Sam Rany, Ph.D.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

គុណភាពអប់រំនៅកម្ពុជាត្រូវតែពង្រឹង!

ទស្សនៈព្រឹត្តិការណ៍សេដ្ឋកិច្ចខ្មែរ

ដោយ គី សុខលីម

ពីមួយឆ្នាំទៅមួយឆ្នាំ ប្រទេសកម្ពុជាបានផលិតធនធានមនុស្សកាន់តែច្រើនឡើងៗ។ ជាក់ស្តែង សាលារៀនដែលជាថ្នាលបណ្តុះបណ្តាលធនធានមនុស្សបានបើកទ្វារកាន់តែ ច្រើនឡើងៗ ទាំងនៅក្នុងទីក្រុងភ្នំពេញ ទាំងនៅតាមបណ្តាខេត្តនានានៅក្នុងប្រទេស។

ក្នុងមួយឆ្នាំៗនិសិត្សច្រើនពាន់ម៉ឺននាក់បានចេញពីសាកល វិទ្យាល័យ។ ជាការពិត ជារៀងរាល់ឆ្នាំ មាននិសិ្សតច្រើនពាន់នាក់បានបញ្ចប់ការសិក្សាមែន ប៉ុន្តែសំណួរដែលកំពុងចោទឡើង គឺទាក់ទងទៅនឹងគុណភាពអប់រំ នៅក្នុងប្រទេសក្រីក្រមួយនេះ។ ប្រសិនបើគេនិយាយក្នុងក្របខណ្ឌក្នុងប្រទេស និងផ្អែកលើហេតុផលក្រោយរបបប៉ុលពត ជាការមិនអាចប្រកែកបានគឺថា គុណភាពអប់រំរបស់កម្ពុជាមានការរីកចម្រើនទៅមុខគួរសមមែន ប៉ុន្តែប្រសិនបើគេធ្វើការប្រៀបធៀបគុណភាពអប់រំរបស់កម្ពុជាជាមួយ ប្រទេសនៅក្នុងតំបន់ ឬប្រទេសអភិវឌ្ឍន៍ធំៗវិញ វិស័យអប់រំកម្ពុជាស្ថិតនៅឆ្ងាយដាច់ពីគេសឹងហៅមិនឮ។

តើមូលហេតុអ្វីបានជាវិស័យអប់រំកម្ពុជានៅទន់ខ្សោយ?

មូលហេតុមានច្រើន ប៉ុន្តែ បញ្ហាធំៗកត់សម្គាល់មានដូចជា៖ ទី១ គឺដោយសារប្រាក់ខែគ្រូបង្រៀននៅតាមសាលារដ្ឋមានចំនួនតិចតួច។ ប្រាក់ខែមិនអាចរស់បានធ្វើអោយគ្រូបង្រៀនគ្មានចំណង់នឹងបង្រៀន ឡើយ។

ទី២៖គឺដោយសារគ្រូបង្រៀនមួយចំនួនបាត់បង់ក្រមសីលធម៌ មានន័យថា ប្រាក់ខែរដ្ឋទាបមែន ប៉ុន្តែពួកគេអាចរកក្រៅបានគួរសម។ រកកម្រៃក្រៅផ្លូវការបានច្រើនហើយ ប៉ុន្តែពួកគេនៅតែគ្មានឆន្ទៈនឹងបង្រៀនដដែល។ នេះគឺដោយសារការបាត់បង់សតិសម្បជញ្ញៈក្នុងនាមជាអ្នកបណ្តុះបញ្ញា ញាណ។

បញ្ហាទី៣ដែលទាញទម្លាក់គុណភាពអប់រំដែរនោះ គឺគុណភាពគ្រូបង្រៀនតែម្តង។ គ្រូបង្រៀននៅតាមសាលារដ្ឋមួយចំនួនមិនមែនចេញមកពីសិស្សឆ្នើម ប្រចាំសាលាទេ។ ដោយសារប្រាក់ខែគ្រូបង្រៀនទាប សិស្សឆ្នើមភាគច្រើនមិនចង់ក្លាយខ្លួនទៅជាសាស្រ្តចារ្យឡើយ។

មូលហេតុទី៤ដែលរុញច្រានអោយគុណភាពអបរំមានកម្រិតទាបដែរនោះ គឺដោយសារសាកលវិទ្យាល័យមួយចំនួនគិតពីរឿងចំណេញប្រាក់កាសច្រើនជាង គិតពីគុណភាពសិក្សា។ សាកលវិទ្យាល័យខ្លះមិនហ៊ានរឹតបន្តឹងវិន័យខ្លាំងទេ ពីព្រោះពួកគេខ្លាចនិសិ្សតមិនចុះឈ្មោះរៀននៅទីនោះ។ ការគិតរបៀបនេះវានឹងរុញច្រានគុណភាពអប់រំខ្មែរអោយធ្លាក់ទៅរក មហន្តរាយថែមទៀត។

មូលហេតុចុងក្រោយដែលគ្រោះថ្នាក់ខ្លាំងដែរនោះ គឺការសូកប៉ាន់ ដើម្បីចៀសវាងការប្រឡងធ្លាក់ពីកម្រិតមួយទៅកម្រិតមួយ។

អ្នកតាមដានសភាពការណ៍សង្គមសេដ្ឋកិច្ចនៅក្នុងប្រទេសកម្ពុជាបាន អត្ថាធិប្បាយថា រដ្ឋាភិបាលគួរពិចារណាបន្ថែមទៀតពីរឿងគុណភាពអប់រំនេះ។ គុណភាពមនុស្សគឺជារឿងស្លាប់រស់របស់គ្រួសារ សហគមន៍ និងប្រទេសជាតិ។

កាលពីសម័យដើម កុលសម្ព័ន្ធនីមួយៗវាយប្រហារគ្នាតាមរយៈកម្លាំងបាយ ដើម្បីកាន់កាប់អំណាចនៅក្នុងតំបន់ណាមួយ។ ប៉ុន្តែក្នុងសម័យសតវត្សរ៍ទី២១នេះ សហគមន៍នីមួយៗ ឬប្រទេសនីមួយៗលែងប្រយុទ្ធគ្នាតាមកម្លាំងបាយទៀតហើយ។ តែជាការប្រយុទ្ធគ្នាដោយប្រើប្រាស់បញ្ញាញាណ។ តាមរយៈបញ្ញាញាណនេះ ប្រទេសខ្លះ ដូចជា ប្រទេសជប៉ុនជាដើម ធ្លាប់ក្លាយជាមហាអំណាចសេដ្ឋកិច្ចទី២ បន្ទាប់ពីសហរដ្ឋអាមេរិកមុននឹងផ្តល់តំណែងនេះទៅអោយប្រទេសចិនវិញ។

ឯាកមកនិយាយពីប្រទេសកម្ពុជាវិញ ប្រសិនបើកម្ពុជាចង់ក្លាយទៅជាប្រទេសមហាអំណាច ឬចង់ក្លាយខ្លួនទៅជាប្រទេសមួយដែលតំបន់ ឬពិភពលលោកទទួលស្គាល់នោះ ការផលិតធនធានមនុស្សដែលមានគុណភាពខ្ពស់គឺជារឿងចាំបាច់បំផុត។ ជាពិសេស នៅក្នុងបរិបទដែលប្រទេសកម្ពុជាត្រូវប្រកួតប្រជែងក្នុងក្របខណ្ឌ សហគមន៍អាស៊ាន រួមជាមួយប្រទេសដទៃទៀត នៅឆ្នាំ២០១៥ខាងមុខនេះ។

សូមកុំភ្លេចថា គ្រួសារមួយ សហគមន៍មួយ ប្រទេសជាតិមួយ ដែលសម្បូរទៅដោយមនុស្សមានចំណេះដឹងប្រកបដោយគុណភាពខ្ពស់ គ្រួសារនោះ សហគមន៍នោះ ប្រទេសនោះពិតជាអភិវឌ្ឍលឿនជាងគ្រួសារ សហគមន៍ឬប្រទេសដែលមិនសូវមានអ្នកចេះដឹង៕

កម្ពុជាត្រូវសង់វត្តបន្ថែម ឬមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ-មន្ទីរពិសោធន៍?

Tuesday, 31 July 2012

ប៉ែន មីរ៉ាន់ដា

វត្តអារាម ជាទីសក្ការរបស់ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋខ្មែរប្រមាណ ៩០ % ដែលកាន់សាសនាព្រះពុទ្ធ ដែលជាសាសនារបស់រដ្ឋ។ យើងកត់សម្គាល់ឃើញថា ចំនួនព្រះសង្ឃ និងវត្តអារាម កំពុងតែកើនឡើង ហើយការសាងសង់ ត្រូវបានយកចិត្តទុកដាក់ ដោយរាជរដ្ឋាភិបាល និងសប្បុរសជននានា។ តែបើក្រឡេកមើលចំនួន និងទំនើបកម្មមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ និងមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍វិញ មិនមានការកើនឡើងគួរឲ្យកត់សម្គាល់ឡើយ។

ឈរលើគោលការណ៍អា ស៊ានដែលនឹងបង្កើតសមាគមសេដ្ឋកិច្ចអាស៊ាន (ASEAN Economic Community, AEC) ត្រឹមឆ្នាំ ២០១៥ និងគោលការណ៍សកលភាវូបនីយកម្ម កម្ពុជានឹងប្រឈមការប្រកួតប្រជែងផលិតផលទាំងបរិមាណនិងគុណភាពនៅលើ ទីផ្សារតំបន់ និងពិភពលោក។

តើកម្ពុជា ត្រូវត្រៀមលក្ខណៈបែបណាខ្លះ ដើម្បីកែប្រែការប្រឈមឲ្យទៅជាឱកាស ពាណិជ្ជកម្ម និងសេដ្ឋកិច្ច? តើរដ្ឋាភិបាល ឬសប្បុរសជន ពាណិជ្ជករ គួរប្រើថវិកាខ្លះ ដើម្បីការសាងសង់មជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ និងមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍វិទ្យាសាស្ត្រដែរឬទេ?

