Cambodian Education Research Articles

Transforming Cambodian Education: Full-Time Learning, Technology, and Language Integration for Public Schools

The Cambodian government has announced a significant educational reform to transition public schools to full-time learning by integrating computer and English or Chinese language classes. This initiative is designed to enhance the quality of education and better prepare students for the demands of the modern world. This paper compares these proposed changes by examining practices in five private schools already implementing full-time education and advanced technological and multilingual programs. By evaluating the academic performance, resource availability, and overall educational outcomes of these private schools, this study aims to provide actionable recommendations for successfully adopting these strategies in public schools. The research involved surveys of 565 respondents, including students, teachers, school administrators, parents, and policymakers, and in-depth interviews with 50 key stakeholders. Key findings include strong support for full-time education, higher levels of technology integration, and better multilingual education in private schools. These findings will inform policymakers, educators, and stakeholders about the potential impacts and necessary steps to ensure the successful implementation of these educational reforms in Cambodia's public school system.

Cambodia’s aspirations to become a knowledge-based society: Challenges and recommendations

Cambodia aspires to become a knowledge-based society to remain relevant in the context of the global knowledge-based economy. However, it remains uncertain how this aspiration can be realized considering the low quality of the country’s education system. Drawing on secondary sources, this article aims to shed light on Cambodia’s aspirations for a knowledge-based society. The article begins by defining the term “knowledge-based society” before providing an overview of the Cambodian education system and discussing key challenges that limit Cambodia’s ability to realize its vision to become a knowledge society. Key challenges were related to low higher education enrollment, a shortage of educational staff with doctoral degrees, a weak innovation capacity, and other critical challenges such as low academic salaries, a lack of clear academic career pathways, limited research funding, and limited knowledge about research. The article provides a set of recommendations that concerned stakeholders should consider to improve the quality of the Cambodian education system and support the country to achieve its goal in developing into a knowledge-based society. It concludes with suggestions for future research to generate new knowledge about Cambodia—a context underrepresented in international literature.

The Cambodian Journal of Educational Research’s 3rd anniversary: Reflecting on its development

Welcome to a new issue (Volume 3, Issue 2) of the Cambodian Journal of Educational Research (CJER), an academic journal dedicated to the field of education, published by the Cambodian Education Forum (CEF). As CJER is approaching its 3rd anniversary, this editorial aims to reflect on its journey, including its initial development and approach to publication, peer review process, achievements, and future directions. The editorial also aims to provide an overview of all the articles included in this issue.

A geographer's place matters: Reflections from a ‘local scholar’ and the politics of North/South knowledge production

AbstractThe most prominent and influential Geography literatures about the Global South are predominantly produced by scholars in the North and less so by intellectuals whose homes are located in the Global South—the ‘local scholars’. As a Cambodian scholar, I argue that the challenges of participating in collaborative, English language knowledge production derive not merely from skill disparities between international and ‘local’ academics, but also from constraints in finding the right platforms for research and academic expression. Constrained conditions for knowledge participation and expansion are rooted in a long history of colonialism in the Cambodian education system and the contemporary political economy of academia. Rather than directly engage with international intellectual and political discussions, in many cases, Cambodian scholars largely supply compelling stories—in the form of ethnographic evidence, data, images and affect to fuel theoretical debates taking place in the North. Beyond emphasising this well established inequity in the political economy of knowledge production, I contend that being ‘on the ground’ not only equips local scholars with contextual depths but also confines them to think and act locally.

EXPLORING EFL TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVES ON CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRIVATE EDUCATION SECTOR IN CAMBODIA

This thesis explored the changing perspectives of EFL teachers on continuing professional development (CPD) in the private education sector in Cambodia. As for professional development, Cambodian education is plagued by a lack of well-trained teachers due to insufficient pedagogical instruction within CPD as well as a lack of commitment by teachers. This study applied quantitative research; data were collected by means of the purposive sampling method with descriptive statistical analysis. Fifty Cambodian EFL teachers teaching three private schools in Kandal province were selected. The findings indicated that EFL teachers acknowledged that CPD is crucial and effective to their professional teaching career when they are more engaged in CPD efficiently. The change in perspectives for Cambodian EFL teachers on CPD has been satisfactorily proven to be fruitful and achievable. Future studies could explore more factors influencing EFL teachers' motivation for Continuing Professional Development activities.

