“All universities must sign [their own degrees] and be
responsible for the education quality themselves... If [students] apply for a
job and are not accepted, they can no longer blame it on the Education Minister.”
CPP Prime
Minister Hun Sen, 10 February, 2014
“We must now evaluate the curriculum and governance inside each
university to ensure that they meet the standards to allow them to sign the
degrees. If they do not conform, they can be shut down. This is the beginning
of the restructure of the education system and will force institutions to
ensure that their graduates are prepared for the international labor market.”
Ros Salin,
cabinet chief of newly-appointed Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron, 10
February, 2014
“Some companies may not accept graduates without the Education
Minister’s signature. They will worry that the students have colluded with the
university to get higher credit.”
Um Samphea, a
24-year-old recent Human Resources University graduate, 10 February, 2014
So, according
to the CPP prime minister, the main reason for getting all the 104 universities
to sign their own certificates from now on is to relieve his education minister
of being responsible for unemployable graduates.
Will he and
his education minister be off the hook?
Cabinet chief
Ros Salin implies that up to now the Ministry has not evaluated curricula and
governance of those universities. It seems all they have had in place so far is
a practice of the minister signing those certificates – perhaps blindly, if not
compensated by any “facilitation” fees.
But education
officials cannot be too blind not to see the change effectively will move the
facilitation fees away from their personal interest group.
Hence, will
the group now give up the fees and do a decent job of imposing some standard
for the tertiary education? The likelihood is that creative bureaucrats will
find ways to retain the facilitation fees, this time possibly by compromising
the integrity of the evaluation and monitoring of the university standard and
performance.
On the other side
of the dirty equation, will those profit-driven universities that have
benefited from their substandard curricula conduct their business any differently
even under the threat of being closed down? Remember, the kind of decent standard
that would secure employment for their graduates would dig deep into their
profitability. It will cost far less to throw “stop-the-closing-down-threat”
fees at the education officials. Even 24-year-old Um Samphea knows well how the
system works.
Then again,
Hun Sen, who claims to have performed miracle at the King Father’s cremation,
may have something up his sleeves to pull off this touted reform.
Or, he and
his education minister will just get off the hook anyway – because they can,
and are allowed to.
Ung Bun Ang
22ii14
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