ជាដំបូង តួនាទីវត្តអារាមពិតជាសំខាន់ណាស់ សម្រាប់ពលរដ្ឋខ្មែរដូចជា ការផ្តល់ពុទ្ធដីកា និងដំបូន្មាន របស់ព្រះសង្ឃ ដល់ពុទ្ធសាសនិក និងជាកន្លែងផ្ដល់ចំណេះដឹង។ វត្តអារាមក៏ជាទីស្នាក់អាស្រ័យ របស់និស្សិតបុរស ដែលមកពីទីជនបទដើម្បីបន្តការសិក្សាថ្នាក់ឧត្តមនៅទីក្រុង។ អត្ថបទមួយរបស់ Arnaldo Pellini (2004) ក៏បានបង្ហាញឧទាហរណ៍ របស់សមាគមវត្តអារាមក្នុងស្រុកស្ទោង ខេត្តកំពង់ធំ ដែលដើរតួនាទីជាសមាគម ថវិកា និងស្រូវសម្រាប់ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋ។ បើតាមស្ថិតិរបស់ក្រសួងធម្មការ និងសាសនា ដែលដកស្រង់ដោយសារព័ត៌មាន Xinhua គិតមកត្រឹមខែមេសាឆ្នាំ២០១០ មានវត្តអារាមចំនួន ៤៣៩២ និងព្រះសង្ឃច្រើនជាង ៥ ម៉ឺនអង្គ ក្នុងប្រទេសកម្ពុជា។ បើយើងគិតពីសមាមាត្រភាគរយព្រះសង្ឃ និងប្រជាជនសរុប ១៣,៣៩៥,៦៨២ (NIS, 2008) គឺស្មើ ០.៤ %។

ម្យ៉ាងវិញ ទៀត ថវិកា ដែលត្រូវសាងសង់វិហារ និងកុដិ ក្នុងវត្ត នីមួយៗយ៉ាងហោចក៏ត្រូវចំណាយពី ២០ ទៅ ៣០ ម៉ឺនដុល្លារអាមេរិកដែរ ហើយបើយើងមានមហិច្ឆតាដើម្បីធ្វើទំនើបកម្មវត្តទាំងអស់ដែលមាន ស្រាប់ យ៉ាងហោចណាស់ក៏ត្រូវការថវិកាជិតមួយកោដិដុល្លារអាមេរិកដែរ។ ការសាងសង់ទៀតសោត ពពាក់ពពូនគ្នានៅតែតំបន់ជិតៗ ហើយតំបន់ឆ្ងាយៗ ជាពិសេសតំបន់ព្រំដែនដែលត្រូវការប្រជាពលរដ្ឋរស់នៅឲ្យបានច្រើន នោះ ក៏មិនសូវជាមានដែរ។

តើយើងទទួលបានអ្វីខ្លះ ពីការអភិវឌ្ឍបែបនេះ? ពិតណាស់ ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋ មានទីវត្តអារាមទូលាយស្អាតបាត សម្រាប់ជួបជុំគ្នាពេលមានបុណ្យទានម្ដងៗ។ តែបើក្រឡេកមើលព្រះសង្ឃមួយចំនួនតូច បានបង្ហាញភាពឡូយឆាយដាក់ប្រជាពលរដ្ឋ និងវាយឫកស្មើគហិបតី សម័យទុំទាវ ដែលនេះ ជាការខកចិត្តរបស់ពុទ្ធសាសនិក ដែលចំណាយអស់កម្លាំងញើសឈាម ដើម្បីឧបត្ថម្ភ វិស័យពុទ្ធសាសនា។ ម្យ៉ាងទៀត បើក្រឡេកមើលទៅព្រះសង្ឃតាមវត្តអារាមក្នុងក្រុងភ្នំពេញ គេនឹងឃើញព្រះសង្ឃក្មេងៗជាច្រើនដែលរវល់ជជែកតាមទូរស័ព្ទសាធា រណៈក្បែររបងវត្ត។ តាមការពិតទៅ វ័យ ១៨-៣៥ ឆ្នាំ គឺជាវ័យដ៏សស្រាក់សស្រាំក្នុងការងារ ដើម្បីប្រយោជន៍គ្រួសារនិងសង្គមជាតិ ហើយបើយើងសម្លឹងមើល សីលធម៌សង្គមខ្មែរបច្ចុប្បន្ន ដែលកំពុងធ្លាក់ចុះ រួមមានទាំងការរំលោភសេពសន្ថវ: (កាមកិលេស) ការសម្លាប់វាយតប់ ដែលករណីខ្លះត្រឹមតែមើលមុខគ្នានោះ វាប្រាសចាកនឹងសីលប្រាំ សម្រាប់ពុទ្ធសាសនិកទូទៅ។

តាមពិតទៅ យើងគួរតែមិនមានក្ដីបារម្ភ ពីបញ្ហាសីលធម៌សង្គមទេ ព្រោះយើងមានព្រះសង្ឃយ៉ាងច្រើន ដែលជាអ្នកប្រដៅសាសនា ក្នុងសង្គមយើង តែហេតុអ្វីបានជាបទល្មើសទាំងនេះ នៅតែកើតមានឡើង និងកំពុងបន្តកើនឡើង? ឬមួយក៏អ្វីដែលយើងបានចំណាយយ៉ាងច្រើននោះមិនមានប្រសិទ្ធភាព?

បច្ចេក វិទ្យាក្នុងអត្ថបទនេះ មិនសំដៅទៅលើព័ត៌មានវិទ្យានោះទេ តែយើងចង់ផ្ដោតទៅលើបច្ចេកវិទ្យា កសិកម្ម និងចំណីអាហារដែលដើរតួសំខាន់សម្រាប់ខឿនសេដ្ឋកិច្ចជាតិ។
សម្តេច នាយករដ្ឋមន្ត្រី ហ៊ុន សែន ធ្លាប់មានប្រសាសន៍ថា៖«យើងគួរតែអភិវឌ្ឍបច្ចេកវិទ្យាកសិកម្មរបស់ យើងឲ្យបានដូចប្រទេស ដទៃ។ បើយើងនឹកពីប្រទេសបារាំង យើងនឹងស្គាល់ស្រាទំពាំងបាយជូរពី Bordeaux ប្រូមា និងថ្លើមក្ងានដ៏ថ្លៃ»។

តើយើងត្រូវការអ្វី ដើម្បីឈានទៅដល់ការអភិវឌ្ឍផលិតផល និងផលិតកម្មជាទ្រង់ទ្រាយធំ?
ចម្លើយ គឺ យើងត្រូវឆ្លងកាត់ការស្រាវជ្រាវនិងកែលម្អតាមបែបវិទ្យាសាស្ត្រនៅ ក្នុងមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ ឬមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍។

ឧទាហរណ៍ ប្រសិនបើយើងចង់ផលិតទឹកដោះគោ ដើម្បីបំពេញតម្រូវការទីផ្សារក្នុងស្រុក និងក្រៅស្រុក នៅប្រទេសកម្ពុជា ដែលមានអាកាសធាតុក្នុងតំបន់ត្រូពិកក្ដៅ-សើម យើងត្រូវប្រើពេលបង្កាត់ខ្វែងពូជគោទឹកដោះ និងពូជក្នុងស្រុក ដែលធន់នឹងស្រេ្តស ហើយបើយើងចង់បានសាច់គោ ដែលមានរសជាតិឆ្ងាញ់ ផលិតភាពខ្ពស់ ប្រើចំណីតិច យើងក៏ត្រូវបង្កាត់សម្រាំងពូជដោយត្រូវប្រើបច្ចេកទេស បង្កាត់សិប្បនិម្មិត ផ្ទេរអំប្រ៊ីយ៉ូ...។ល។ បើយើង ចង់បានពូជដំណាំ ដែលធន់នឹងភាពរាំងស្ងួត សត្វល្អិត ទិន្នផលខ្ពស់ គុណភាពល្អ យើងអាចប្រើបច្ចេកវិទ្យា Genetic Modified Organism (GMO) ការបណ្ដុះ ជាលិកា...។ល។
បច្ចេកវិទ្យាទាំងនេះ ក៏អាចប្រើដើម្បីការពារពូជសត្វកម្រនិងរុក្ខជាតិកម្រ ក្នុងប្រទេសកម្ពុជាបានដែរ។ តើយើងមានលទ្ធភាពពេញលេញសម្រាប់ការផ្លាស់ប្តូរនេះ ឬនៅ? ចមើ្លយគឺពិតជាមិនទាន់ទេ ហើយពិតណាស់ដើម្បីធើ្វវាបានយើងត្រូវការពេលវេលា ថវិកា ធនធានមនុស្ស និងទីកនែ្លង។

យើងមានមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ ឬមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍វិទ្យាសាស្រ្តតិចតួចណាស់ ខ្លះមិនដំណើរការទៀត បើតាមការប៉ាន់ស្មាន ការសាងសង់មជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ ឬមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍វិទ្យាសាស្រ្ត ដោយបំពាក់ឧបករណ៍បរិក្ខារទំនើប អាចមានតមៃ្លថៃ្លជាងវត្តអារាម ពី ២ ទៅបីដង តែយើងក៏មិនត្រូវការរហូតដល់ទៅជិត ៥ ពាន់កនែ្លងនោះដែរ ត្រឹមតែ ១ ភាគ ៥០ នៃចំនួននេះ វាច្រើនពេកទៅហើយសម្រាប់កម្ពុជា។