The Cambodian Education Forum at two years old: Keeping the momentum going

Welcome to the second volume of the Cambodian Journal of Educational Research (CJER). In this editorial, we look back at the historical development and achievements of the Cambodian Education Forum (CEF), which turned two years old in July 2022. We then provide brief information on CEF’s new initiative, called “CEF Research Seminar Series.” This editorial ends with an overview of articles in this issue: Volume 2, Issue 1.

The Cambodian Education Forum’s contribution to building a research culture in Cambodia

Welcome to the second issue of the Cambodian Journal of Educational Research (CJER). This editorial will discuss how the Cambodian Education Forum (CEF) has contributed to building a research culture in Cambodia by providing a publication platform and internship programs to support novice or young Cambodian writers and researchers to write for publication in English. It will then briefly discuss each article included in this issue.

The Role of Parental and Community Participation in Education Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic

Education is one of Cambodia’s main driving forces to attain its aspiration to become an upper middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050. Providing equitable quality education to every Cambodian under the principle of education for all is the primary task that the Cambodian government need to carry out (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport [MOEYS], 2019). It has been suggested that the participation by parents and the community is a key catalyst for encouraging children’s learning and augmenting their learning potential, which in turn promotes lifelong learning in the long run (Aref, 2010). Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted the Cambodian education system. Under this circumstance, there is a strong need for parental and community participation in sustaining education throughout the country (Neak, 2019).

The launching of the Cambodian Journal of Educational Research

Welcome to the first issue of the Cambodian Journal of Educational Research (CJER). On behalf of the team at the Cambodian Education Forum (CEF) and the editorial board of CJER, we are extremely excited to launch the first issue of the journal.

History and Current Situation of Education for Children with Disabilities in Cambodia: A Gray Literature Review

In this paper we report on historical changes in the Cambodian education system, the current state of education for persons with disabilities. This report is based on interviews with Mr. Pen Thavy, materials provided by the Cambodian government, and other supporting documents. The first turning point in Cambodia’s movement toward educating children with disabilities was the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on November 20, 1989. Cambodia ratified this treaty in 1992. The concept of “Education for All” was adopted into educational policy in Cambodia. The first law directly mentioning education for children with disabilities was the “Educational law” enacted in 2007. The Schools specialized in education for children with disabilities are operated by three NGO schools. One is the KrousarThmey Foundation which operates 8 schools for children with visual/hearing impairment. Another one is Rabbit-School which accepted 26 students in the special class, 25 students in the readiness class for children aged 4-to-6 years, 18 students in classes for children with cerebral palsy and 46 students in the integrated class. The third one is Komar Pilar Foundation which does not have coordination with the government and is not officially regarded as a school. According to the data which we were given, the total number of students with all disabilities was 44,759 in primary schools and 6787 in secondary schools in 2017. Most common disability was emotional disturbance in primary schools and visual impairment in junior high schools. The data show that the number of invisible disabilities such as behavioral disorders, learning disability, intellectual disability and emotional disturbance varied so much in each province. Misidentification of disabilities can be considered a cause for it.

From Schoolgirls to “Virtuous” Khmer Women: Interrogating Chbab Srey and Gender in Cambodian Education Policy

Chbab Srey (Code of Conduct for Women) is an important piece of Khmer literature outlining expected behavior for girls and women in Cambodia. Pieces of the poem are taught in secondary school and interwoven into the educational experiences of girls and female teachers, yet there is little research on Chbab Srey in education. Using discourse analysis, this article considers the influence of Chbab Srey on gender-related education policy in Cambodia. This research highlights the juxtaposition of Chbab Srey and gender mainstreaming in education policy and in the curricular experiences of girls and teachers in Cambodia, and introduces an unexamined and culturally coveted piece of Cambodian curriculum to the fields of teacher-related policy and girls’ education.

