachers are among the most poorly paid anywhere. Even at the top level of the pay scale, the monthly salary is nowhere near enough to pay rent let alone buy food or other basic necessities. Consequently, most teachers require bribes for virtually everything. Public school is supposed to be half a day in the mornings. Teachers often don't even show up until afternoon for their paid tutoring sessions. There are lots of little bribes for nearly everything which makes "public" education prohibitively expensive for many Cambodians.
Background on Cambodian Politics:
In 1977, Hun Sen, a member of the Khmer Rouge, defected to Vietnam. When the Vietnamese "liberated" Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge they installed Hun Sen as deputy prime minister. In 1985 Hun Sen became prime minister and he's been in power ever since making him one of the longest serving dicators in the world. Cambodia has elections every six years but the Cambodian People's Party (CPP) completely dominated the country until the 2013 elections. In 2013 several opposition parties joined forces to make a new party, the Cambodian National Reform Party (CNRP). The CNRP handed the CPP its first defeat in 25 years. Hun Sen, however, refused to relinquish power so there was a tense standoff before negotiations brought things to a semi-peaceful resolution (Hun Sen is still in power). The CPP realized that Cambodians are frustrated with the level of corruption among government officials and wanted to look like they were "reforming" the country. The least lucrative money-maker for the CPP is the education system so Hun Sen targeted it for reforms. He appointed a new minister of education, Dr. Hang Chuon Narong, who is genuinely interested in reforming the education system.
Current Educational Reforms:
One of Dr. Hang's first reforms was to implement a system to stop the rampant cheating on the high school completion exams. National exams were rewritten and teams of external observers monitored the exams to prevent cheating. Prior to this reform nearly all students scored top marks because they could buy answers to exam questions before the exams and as well as from the proctors during the exams. More than 70% of Cambodian students failed the national exams in 2014 so the exam was made easier for 2015. Even so only 56% passed in 2015. Dr. Hang recognizes that poor teaching contributes significantly to the low passing rates so he wants to reform teaching practices as well. In that light, he has organized committees to reform the curriculum to reflect current content and practice. Cambodian teams analyzed the national curricula of nearby countries (Thailand, Singapore, and Vietnam) before revising the national curriculum. UNICEF also provided funds to the Ministry or Education Youth and Sport to improve the skills of the provincial teacher trainers. The goal is to convert teacher training centers into colleges of education that offer two year degrees (post-bachelors). In order to do this, the teacher trainers need to have masters degree level training. Under the UNICEF- sponsored program, teacher trainers under the age of 40 who have potential for improvement are provided scholarships for approved content-specific masters programs focused on effective teaching.
The Royal University of Phnom Penh and my Fulbright Proposal
As it turned out, the UNICEF funding for teacher training institutes went to Khemarak University (a small private university that is walking distance from RUPP). The official reason was that the RUPP proposal was too expensive. It seems that Khemarak University may have had connections within the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport. This altered my plan somewhat. RUPP abandoned plans to implement discipline specific Masters programs and the graduate courses I was going to teach don't have a place within the existing masters programs. I met with John Friend Pereira of UNICEF and he introduced me to Dr. Kin Phea, the Vice Rector at Khemarak University. Dr. Kin worked me into the class schedule so I teach science methods every Saturday afternoon at Khemarak University. My inquiry methods class has been combined into my faculty development workshops. Instead of the two I promised, I have faculty workshops at RUPP every Friday afternoon and I've co-taught physics classes with a colleague. It seems RUPP hasn't given up hope of training teachers just yet as my RUPP colleagues approached me last week to do a workshop for teacher trainers and teacher candidates on Thursday of this week. I think they've lined up 100 participants so doing inquiry science will be a challenge but I'm working on materials and will post results later.
As part of my Fulbright I also proposed working with other universities on improving their instruction. Three years ago, Heather Galloway (Texas State University), Maureen Lemke (Texas State University), and I worked with David Ford (RUPP lecturer) to run a faculty institute for RUPP and Svay Rieng University (which is in southern Cambodia near the Vietnam border). We had 13 faculty commit to five weeks of training on inquiry-based methods. Svay Rieng participants were particularly eager and asked for follow up so I worked that into my Fulbright proposal. I'm excited that I'll be going to Svay Rieng in a few weeks to do two faculty workshops. I also proposed working with Battambang University (in northern Cambodia). It seems that my RUPP colleagues may have also worked out potential workshops there too so we'll see.
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