បញ្ហា មួយទៀត ជម្រើសរបស់និសិ្សត សម្រាប់ការរៀនវិស័យកសិកម្ម ក្នុងប្រទេសកម្ពុជាក៏មានតិចទៅទៀត ខណៈដែលកម្ពុជា ជាប្រទេសកសិកម្មស្រាប់។ ដូចដែលធ្លាប់ឮមកហើយ ឪពុកម្តាយ បានឲ្យដំបូន្មានទៅកូនសម្រាប់ការជ្រើសរើសរៀនវិស័យណា ដែលពេលចេញទៅធ្វើការ មានម៉ាស៊ីនត្រជាក់ មិនហាលថ្ងៃនិងភ្លៀង និងកាប់ គាស់ដី។
ជាលទ្ធផល រៀងរាល់ឆ្នាំ មាននិសិ្សតដែលបញ្ចប់ឧត្តមសិក្សាផ្នែកគ្រប់គ្រង ព័ត៌មានវិទ្យា ធនាគារ ដែលធ្វើការមិនប្រើជំនាញទាំងនេះ។ ដូច្នោះ ការកសាង និងបង្កើនចំនួនមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ និងមន្ទីរពិសោធន៍វិទ្យាសាស្រ្តជាភាពចាំបាច់ ដែលនឹងបង្កើតការងារបន្ថែមដល់និស្សិត និងជួយជំរុញស្តង់ដារ វិទ្យាសាស្រ្ត និងគុណភាពផលិតផល ដើម្បីប្រកួតប្រជែង ជាមួយប្រជាជាតិដទៃ។

សរុបសេចក្តីមក ការបង្កើនសន្ទុះការសាងសង់វត្តអារាម ក្នុងប្រទេសកម្ពុជា នាពេលបច្ចុប្បន្ន គួរតែមិនមានភាពចាំបាច់ ជាងការអភិវឌ្ឍ និងស្រាវជ្រាវវិទ្យាសាស្រ្ត លើផ្នែកកសិកម្មទេ។ សិស្ស និងនិសិ្សតក៏គួរតែមិនចាំបាច់បារម្ភ និងរារែកចំពោះការជ្រើសរើស និងប្រឡូកក្នុងវិស័យកសិកម្ម និងការស្រាវជ្រាវវិទ្យាសាស្រ្ត លើផ្នែកនេះដែរ។

វាជាខឿនសេដ្ឋកិច្ចដ៏ចម្បង របស់ប្រទេសជាតិនាពេលបច្ចុប្បន្ន និងទៅអនាគត ហើយយើងគួរតែត្រៀមខ្លួន ពង្រឹងសមត្ថភាពបន្ថែមលើវិស័យនេះ ដែលយើងបានឈានជើងចូលអង្គការពាណិជ្ជកម្មពិភពលោក (WTO) ហើយនឹងឈានជើងចូលសមាគមសេដ្ឋកិច្ចអាស៊ាន (AEC) នាពេលខាងមុខ៕ ដោយ ប៉ែន មីរ៉ាន់ដា និស្សិតថ្នាក់បណ្ឌិត នៅសាកលវិទ្យាល័យ New England នៅប្រទេសអូស្ដ្រាលី

Sunday 29 July 2012

Unscrupulous agents get Chinese students into US schools

Time 29 July 2012 Issue No:232

Because many Chinese students have trouble making sense of the American admissions process, a huge industry of education agents has arisen in China to help guide them – and, in some cases, to do whatever it takes to get them accepted, writes Justin Bergman for Time.

This autumn, David Zhu will join an exodus of Chinese students boarding planes for the leafy, beer-soaked campuses of American colleges and universities, a dream his parents have had since they started saving a $157,000 nest egg for his education. The 21-year-old hired an education agent in China to clean up and ‘elaborate’ on the essay he submitted as part of his application.

Stories like Zhu’s are becoming increasingly common, and this has created a thorny ethical dilemma in the US. According to a 2010 report by the consultancy Zinch China, eight out of every 10 Chinese undergraduate students use an agent to file their applications. And with such intense competition among agents, cheating is rampant, the group says.

Full report on the Time site

This fall, David Zhu will join an exodus of Chinese students boarding planes for the leafy, beer-soaked campuses of American colleges and universities. Zhu, currently a student at Shanghai’s prestigious Fudan University, will be enrolling at Oregon State University to pursue a bachelor’s degree in business — a dream his parents have had since they started saving a $157,000 nest egg for his education. But like many Chinese students who don’t speak English fluently, Zhu might not have been accepted without a little help. The 21-year-old hired an education agent in China to clean up and “elaborate” on the essay he submitted as part of his application. “Actually, the agency helped my application to some extent,” he says.
Stories like Zhu’s are becoming increasingly common as the ranks of Chinese students going abroad for college continue to swell. Because many Chinese students have only basic knowledge of foreign universities and have trouble making sense of complicated applications, a huge industry of education agents has arisen in the country to help guide them — and, in some cases, to do whatever it takes to get them accepted. This has created a thorny ethical dilemma in the U.S. While many American schools are elated by the influx of Chinese students as they’ve scrimped and saved to make ends meet in the economic downturn, some educators worry that the reliance of Chinese students on agents has led to some unintended — and troubling — consequences.

(MORE: Why Are China’s Universities Losing Their Star Students?)
Although Chinese students have been going to America to study for decades, their numbers have spiked dramatically in the past few years. In the 2010–11 school year, more than 157,000 Chinese students were enrolled at institutions of higher learning in the U.S. — a 22% increase over the previous year and tops among all countries. (Second-place India had just 104,000.) The largest increase has been among undergrads: China sent nearly 57,000 to the U.S. in 2010–11, up from 10,000 five years earlier. For the wealthy, an overseas education is becoming almost standard. A survey conducted by China’s Hurun Report found that 85% of rich Chinese parents planned to send their kids abroad to study. The U.S. is their preferred destination, followed by the U.K. and Canada.
While there are a host of reasons for this explosion, money and prestige appear to be the most important factors. Not only can more Chinese families now afford to pay the tuition at a foreign university, they also view it as a better investment in their children’s future. Universities in the West are revered in China, and homegrown schools — even the best ones — fail to measure up. “I think the college education in China is not very practical,” says Vincent Sun, another Fudan student who will be enrolling at MIT this fall to pursue a master’s degree in finance. “When I will be searching for a job, I think a degree from a very famous [foreign] university is a huge thing I think that will put me into a very good place.” Ironically, a foreign university can also be a fallback for Chinese students who don’t do well enough on the national exam, the gaokao, to get into a Chinese school — there’s always an American college willing to take their tuition dollars.

But many of these students would probably never make it to America without a middleman to pave the way. According to a 2010 report by Zinch China, a consultancy that advises U.S. colleges and universities on China, 8 out of every 10 Chinese undergraduate students use an agent to file their applications. And with such intense competition among agents — not to mention ambitious students and their overzealous parents — cheating is rampant, the group says. It estimates that 90% of recommendation letters from Chinese students are fake, 70% of college application essays are not written by the students, and half of all high school transcripts are falsified. “The world of higher education is becoming extremely competitive, much more so than it was even 10 years ago, and I think the kids are looking for an edge,” says Tom Melcher, chairman of Zinch China. “Everyone is looking around and saying, ‘Well, everyone else is cheating, why shouldn’t I?’”

(MORE: These Schools Mean Business)
Another issue that concerns some admissions officers in the U.S. is where the money is coming from. Not only are agents paid by families in China — up to $10,000 before bonuses, according to Zinch — some American schools also have contracts with agents that guarantee them a commission for each student they enroll. This practice constitutes a potential conflict of interest, says Philip Ballinger, head of a commission launched by the Washington-based National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) to study the issue of foreign recruiting. “If money is first, then perhaps the interest of student or the person that’s involved is not first,” he says.

What’s desperately needed is greater oversight in China and the U.S. — something both sides are now trying to address. The Chinese government realizes that doctored transcripts are a problem: earlier this year, it launched a new service to verify students’ high school grades for foreign universities. But because there are literally thousands of agents operating in China, cheating will persist. “The Chinese kids, when I talk to them, they sort of think it’s the schools’ fault. The schools will say you have to have a recommendation letter from a guidance counselor, and Chinese kids don’t have guidance counselors,” Melcher says. Zhu, the student enrolling at Oregon State, says his agent didn’t falsify documents beyond the “elaborated” essay, but he believes doing so is sometimes a necessary evil. “Some schools in China test students by very hard questions beyond their abilities, so the scores students get are very low. So the students who want to go to the USA, they had to change their scores,” he says. “But the students are still very good students because they’re in the best schools in Shanghai.”

In the U.S., there are hopes that the NACAC committee investigating overseas recruiting practices will bring much needed clarity to a situation that has been a relative free-for-all in recent years. While federal law prohibits colleges and universities from paying commissions to recruit students in the U.S., there is no statute against doing it internationally. NACAC has a policy against it, but enforcement has been put on hold while its investigation is continuing. The group’s second meeting is set for this fall; recommendations are expected to come in 2013.

(MORE: Why Is College Enrollment Dropping?)
Although it acknowledges that fraud is a major concern, NACAC is focusing initially on the question of whether universities should be permitted to pay overseas recruiters commissions. Mitch Leventhal, vice chancellor for global affairs at the State University of New York (SUNY) and an outspoken pro-recruiter advocate, argues that agents can provide a legitimate and useful service for foreign students, provided they operate in a professional and transparent way. He says it’s ridiculous to suggest that universities should stop using agents. “That’s sticking your head in a hole. They’re not going to go away because market demand is there, so the best way to address it is to engage them and identify the good ones.”

Leventhal believes he’s found a way to do that. He’s founder of an organization called the American International Recruitment Council, which has developed a rigorous process for certifying international agents. Agents must volunteer and pay a fee for the service, which involves a third-party investigation of their business, an external review by two members of U.S. universities and a confidential complaint system. So far, the group has certified about 45 agents, who benefit, Leventhal says, from having increased access to U.S. schools. And after agents are thoroughly vetted, he sees nothing wrong with paying them commissions, so long as the schools are also transparent about it. At SUNY, the fee is 10% of the student’s first-year tuition. “No one likes to pay a commission to a real estate broker when we buy a house because it’s another expense,” he says. “But we don’t deny the fact that a real estate broker works on commission and deserves to earn something for their effort.”