Cambodian Inclusive Education for Vulnerable Populations: Toward an Ecological Perspective Policy

Abstract Cambodia is a dynamic country in transition and its population is committed to improve an economic, social, and educational system (Chandler, 2008). An imperial legacy and traumatic history involving a genocide specifically targeted at Cambodian intellectual elite continue to affect Cambodian schools with the most impact being felt by vulnerable populations including children from poverty and children with disabilities. An ecological framework of childhood development (Bronfenbrenner, 1992) is used to analyze interviews, classroom observations, and student work samples. School directors (3), teachers (3), students (2), and one parent from three public schools in three distinct provinces participated in this study, providing a broad geopolitical range of Cambodia. First, a review of Cambodian education and special education policy as well as international guidelines for inclusive education is provided. Next, a rationalization for including students with disabilities and children from poverty in the larger category of children from vulnerable populations is presented within the Cambodian context. Themes of key factors affecting the educational experience of children from vulnerable populations include: (1) school and community interconnectedness, and (2) Cambodian historical legacies. Perceptions, attitudes and beliefs of Cambodian practitioners are also key factors, and include: (1) Intersectionality of disability and poverty; (2) two distinct purposes of education, and (3) educators value responsive education. This qualitative analysis surfaces key factors affecting the educational experiences of Cambodian children from vulnerable populations by investigating perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes of various Cambodian education professionals and their decision-making concerning these students. Limitations and implications are provided.

Cambodia Macroeconomic Impacts of Public Consumption on Education a Computable General Equilibrium Approach

Employing the available social accounting matrix, this paper examines the impacts of different public education consumption schemes on Cambodian macroeconomics, the labour market and household welfare. The results from the simulation scenarios in the CGE model revealed that the reallocation of public spending from primary and secondary education to higher education produced a negative impact on the wage rate of low and fairly educated labour, dropped outputs, and reduced household welfare, which had adverse effects on macroeconomic variables in general. However, the shift of public spending from administration to the three education sectors, showed positive impacts on the economy, household income and welfare. Given the factor endowment structure of the Cambodian education sector, the policy that focuses on higher education by providing more spending to this sector did not yield results as good as keeping the initial education spending structure.

Conceptualizing Institutional Policies for Students’ Academic Success in Cambodian Universities: What Matters for Policy?

The Cambodian government aims to promote students’ academic success in the country’s tertiary education. In order to reach this goal, it is important to explore possible potential factors that determine the educational attainment of Cambodian students. There has been no previous research on students’ academic success in Cambodian higher learning institutions, while this topic has been widely researched in the United States and some developed countries since the 1970’s. Accordingly, a number of research models have been developed by famous scholars to determine institutional factors which lead to the outcome of better academic performance in post secondary education. Therefore, this paper intends to conceptualize the academic experiences connected to existing institutional policies for contributing to the enhancement of students’ academic success in the specific context of Cambodian higher education institutions. In this paper, Astin’s theory (1984, 1993, 1999) and a Tinto’s theory (1975, 1993) are employed to link the concept of institutional policies and Cambodian students’ academic success because they model the relationship between institutional experiences of students, which are deemed to be relevant to the current status of Cambodian educational policies. Based on these concepts, this paper will propose ten variables as predicting factors that influence institutional policies toward students’ academic success and will design a conceptual model to elaborate this influence within the Cambodian educational system. Thus, this model to predict students’ academic success is proposed as a result of a literature review among the relationships of theoretical model of student input (pre-entry attributes), academic environment (institutional experiences and policies), and students’ academic success. Based on these relationships, ten propositions are developed.