This sentiment isn’t shared by everyone. Mark Sklarow, head of the Washington-based Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), says students in China are better served by so-called educational consultants, who are paid solely by families (not by U.S. universities) to find the best educational match for students. Dozens of consultants in China have applied to become IECA members, but the organization must first ensure they’ve never accepted money from a college or university and they’ve never engaged in fraudulent practices. He believes that as Chinese students become more familiar with the U.S. application process, they’ll increasingly turn to consultants like these to help them make decisions about colleges rather than put all their trust in agents.

Sklarow says the U.S. is at a turning point too. For the past five years, colleges and universities were “balancing their budgets on Chinese students,” but he thinks the pressure is now on them to find a way to regulate the system. “I think until American colleges stand up and say we need a way to guarantee that the students we accept, that the records we’re looking at are whole, complete and legitimate, the problem continues to grow.”

Universities admit more poor students in China

Xinhuanet29 July 2012 Issue No:232

A little more than a month after sitting the gaokao, China's college entrance exam, Zeng Mengyao is celebrating her results. She will attend Xiamen University in China's eastern Fujian Province. Zeng's dream to be admitted to a prestigious university would have been crushed without the national preferential policy introduced by the Ministry of Education this year, reports Xinhuanet.

According to this year's college admission plan, 12,100 higher education vacancies will be allocated to students from 680 poverty-stricken counties in 21 provincial areas. Residents in these counties had an annual per capita income of CNY2,676 (US$418) last year, about half the national average.

Statistics from the Ministry of Education show that the national average admission rate in some leading universities last year was 8.5%, while the number in the 680 impoverished counties was 5.7%. Zeng fell eight points short of the admission score set by Xiamen University, yet she will soon be heading there thanks to the new policy

Full report on the Xinhuanet site

UNITED KINGDOM Private college to award its own degrees

BBC News29 July 2012 Issue No:232

A private college in London has been given the power to award its own degrees in a move the government says will increase competition in England's higher education system, writes Angela Harrison for BBC News.

Regent's College, which is in London's Regent's Park, says it hopes to get university status in the near future. It is one of two private colleges being given degree-awarding powers this week and which are the first to get the right since the coalition government came to power. The identity of the second college has not yet been made public.

Until now, people studying at Regent's College have received degrees through its partnerships with various universities and institutions, including the Open University. Students study for British and American degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Most pay fees of about £14,000 a year.

Yale stops sending students to Peking University

Yale Daily News29 July 2012 Issue No:232

Despite reaffirming its partnership with Peking University seven months ago, Yale has decided this summer that it will not continue its programme sending undergraduates to live and study at the Chinese institution, citing low student enrolment, write Gavan Gideon, Daniel Sisgoreo and Tapley Stephenson for Yale Daily News.

Yale College Dean Mary Miller, whose office recommended the programme’s cancellation, said the Peking University-Yale University Joint Undergraduate Programme in Beijing became financially unsustainable due to weak participation, with only four students signed up this autumn.

Though Yale President Richard Levin called the programme a “great success” when Yale renewed its commitment to the partnership in December, enrolment has consistently been below the level administrators had hoped for since the programme was launched in 2006. Miller said it was not sustainable to have staff outnumbering students.

INDIA Online education market ‘to grow to $40 billion by 2017’

Press Trust of India29 July 2012 Issue No:232

India's online education market size is set to grow to US$40 billion by 2017 from the present US$20 billion, reports the Press Trust of India.

“We expect drastic changes in online education in the next two- to three-year period,” LoudCloud Systems Chief Technology Officer Anil Sonkar said.

India has one of the largest education systems in the world, with a network of more than a million schools and 18,000 higher education institutions. More than half of the country's 1.2 billion population falls in the target market for education and related services.

LoudCloud is engaged in providing e-learning technologies in India. It has roped in Odisha-based Centurion University of Technology and Management for their distance education branch, which is set to start in June 2013, he said.

SOUTH KOREA Universities caught lying about graduate employment

The Korea Herald29 July 2012 Issue No:232

A number of South Korean universities have been falsifying graduate employment data to raise funds and attract students, according to a government investigation, writes Oh Kyu-wook for The Korea Herald.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology announced last Thursday after a two-month investigation that it found 28 universities across the country had falsely reported the employment rate for their graduates. The ministry report came as an increasing number of universities in the country face declining student enrolment and tightened budgets.

“The graduate employment rate is an important indicator when we value universities. So some of them tried to fake the numbers in order to receive funds from the government,” an official said. The ministry currently funds universities based on an annual evaluation, and the graduate employment rate is one of the most important points of the report, he added.

Full report on The Korea Herald site

Rankings – ‘Multi-dimensional’, ‘user-driven’ are the magic words

Frank Ziegele and Gero Federkeil29 July 2012 Issue No:232

In a recent article in University World News Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, warned that rankings needed to be handled with care. If we consider the impact international rankings have today, we can only agree with Baty’s notion that “authority brings responsibility”.

In more and more countries – Baty cited examples – a good league table position in the major global rankings plays a decisive role in policies of cooperation of universities with foreign institutions, as well as with regard to the recognition of foreign degrees and the portability of loans and scholarships.

These are clear signs of a dangerous overuse of rankings. No ranking has been introduced for these purposes and – hopefully – most producers of rankings would reject this role.

But we want to argue that ranking providers should not only object to misuses: it is more important to design rankings in a way that makes misuse difficult and guides users to apply rankings in an appropriate and meaningful way.

The ‘composite indicator’ problem

One of the major mistakes of rankings is the use of a ‘composite indicator’. A more or less broad variety of indicators is weighted and aggregated into an overall score for the whole university. One number is thus intended to measure the complex performance of a university!

If rankings provide information in this way, they seduce users into making decisions based on that one number. This is surely an oversimplification of quality in higher education.

Rankings can provide some quantitative information on particular aspects of the performance of universities – teaching and learning, research, international orientation and others. To do this, they have to focus on a limited number of selected dimensions and indicators, which means no ranking is able to reflect the full complexity of universities.

Some global rankings, which focus on reputation, measure nothing more than the strength of the universities’ global brand, which might not correlate to their performance. Yet their results are actually influencing that very reputation.

Other specialised rankings, for example Webometrics rankings, only measure the success of university policies in attaining web presence, but not their teaching or research performance. Despite this, the user is lured into believing s/he will be able to identify the best universities in the world with these kinds of rankings.

U-Multirank

How can we change this? The magic words are ‘multi-dimensional’ and ‘user-driven’ ranking.

The U-Multirank project, initiated by the European Commission, developed and tested the feasibility of such a system.

Different stakeholders and users have different ideas about what constitutes a high quality university and hence have different preferences and priorities with regard to the relevance of indicators. There are neither theoretical nor empirical arguments to assign a particular pre-defined weight to an indicator.

U-Multirank takes these points seriously by leaving the decision about the relevance of indicators to the users of the ranking. It presents a separate ranking list for every single indicator and suggests using an interactive internet tool, which allows people to choose the indicators that are most relevant to them.

Moreover, the set of indicators is not restricted to bibliometric research performance, but also includes dimensions such as teaching and learning, knowledge transfer, regional engagement and international orientation. This multi-dimensional approach is able to make the different institutional profiles and the particular strengths and weaknesses of universities transparent.

In combination with its grouping approach (building three to five performance groups instead of calculating a pseudo-exact league table), U-Multirank avoids the lure of oversimplification inherent in the attempts to crown the ‘best’ university in the world.

The provision of more differentiated and, admittedly, more complicated information decreases the pressure to change the methodology just to come up with a different list than in the year before. Since a major quality criterion for rankings is the stability of their methodology, this point further increases the value of the multi-dimensional approach.

The development of the U-Multirank model and the response to it from within higher education and among stakeholders has already stimulated a number of changes in the traditional global rankings. Some now also work on field-based rankings and some have started to include interactive elements to allow for user-driven elements.

However, they still stick to league tables and composite indicators instead of providing a really multi-dimensional and user-driven ranking. Let’s start the democratisation of rankings by leaving the choice completely to the user.

U-Multirank also looks for a broader and stakeholder-oriented approach in generating ranking data: the idea, which was tested in the feasibility study, is to combine international (bibliometric and patent) databases with the outcomes of institutional, student and alumni surveys.

This allows the comparison of, for instance, facts about study programmes (as U-Multirank provides a field-based ranking) with student satisfaction surveys, leading to a differentiated picture of performance.

If you only know the student-staff ratio, you can’t say if a high ratio means high quality in small groups or just a lack in demand due to bad quality. As soon as you can correlate the ratios to the students’ judgment of their contact with teachers, you will have a better impression of performance.

We have heard the objections against U-Multirank – “is this still a ranking?” or “will users understand this?” or “people still want to know who is number one!”

We would answer: as U-Multirank still shows vertical diversity by measuring performance, it is a ranking system. To make it understandable despite the complexity, the user-friendliness of the web portal will be of major importance. And, last but not least, we believe in intelligent users.

The next phase of the European Commission’s project has to demonstrate that all this can be implemented as a stable system.

* Professor Frank Ziegele is managing director and Gero Federkeil is manager in charge of rankings at the Centre for Higher Education Development in Germany.

Higher education institutions need to rein in (especially internal) costs

William Patrick Leonard29 July 2012 Issue No:232

In an article in The Seattle Times last month, featured in University World News, two members of the University of Washington’s board are quoted as saying: “This is the fourth year in a row our students have seen a double-digit tuition increase…It can’t go on.”

The University of Washington is not alone in facing declining external support. The American higher education community’s prospects for its own sustainability are questionable. It is unlikely to endure as we know it, with reliance on tuition fee and enrolment increases compensating for the failure to more rigorously control costs and balance budgets. Public and non-profit private institutions alike have focused for too long on short-term solutions.

Without a large endowment income cushion, the bulk of US public and non-profit private institutions have been focused on the short-term imperative of bringing revenues in line with an array of immediate, unavoidable and inflexible operating costs that these institutions bear.

Short-term remedies to balance institutional budgets present only a limited solution. Decades of relatively predictable government support appear to have engendered a sense of unquestioned entitlement, as institutions have added programmes and services on top of existing expenses.

There are three short-term internal tools for balancing institutional budgets. To date, only
two – increasing tuition fees and-or enrolment – have been regularly used.

Tuition fee increases have become an annual expectation. Conversely, increased admissions, while not often recognised as a revenue enhancement tool, have been used with equal frequency.

The former has been until recently grudgingly accepted by students and their benefactors. The latter has been widely accepted inside and applauded outside the academy as a means of expanding access to the American dream. Unfortunately, economies of scale aside, increasing the size of the student body tends to lead to future cost increases, as more faculty, staff and other resources are needed to support a larger student body.

An unsustainable cycle

Near-exclusive reliance on these two short-term remedies has trapped many of the nation’s public and non-profit private institutions in an unsustainable cycle.

After decades of tuition fee increases exceeding the Consumer Price Index, coupled with declining measures of value added, students and their benefactors are increasingly less tolerant of these annual increases. This disquiet has been exacerbated by mounting student debt and questions about the subsequent income students need to earn to settle the obligation.

Popular expressions of growing dissatisfaction have in turn prompted the steady decline of the once unquestioned support of elected officials. In recent years, state subsidies to public institutions have declined to the point that some flagship public institutions are publicly considering morphing into some form of non-profit status without any governmental support.

Enrolment and tuition fee increases appeal to institutional leaders. They have been perceived as far less internally contentious alternatives. Pushing for a higher enrolment gives the institution and the public a sense of positive momentum.

Increasing tuition fees has been received by students, parents, elected officials and the public at large as inevitable. The objections from external constituents have been met with the reminder that quality must be maintained, if not enhanced. Recently, the traditional grudging acceptance of the quality defence appears to have reached its limit.

Cutting costs avoided

The third internal budget balancing tool, cutting costs, has been the least favoured. It can negatively influence programmes and hence careers. I suggest that many institutions, large and small, have found it politically easier to increase revenue rather than control costs.

They have tended to resist seriously questioning the viability of ineffective or inefficient programmes and services. Simultaneously, many have increased their continuing cost burden by enhancing existing programmes and services as well as adding new ones.

Simplistically, institutional costs may be crudely subdivided into two categories – external and internal.

The external costs are composed of purchased goods and services. Unless the institution has the power to negotiate price, its utility, insurance, contracted services and consumable costs are largely beyond its control. External costs are strongly influenced by the internal costs that institutions should have more control over.

The place to start is internal costs. In American higher education internal costs are governed as much by unquestioned culture as by contractual obligations. Institutions have tended to regard the traditional mix of faculty, curriculum, calendar and infrastructure as immutable. This has been accompanied by an exaggerated sense of entitlement to external support.

The majority of US higher education institutions can no longer rely on the historic levels of government support or philanthropic largesse. Nor can they depend on the continued utility of tuition fees and enrolment increases to align revenue with their immutable culture-driven costs.

In order to endure, these institutions will have to restrict, rather than abandon, their dependence on external support. In the near term they should carefully assess the relevance, efficiency and effectiveness of each existing programme and service in their current cost portfolio.

To further dampen cost escalation in the longer term, they would be wise to recall that it is far less painful to stop a recommended programme or service addition before implementation than to subsequently terminate it.

Institutions must become much more responsible for the internal balancing of their budgets. Otherwise, their sustainability is questionable. Consistently demonstrating internal cost control could go a long way towards rebuilding external trust and funding.

* William Patrick Leonard is vice dean of SolBridge International School of Business in Daejeon, Republic of Korea.

UK visa changes driving Indian students away

Alya Mishra and Yojana Sharma29 July 2012 Issue No:232

For Indian students, higher education in Britain is no longer an attractive option owning to tougher visa rules and withdrawal of a post-work visa option. According to consultants and students, the UK is being replaced by Canada and Australia as the preferred destinations for graduate study.

“The number of students going to study in the UK has declined sharply following the changes to the post-student work visa regulations,” said Naresh Gulati, CEO of Oceanic Consultants, a leading overseas education agency. “The number is likely to go down further if corrective action is not taken in the immediate future.

“Other countries such as Australia have gained after making some significant changes to visa regulations that seem to appeal to the Indian student,” Gulati said.

Study Overseas, a foreign education consultancy in New Delhi, confirmed the decline in the numbers of students heading for the UK in recent years. The number of students going to Britain through the agency has halved: for the September 2011 intake, it sent 40 students to UK universities as opposed to 80 in 2010.

Potential size of Indian market is huge

According to a Student Insight report on India, about to be released by the British Council’s Education Intelligence unit, 74% of those considering undergraduate study and 77% of those "seriously considering" foreign study at the time that they were asked, are “beyond making casual enquiries and instead are looking to plan and implement overseas study arrangements”.

The majority had never studied abroad, but were “flexible when it came to choosing countries and institutions in which to study”. The British Council's data were collected between 2007 and July 2012 with some 1,200 responses collected in May-July 2012.

It is an indication of the potential size of the Indian market as a source of foreign students, according to the British Council.

With the British government saying it is tightening its rules because too many students use the study-abroad route as a bridge to migration, the British Council report showed that only 3% of Indian students surveyed said they wanted to move overseas permanently.

Rather, respondents said that career prospects, the quality of courses and wanting the cultural experience of living overseas were by far the main drivers for both prospective undergraduate and postgraduate students.

“The overwhelming majority of students from India plan to return home after studying, with only a very small percentage saying they were thinking of using higher education as a springboard for migration,” the report said, adding to a highly polarised debate in the UK on whether students should be regarded by the government as potential migrants in deciding policy on international students.

Another report from the MigrationWatch think-tank, published on 23 July, found that the rate of potential refusals by the UK Border Agency for student visas was high for India – around 59%, compared to a reported 0% for the US and Canada and an overall average for main source countries of around 33%.

MigrationWatch suggested that a ‘credibility test’, which would ascertain English-language proficiency and intention to return to the home country, would help reduce the number of “bogus” applications.

Not being able to work is a major deterrent

After changes to UK visa rules, students can no longer remain in the country to work. This, according to Indian students, is a major deterrent.

“The fee for UK universities for a one-year postgraduate course is around £11,000 (US$17,000). An equal amount is needed for stay and food,” said Shrin Raghavan, a final-year student at Delhi University.

“It makes no sense to go to a UK university as it would be financially impractical to repay the student loan if I am not able to work there for two years post-studies.”

Raghavan, who would have liked to enrol at the London School of Economics, chose to go to Monash University in Australia. “I can work in Australia for two years after completing my studies," she said.

In Canada, a post-study work permit can be issued up to a maximum of three years, depending on the length of the study programme that the student completes.

Students also said that the visa changes by the UK made them feel unwelcome.

“For the UK, international students have become a means of income. They do not want anything to do with you once you have paid the fee,” said Anirudh Chail, who is scouting for countries in which to pursue an MBA.

Other countries filling the gap

According to Sikandar Singh, an independent career counsellor, the UK “cannot compete in a market where countries like Canada, Australia and others offered post-work visas.

“The UK needs to understand that a majority of Indian students belong to the rising middle class and for them higher education is a means to procure better jobs and career opportunities,” Singh said.

Australian universities have witnessed a surge in applications from Indian students, whose number has shot up by 16% and is expected to rise further. More than 32,500 student visa applications by Indians were filed from July 2011-March 2012, as compared to 28,067 during the corresponding period last year, according to latest official data.

Australia has been trying to streamline its international higher education sector, which was hit in recent years by a strong dollar value, tough visa norms and racial attacks on Indian students.

A new student visa processing system has been introduced, which a number of Australian universities recently signed up for with Australian Immigration.

The new system will allow students with certificates of enrolment from participating Australian universities to be treated as low-risk applicants when applying for student visas. The change was made to decrease visa waiting time and to help minimise tedious requirements regarding financial matters.

According to Naresh Gulati, the initiatives taken by the Australian government have ensured that false applicants are weeded out, while creating a positive environment for genuine students.

“This is an internal matter that the UK government needs to tackle. We don’t see any role for the Indian government,” Gulati said.

QS defends paid-for gold star addition to rankings

David Jobbins25 July 2012 Issue No:232

Quacquarelli Symonds Limited, publisher of the QS World University Rankings, has defended the use of quality marks granted to universities that have paid to go through an audit process.

Universities apply to be audited and pay for a process that judges them across 51 criteria that can lead to the awarding of up to five QS 'stars' that are visible against the institution’s entry in the ranking.

In contrast with the rankings, which draw on a small amount of globally available, largely public data, the QS stars system examines criteria such as facilities, access, engagement and innovation.

The stars appear seamlessly alongside the listing for each university on the World University Rankings, despite protestations from QS that the two are totally separate operations.

The UK magazine Private Eye reported in its current issue that two Irish universities – the University of Limerick and University College Cork, UCC – had paid “tens of thousands” of euro for their stars.

The magazine recorded that UCC had told the Irish Examiner that the €22,000 (US$26,600) cost of obtaining the stars was worthwhile, as it could be recouped through additional international student recruitment.

The total cost for the audit and a three-year licence is US$30,400, according to the scheme prospectus.

QS says the system is much more resource-intensive than the rankings and involves a great deal of guidance and support to draw out the correct data, compute the results and guide their interpretation.

QS concedes that some elite universities – Cambridge and Harvard among them – have not had to pay for the accreditation process for their five-star rating as their award is based on publicly available information.