The distribution of pedagogical content knowledge in Cambodia: Gaps and thresholds in math achievement

Increasing teacher quality is a major objective of recent Cambodian education policy. In mathematics education literature, pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has emerged as a critical component of teacher quality that is strongly linked to student achievement. In this study I use data from a large survey of Cambodian schools to investigate the effect of math teachers’ PCK on third grade student achievement. I use ordinary least squares and Quantile Regression analyses to examine this aspect of teacher quality. I find that pedagogical knowledge is a strong predictor of student math achievement in Cambodia in comparison to other student, school, and background variables, but that the effect is concentrated among higher achieving students. Quantile Regression with this dataset also exposes gaps and thresholds in achievement associated with other explanatory variables. In addition, I investigate the proportional distribution of teacher PCK in Cambodia and find that lower quality teachers are more likely to be teaching lower achieving students of lower socioeconomic status.

Parental involvement and students’ achievement in Cambodia: Focusing on parental resourcing of public schooling

Studies of the effect of parental involvement on students’ achievement in a variety of contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationship between parental involvement and students’ achievement may depend on specific local contexts of education and family. Drawing on the theoretical perspectives derived from social capital model, this study examines the effects of three types of parental involvement on students’ achievement. Dataset drawn from student questionnaire of 1551 tenth-grade students and their parents were used to investigate the determinants and the effects of parental resourcing on students’ achievement in comparison to other types of home-based and school-based involvement. Multiple regression analyses show that parental efforts in resourcing public schooling are significantly associated with students’ achievement. Features of Cambodian education in which parental resourcing becomes an important strategy for parents to enhance educational quality are described, and the broader implications of the findings are discussed.

Child labour, education policy and governance in Cambodia

This paper considers how the issue of child labour is located in Cambodian education policy debates and how it is affected by the major constraints surrounding the Cambodian education sector. In particular, it asks why Cambodian policy makers have not sought to address the issue explicitly despite its considerable, and adverse, impact on children's school education. In doing so it first identifies the Cambodian education sector's passive approach to child labour, leaving it as a problem to be resolved by wider economic development. Secondly, it finds that the major constraints surrounding the education sector, including the issue of its governance, contribute to sustain a wide gap between stated education policies and actual practice, thus further diminishing working children's chances to benefit from a school education.

ポル・ポト後カンボジアにおける教育システム再構築に関する一考察 : ベトナム化と再クメール化の過程に注目して

ポル・ポト後カンボジアにおける教育システム再構築に関する一考察 : ベトナム化と再クメール化の過程に注目して

Effect of pupil factor on mathematics achievement in cambodian urban primary school

It is generally observed in the literature of school effectiveness research that there are two broadly categorized factors influencing pupil achievement. However, the results of the studies based on empirically collected data vary from country to country and from time to time. Premised on this inconsistency of results and gaps in knowledge of this field in Cambodian education, this study was conducted in order to examine the effect of pupil factor on their mathematics achievement. The data were collected from pupils by means of questionnaires and a mathematics test. After controlling such factors as pupils’ poverty during the research design, the results of the step wise regression analysis showed that pupils’ interest in mathematics was a significantly positive contributor to their performance. Pupils’ absence frequency, gender, grade repetition and preschool attendance had significantly negative effects on their mathematics outcome.

Note on Methodology: The Coefficient of Variation

Previous articleNext article No AccessReportsNote on Methodology: The Coefficient of VariationMichael SheretMichael Sheret Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 28, Number 3Aug., 1984 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/446450 Views: 2Total views on this site Citations: 4Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1984 The Comparative and International Education SocietyPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:John M. Collins Reconstructing Access in the Cambodian Education System, (Jan 2008): 190–214.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2652-1_8Ken Kelley Sample size planning for the coefficient of variation from the accuracy in parameter estimation approach, Behavior Research Methods 39, no.44 (Nov 2007): 755–766.https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03192966Ma Hsen-hsing Equity in Educational Distribution and Strategies of Higher Educational Development in the Republic of China, Chinese Education & Society 27, no.66 (Dec 2010): 23–41.https://doi.org/10.2753/CED1061-1932270623Mark Bray Centralization Versus Decentralization in Educational Administration: Regional Issues, Educational Policy 5, no.44 (Dec 1991): 371–385.https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904891005004003