Ben Sowter, director of research at QS, confirmed that “a few leading universities we used to test the measures” had not had to go through the accreditation process.

Private Eye reported that the University of Central Lancashire, which secured four stars after paying to go through the process, was ranked 601 in its World University Rankings.

Three other UK universities have been given stars, compared with 16 in the US (including the Ivy League institutions that escaped the accreditation process), 12 in Australia, and one – the Al-Farabi National Kazakh University – in Kazakhstan.

Sowter told University World News that the rankings gave a “broad brush insight into relative quality” but QS Stars “provides a more in-depth evaluation”.

He added: “Our concept for users is that, if they want more detail on universities in the rankings, then the stars, where available can provide that."

He conceded that rankings – not just those compiled by QS – had limitations.

“There are aspects of institutional quality that no organisation will ever be able to collect on a sufficiently comprehensive basis globally and in many cases the world’s top universities would all be sufficiently strong so as to offer little discernment.

“Because of the nature of QS Stars, the fact that it is a process we go through with the full support of the institution...means that we can respond to a great deal of criticism of rankings in a different context.”

Sowter accepted that not all the information on which the allocation of stars was based was published.

“QS stars are a rating and not a ranking...This is not intended to be a dismissal of the need for transparency, but at the same time the detailed view on accreditation results are rarely, if at all, made public.

“However, we do publish the performance of institutions in each individual category and we are talking with institutions about potentially publishing a richer data profile."

The 51 indicators can be seen both in the brochure and here.

“Many are self-reported and undergo a verification process, which is a major part of the workload that each audit demands,” said Sowter.

The QS World University Rankings lists just over 700 universities – about 3.5% of the world’s universities.

Sowter said: “In global terms, viewing the quality of world universities through a frame of reference defined by the likes of Cambridge and Harvard has limitations.

“With universities all over the world charging substantial fees to international students, an objective means of differentiating between the quality of the services they provide is indispensable. QS Stars allow students to make more informed choices, while also helping universities to recruit more effectively by providing independent verification of the areas in which they excel.”

To date, more than 100 institutions in 25 countries have adopted the stars and one-star and even zero-star results have been recorded.

“This is not a standard that is geared to enable everyone in the world to achieve top scores that are not justified by their genuine capabilities," Sowter said.

"It is designed to recognise that, for most, there is more to the decision of selecting a university than finding out who published the most journal articles, employed the most Nobel prize winners or attracted the most headlines."

Saturday 28 July 2012

Former Khmer Rouge Want No More Cases at Tribunal

Say Mony, VOA Khmer

27 July 2012

ANLONG VENG - Despite some pressure on the Khmer Rouge tribunal to pursue more cases, former Khmer Rouge cadre in the former stronghold of Anlong Veng say they are uneasy with the prospect of further arrests.

One resident here in the district in Oddar Meanchey province, Um Mek, said he always wanted to see Khmer Rouge leaders held accountable for atrocities committed under their rule.

So, the father of three daughters said recently, bringing the top leaders to trial was the right thing to do. “The Khmer Rouge leaders then did the wrongdoings,” he said. “So they must now be brought to trial.”

He said he agrees with the ongoing atrocity crimes trial of Nuon Chea, the regime’s ideologue; Khieu Samphan, its head of state; and Ieng Sary, its foreign minister. But like many here in this remote part of northern Cambodia, Um Mek said he is uncomfortable with further prosecutions.

Students Forced to Pay Bribes

AFP

Cambodian students travel on boats to school through floodwaters in Kandal province, east of Phnom Penh, Oct. 3, 2011.

2012-07-26

Reports of bribery in Cambodian schools underscore the country's uphill battle against corruption.
Cambodian schoolchildren are being forced to pay bribes to pass high school admissions tests, a senior local educator said on Thursday while calling on the country’s Ministry of Education to have students retake their most recent exams.

“These tests must be taken again, as the results of the previous tests are not valid,” Cambodian Independent Teachers’ Association president Rong Chhun told RFA in an interview.

Proctors and examiners for junior high school students are requiring payments of between U.S. $30 to U.S. $60 for a passing grade on high school entrance exams, Rong Chhun said, adding that “middlemen” are charging similar amounts for assurances the bribes will reach the right people.

“There is a price for middlemen between U.S. $30 to U.S. $50. I urge the Ministry of Education to work with local authorities to bring the suspects to justice,” Rong Chhun said.

Cambodian Minister of Education Im Sethy could not be reached for comment, but the reports of bribery in Cambodia’s schools underscore the country’s reputation, highlighted in a recent report by Berlin-based Transparency International, for widespread corruption in the public sector.

“This bribery takes place across the country,” Rong Chhun said.

Payment to proctors

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the parent of a student in Kandal province said that his son had been told to pay U.S. $30 to proctors at the Bun Rany Hun Sen High School Examination Center in order to pass his exam, held on July 16-17.

“All students were asked to pay at least U.S. $30 dollars, including my son. But my son gave only U.S. $25,” he said.

Results of the exam will be released on July 28, he said.

Berlin-based corruption watchdog Transparency International ranked Cambodia 164th worst out of 182 countries surveyed in its 2011 Corruption Perception Index.

Cambodia’s official Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) launched an initiative in May to eliminate bribes solicited by local commune councilors for performing public services, with ACU deputy director Chhay Savuth declaring that “[Cambodia’s] culture of bribery has been in place for over 20 years.”

But international organizations have warned that the country’s graft-busting bodies will not be effective until they are free of government influence and control.

Reported by Den Ayuthya for RFA’s Khmer service. Translation by Samean Yun. Written in English by Richard Finney.

Defence teams press scholar

Tuesday, 24 July 2012

Bridget Di Certo

American historian David Chandler testifies in Case 002 at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Photograph: ECCC/POOL

It was historian David Chandler who appeared to be on trial yesterday at the Khmer Rouge tribunal as defence teams spent the day putting Chandler’s previous writings and testimony under the microscope.

Even co-accused Brother No 2 Nuon Chea had two questions of his own for the one-time US diplomat who has spent the better part of his academic career researching Cambodia and the Democratic Kampuchea period.

“From the very beginning until now,” Nuon Chea began, pausing to don thick reading glasses, “between the people of Cambodia and Vietnam, what has been the course of this dispute?”

“If one is looking for a phrase, I would say, a lot of history and mutual distrust,” Chandler answered, thanking Nuon Chea – “a person whom I do respect” – for his question.

Nuon Chea’s lawyers then attempted – unsuccessfully – to question Chandler on links between Khmer Rouge cadre and the current ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

American lawyer Andrew Ianuzzi, whom trial chamber judges have found guilty of courtroom misconduct in Case 002 proceedings, attempted to pose several questions to Chandler.

However, the expert witness was not allowed by chamber president Nil Nonn to answer any after repeated objections by the prosecution and civil party lawyers

Talking about the structure of the Khmer Rouge as a “pure party” – a government by and for a ruling party, Ianuzzi asked whether such an arrangement would “describe the state of political affairs in Cambodia today, more or less?”

The question was objected to and Ianuzzi moved on, later attempting to ask Chandler for his comment on a quote concerning an unnamed Cambodian politician.

“[He] is an extremely competent politician, the most competent politician in Cambodia … He’s also a thug. He’s got blood on his hands. He does things to people who get in his way that are not at all pleasant,” Ianuzzi quoted – but was cut off by an objection questioning the relevance of the question.

The quote read by Ianuzzi echoed a quote from Chandler in reference to Prime Minister Hun Sen in the documentary The Trap of Saving Cambodia.

“Thuggish behaviour is particularly relevant. Thuggish behaviour [would include] interference with the judiciary, and this is a major issue that needs to be addressed in this court,” Ianuzzi shot back.

Nuon Chea’s lawyers pushed the interference issue with Chandler, pressing him on an earlier comment he had made that Khmer Rouge-era documents had been “culled” under the supervision of the Vietnamese and the Vietnamese-backed government that overthrew the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

“There are collections of documents known to be in Vietnam that were taken from here and not available to anybody. That is the source of my use of the word ‘cull’,” Chandler explained, adding that documents could have been destroyed or stored elsewhere as well.

Dutch lawyer Jasper Pauw attempted to press Chandler on links between that Vietnamese-backed government and the current CPP government.

“Do you agree with the statement that a trial of the Khmer Rouge leaders might be embarrassing to the current regime of Cambodia,” Pauw asked.

Chandler, however, was instructed not to answer the question by the panel of judges.

Later, Pauw said he wanted to point out “for the record” that Chandler’s answer, not captured by his microphone, which was turned off, was “might be, yes”.

Tension increased as the lawyer for former Khmer Rouge Minister of Foreign Affairs Ieng Sary, Michael Karnavas, began his questioning of Chandler.

Frustrated gesticulations and terse smiles were symptomatic of the passive-aggressive exchange between the two.

In challenging Chandler’s biography of Pol Pot for its “poetic” writing, Karnavas asked the scholar: “Is this because you are trying to make history a popular read, as opposed to writing history?”

“I don’t like the implication that history is some unreadable pile of junk,” Chandler shot back, defending his intimate research into Pol Pot’s life.

Karnavas offered something of an apology afterward. “I hope I have not given the impression that history should be dull or a bunch of junk,” he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bridget Di Certo at bridget.dicerto@phnompenhpost.com

Samphan's 'integrity' illuminated at Khmer Rouge court

Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Bridget Di Certo

Cambodian history scholar David Chandler yesterday echoed what has become a serial sentiment during testimony at the Khmer Rouge tribunal.

“[Khieu Samphan] was well known as a man of extreme and rather bewildering integrity,” Chandler testified in response to questions by the Case 002 co-acccused’s lawyers.

Chandler described Khieu Samphan as a shockingly incorruptible parliamentarian in the 1960s under then-King Norodom Sihanouk’s rule, a factor that inspired fear and anxiety in the monarch.

“He was just the kind of person Sihanouk didn’t know how to deal with,” Chandler said. “He [Sihanouk] had no experience with people that he couldn’t dominate, manipulate, purchase, rent.”

Amongst Sihanouk’s “crony circle”, Khieu Samphan’s honesty was “very rare indeed”, Chandler added.

Sihanouk was becoming anxious about Khieu Samphan, who, besides a possessing strong moral code, was known for his leftist ideals, Chandler said.

And “when Sihanouk got nervous, he got aggressive”, prompting Khieu Samphan to leave Phnom Penh in the ’60s and seek refuge in the countryside, where he later became a member of the central committee of the Communist Party of Kampuchea.

Chandler – who served as a US diplomat in the embassy in Phnom Penh during that era – conceded that Khieu Samphan’s leftist ideals had put him onto the radar for the Americans as well.

Frustration mounted between Chandler and Khieu Samphan’s Cambodian lawyer Kong Sam Onn in the afternoon during a confused exchange marred by translation difficulties and oral slip-ups.

Tension between Chandler and co-accused Ieng Sary’s lawyer Michael Karnavas similarly dominated the morning.

The two swayed between stern tones and limping apologies as Karnavas quizzed Chandler on his research methodology and the articulateness – or inarticulateness – of Chandler’s testimony over the four previous hearing days.

This included a laboured dissection of such Chandler turns of phrase as “I think”, “I feel” and “might be”, among others.

In an illustrative exchange touching on the gaps left by missing documentation from the Democratic Kampuchea period, Karnavas quizzed the historian on statements he had made as to how many documents may have existed during the regime.

“Your conclusion is a guess it is not?” Karnavas demanded.

“I am not going to say ‘my wobbly conviction is’… I corrected myself as I was talking. I could see ‘guess’ was too loose, so I changed it to ‘conclusion’,” Chandler shot back.

Chandler concludes his testimony today.

Chandler testimony wraps at Khmer Rouge court

Thursday, 26 July 2012

Joseph Freeman

Prominent Cambodia historian David Chandler wrapped up his testimony yesterday at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, bringing to a close five and a half days in which the professor brought his decades of research on the subject of Democratic Kampuchea to bear on the proceedings of Case 002.

It was a sometimes testy, sometimes enlightening appearance.

“Although it may not have seemed like it, I have enjoyed it,” Chandler said at the end of his testimony. “Or seemed like it at times,” he clarified.

But his last morning was far tamer. Chandler, prompted by questions from the defence for Khieu Samphan, dug deeper into the late 1960s fallout between the former Khmer Rouge head of state and then-King Norodom Sihanouk.

“Sihanouk had actually accused Khieu Samphan to his face of fomenting the Samlaut rebellion,” he said, referring to the violently suppressed peasant uprising in 1967 that was credited with giving the Khmer Rouge momentum.

Soon after this encounter, Khieu Samphan fled into the jungle, and later became a member of the Communist Party of Kampuchea’s central committee.

“That accusation compelled Khieu Samphan unwillingly … into the jungle.”

The former Khmer Rouge state presidium president’s flight may have been taken “unwillingly” but it wasn’t necessarily unwitting, Chandler elaborated. Upon fleeing into the countryside, “Oh! just by coincidence, he meets Ta Mok,” Chandler pointed out.

“He didn’t flee into a part of the forest that he had no connections with.”

Chandler said a French official he spoke with recounted meeting with Khieu Samphan just before he left.

“He told the person I interviewed, ‘I have to get out of town, I’m sorry, this is au revoir,’ he was speaking French,” Chandler said, adding that Sihanouk also resented that people admired Khieu Samphan.

“Sihanouk did not like this popularity one bit,” Chandler said.

After the morning session ended, a new witness who lived through much of the history that Chandler wrote about in his books gave testimony.

Rochoem Tun aligned himself with the movement that became known as the Khmer Rouge in 1963. A member of the ethnic Jarai group, Tun said his brothers told him that as minorities, they should take the opportunity join the revolution.

He became a member of the youth league in 1968. Around that time, he was in the jungles of Rattanakiri, where the movement had holed up. He said he served as a messenger between Brother No 1 Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, who became the Khmer Rouge Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Pol Pot, he said, taught him in “study sessions”.

Letter to the editor: Boun Sovicheth

Is “studying a foreign language” a mere culprit of Cambodian youth’s socially and culturally inapt behaviors?

I am writing in response to an article, “Modern youth almost forget their own language” written by Tong Soprach and published on July 18, 2012. I am very much impressed by Mr. Soprach’s concerns about the impacts of foreign languages (i.e., English) on the use of Khmer (Cambodia’s national language) among Cambodian youth.

Through my personal and professional experiences, I strongly echo the fact that certain aspects of behaviors and language use among Cambodian youth are matters of grave concern. Mr. Soprach’s observation of the culturally incongruous use of the term of address by some Cambodian youth is greatly laudable.

While the generic phrase, “Sour Sday Neak Teang Ars Knear,” literally translated as “Hello everybody!” may be socially and culturally appropriate in most Western contexts, it may not be so in most Cambodian contexts. “With the presence of older people” in formal situations such as “a national or international meeting”, this “informal salute” can manifest a lack of cultural sensitivity and awareness on the part of the speaker (i.e. youth) and can thus be considered “disrespectful.”

That said, attributing these unbefitting behaviors to studying a foreign language alone may not do justice to the latter. Thus, such a question as “why studying a foreign language changes so many young Khmers in the way they speak and behave?” may need qualifying. Is studying a foreign language a mere culprit of such behaviors? Does learning a foreign language do as much or more harm than good?

Is speaking Khmer with “softened voices and slurred pronunciation” necessarily a way of showing off and a sign of fluent use of a foreign language?

For all intents and purposes, I am by no means trying to argue against Mr. Soprach’s concerns about youth’s behaviors, all of which I find justifiably legitimate. However, identifying the causes of such behaviors should perhaps go beyond the wall of foreign language classrooms. For one, youth is the time of intense identity formation or, worse yet, crisis. Is it possible that the ascription to such behaviors bespeaks a sign or struggle of trying to fit in socially or linguistically, and should thereof be interpreted accordingly?

On another note, social media and online networking have in recent years gathered significant momentum in Cambodia, making exposures to western cultures by Cambodian youth unprecedentedly easy. More or less, this phenomenon can have significant social and cultural (and perhaps linguistic) impacts on Cambodians, and thus its constitutive roles in the changing behaviors among Cambodian youth—however (in)appropriate they may be— should not be taken for granted.

Until empirically proven, whether studying a foreign language leads to such socially and culturally inapt behaviors remain arguably debatable and untenable.

Boun Sovicheth
Language Educator
bounsovicheth@gmail.com
Currently doing a doctoral study in Culture, Literacy and Language in the United States

Cambodian scoops Asia's Nobel Prize

Friday, 27 July 2012

Justine Drennan

Agronomist Yang Saing Koma is one of six individuals, and the only Cambodian, to receive this year’s Ramon Magsaysay Award.

Koma will receive the award, often called Asia’s Nobel Prize, for his work empowering farmers as founder of the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC).

The foundation acknowledged Koma’s “creative fusion of practical science and collective will”.

After observing Cambodia’s dependence on foreign NGOs, Koma founded CEDAC in 1997 to help Cambodians take development into their own hands.

“We put a lot of emphasis on building the capacity of the people, building their self-confidence, building their networks, giving them more and more leadership,” Koma told the Post yesterday. “I learn a lot from the farmers, and the farmers learn a lot from us.”

What began as “a small group of farmers” in Kandal is now Cambodia’s largest agriculture and rural development NGO, with initiatives in 21 provinces.

CEDAC is now working to reduce reliance on donors and expand small growers’ involvement in commerce and investment.

Koma is the fifth Cambodian to receive the award. Election expert Koul Panha won the award in 2011.

Traffic accidents and laws

Friday, 27 July 2012

Soma Norodom

Riding around the city of Phnom Penh can sometimes be challenging. Whether your mode of transportation is a car, tuk tuk, motorbike or a bicycle, the traffic is horrendous, and sharing the road with all types of transportation can be dangerous.

Traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of death in Cambodia. Speeding and drunk driving are the main causes, and motorbikes are the most common vehicle involved in traffic accidents.

The traffic laws in Cambodia are not regularly enforced. There are police officers on most busy street corners, but the only time you see police officers working are when they stop drivers and fine them for petty traffic violations. Due to the police officers’ low monthly salaries, often the money (fines) is pocketed, and they also charge foreigners more than locals.

Why do the law enforcers target foreigners? It’s because the foreigners do not want to hassle with this and will pay whatever the police officers ask.

For the locals, they will stay and bargain with the law enforcers until the police officers are frustrated and let the locals pay for what they asked, just to get them out of their hair, so they can focus on collecting more fines.

Try to bargain first, and ask for a receipt after you pay the fine. Yes, corruption in the police system exists in Cambodia. In other developing countries, the corruption is hidden.

Getting into a traffic accident can be a traumatic experience, both physical and emotional.

Major fatalities are from road accidents which involves tour buses travelling throughout the country and getting hit by drunk drivers, especially at night. Some are driven by 17- and 18-year-olds, without a driver’s licence, and driving under the influence of alcohol.

As a result, many insurance companies have stopped selling insurance to the bus companies, and the government is not doing anything about it.

This issue is not on the government’s priority list, despite the fact that traffic accidents claimed more than 2,000 lives in 2010, according to the World Health Organisation.

Road safety programs have been implemented by several organisations to bring awareness and education to this growing issue.

It is very important to wear a helmet when riding a motorbike. Handicap International stated that more than 80 per cent of fatalities are due to head injuries. The road safety public awareness campaign for helmet safety has been effective, and the number of riders wearing helmets has doubled this year.

Another road traffic law being enforced is wearing a seat belt. This is common practice in Western countries, and many do follow this law in Cambodia. But what if the car you are in does not have seat belts?

Most of the vehicles are second-hand cars and many would not pass safety standards, or they are vehicles that were in major crashes and only the exterior of the car was fixed before being imported from other countries.

The government needs to intervene in traffic regulations and the traffic laws which include major violations like drunk driving and speeding, which need to be strictly enforced.

I remember what my former driver education teacher taught me when I was learning how to drive a car in the US – be proactive and not reactive.

Anti-corruption chief is guest speaker

CAMFEBA Executive Director Som Chamnan. Photograph: Stuart Alan Becker/Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 27 July 2012

Stuart Alan Becker

The president of Cambodia’s Anti-Corruption Unit, Om Yentieng, will give a speech this Monday at 6 pm at Sunway Hotel. Organiser CAMFEBA is asking for a US$25 payment for a buffet dinner during the event.

According to CAMFEBA Executive Director Som Chamnon, the idea for the dinner was initiated by Chairman Van Sou Ieng and CAMFEBA’s board members because they believed business people in Cambodia should be aware of the enforcement of the anti-corruption law.

“One reason to join the event is to meet business people, and another reason is for people to learn how the government has enforced the Anti-Corruption Law,” Chamnon said.

The event is described as a “business networking and seminar on the contribution from the private sector in eliminating corruption in Cambodia”.

“Business people can find a way to contribute to the enforcement of the law, and to open the floor for the business people to meet directly with the leadership of the anti-corruption unit so they can potentially raise the challenging issue to leadership of the Anti-Corruption Unit and get some way to get at the problems they are facing,” Chamnon said in an interview.

CAMFEBA, or the Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Associations, was established in June 2000 and is chaired by Van Sou Ieng, who also chairs the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) and owns the Cambodian Country Club (CCC).

CAMFEBA describes itself as an independent federation of employers and business associations recognised and registered with Cambodia’s Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training and the sole organisation “representing, promoting and safeguarding the rights and interests of employers in Cambodia”.

CAMFEBA represents more than 1,000 employers both union and non-union, with six business associations as members, 155 individual companies and 14 non-profits.

Chamnon says he thinks Cambodia’s corruption situation will improve in the future.

“The government is trying to reduce the unhappy feeling from the investors as well. We have seen some good examples of how this Anti-Corruption Law was imposed and it sent a strong message for people involved in corruption activity to be more careful.

“At least they are more careful about doing this kind of activity. We should be hopeful on this positive development. It will take time to do it.

“Our mission is to support the employer to achieve the excellence in their business and management practice. We have a lawyer on staff for labour-related issues, and we keep members updated and advise them on how laws impact their business.”

Chamnon says one of CAMFEBA’s functions is to lobby on behalf of the private sector for a good business environment for all.

“The private sector can benefit from us because we have a more powerful, stronger voice to talk to the government. Business can also benefit from it and the general public can also benefit from it. If CAMFEBA does not lobby for business, government might put in some policy the business whereby cannot grow and job creation cannot happen. We lobby not only for business but also for the public,” he said.

To reserve a place for the event, people may contact Tep Sophoan on 012 634 055 or email marketing@camfeba.com. Accredited members of the media may attend without dinner free of charge if they present their credentials.

Cambodian town with gruesome past lures tourists

AFP July 27, 2012, 3:42 pm

ANLONG VENG, Cambodia (AFP) - Want to see Pol Pot's grave or his broken toilet seat? How about a visit to the house of a feared Khmer Rouge commander known as "The Butcher"?

Welcome to the town of Anlong Veng, a former Khmer Rouge stronghold which hopes to become the next must-see destination on Cambodia's dark tourism trail, but which faces calls not to glorify its role in the country's bloody past.

A rectangular mound of earth lined with half-buried glass bottles and protected by a corrugated iron roof marks the spot where Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was hastily cremated in 1998.

Aside from a sign asking visitors to "please help to preserve this historical site" there is no information on offer, leaving Cambodian tourist Pov Dara, 27, to ponder the significance of the low-key grave.

"I feel sad for the people but not for him," she decides, after snapping a photo of her relatives flashing the peace sign.

Up to two million people died from overwork, starvation or execution when the Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, attempted to create a communist utopia in the late 1970s.

His cremation site, which attracts some 10 visitors a day, is one of 14 tourist spots the government intends to "preserve and develop" in northern Cambodia's Anlong Veng.

Other places of interest include leaders' old homes and a rusty radio truck used to broadcast Khmer Rouge propaganda.

Impoverished Cambodia is no stranger to genocide tourism, with the Tuol Sleng torture centre in Phnom Penh and the nearby Killing Fields of Choeung Ek, where thousands died, among the nation's most popular attractions.

But while the focus at those sites is on victims of the 1975-1979 regime, Anlong Veng is populated by one-time loyal Khmer Rouge followers, giving it the feel of a town that has found itself on the wrong side of history.

As locals relish the lucrative prospect of welcoming more tourists to the once isolated area, observers stress the need to educate guests about Cambodia's history -- and avoid turning the destination into a Khmer Rouge nostalgia tour.

To that end, the tourism ministry has teamed up with the esteemed Documentation Centre of Cambodia, which researches Khmer Rouge atrocities.

The centre is preparing to publish a guidebook based on the stories of long-time residents and it is training tour guides to provide meaningful information about "what happened and why during the Khmer Rouge regime's final days", said the group's director Youk Chhang. A museum is also planned.

But it is important not to exploit the country's tragic past, he told AFP.

Cambodia's memories are "not for sale", he said.

"We have the responsibility to ensure that Anlong Veng is a historical and responsible site to educate the public."

The Khmer Rouge was ousted by Vietnamese forces in 1979, though regime leaders and supporters continued to wage a low-level guerrilla war against the government.

Anlong Veng, near the Thai border, was the Khmer Rouge's last rebel centre before the movement disintegrated in the late 1990s.

One of the best-preserved visitor sites in town is the lakeside home of late military commander Ta Mok, known as "The Butcher" for allegedly orchestrating brutal massacres that killed thousands, although locals remember him as a generous leader who gave the town a road, a bridge, a hospital and a school.

Ta Mok, who briefly led the Khmer Rouge in its final days, was the only rebel who refused to surrender or strike a deal with the government after Pol Pot's death. He was arrested a year later and died in prison in 2006 awaiting trial.

His airy house is little more than a shell today, its furniture looted long ago. But several walls are still adorned with colourful yet amateurish murals of temples and a map of Cambodia -- symbols of Ta Mok's patriotism, according to the site's caretaker San Roeung, himself an ex-Khmer Rouge soldier.

"A lot of people here liked Ta Mok. When the enemy came, he took people to safety," said the 60-year-old, who helped build the house as well as the two cages outside used to hold Ta Mok's enemies.

He added that he hoped an influx of visitors would improve living standards for locals, who could "grow mangoes or jackfruit to sell to tourists".

Few are more excited about the town's tourism potential than Anlong Veng district deputy governor Nhem En -- who was the chief photographer at Tuol Sleng, where he endlessly captured images of inmates awaiting certain death.

A Khmer Rouge insider until he defected in the mid-1990s, Nhem En has built up a huge archive of photos, as well as a bizarre collection of keepsakes such as Pol Pot's sandals, his uniform and his shattered toilet seat.

Now he is looking for a partner to help set up a private museum to display his treasures, he said, having apparently given up on the idea of selling key items in the hope of earning hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"These items might not be worth much financially but, in historical terms, they're invaluable," he told AFP at his home, after showing some of his favourite possessions.

"This camera, if I put it in a museum, I would call it the killing camera," he said, as he held up a vintage Rolleicord, "because all of the people in Tuol Sleng who came before it died."

Nhem En insists he was not in a position to help any prisoners, all he could do was "follow orders" and "mind his own business".

Tuol Sleng prison chief Duch was in February sentenced to life in jail by Cambodia's UN-backed war crimes court, the first person to face justice for horrors committed under the regime.

The court is now trying the three most senior surviving Khmer Rouge members, but Nhem En has little interest in the proceedings, preferring to muse about Anlong Veng's nascent tourism industry.

The ancient temples of Angkor, which attract more than a million visitors a year, are a mere two-hour drive away, and Nhem En believes that if a fraction of those visitors added Anlong Veng to their itinerary, his town, with its plentiful guesthouses and restaurants, would benefit considerably.

"Anlong Veng will not go backwards," he said, though he emphasised that his own collection of memorabilia is about more than just profiting from his time with the Khmer Rouge.

"I'm doing this to make the world understand more about the Khmer Rouge regime," he said.

Vietnam invests over VND110 billion in sugar planting in Cambodia

VNS | Jul 26, 2012 15:59 pm

Sugar factories from Tay Ninh province have spent over VND110 billion ($5 million) to plant sugar cane in Cambodia's Svay Rieng province for the 2012-2013 crop, said the Tay Ninh People's Committee.

The Bien Hoa- Tay Ninh and Bourbon-Tay Ninh sugar factories are in a joint venture with their Cambodian partners to plant 3,500 hectares of sugar cane on plantations that will provide materials for these Vietnamese sugar factories. Vietnamese sugar producers have planted the crops in Cambodia as sugar cane in Vietnam has faced stiff competition for farmland from other crops such as cassava and rubber.

However, Vietnamese investors said poor infrastructure has made it difficult to transport sugar cane to Vietnam. Provincial authorities met last week to discuss measures to tackle these difficulties in a bid to promote trade and business ties between the two provinces in the time to come.

The sugar cane sector is a part of a co-operation agreement signed between the two provinces last September to create jobs and boost incomes for local people.

According to Vietnam's customs department, bilateral trade between the two countries reached nearly $1.5 billion in the first five months of this year, an increase of 30 per cent against the same period last year.

Vietnamese businesses have more than 110 investment projects totaling more than $2.4 billion in registered capital in Cambodia. Of this capital, 40.7 per cent was in agriculture and forestry, 34 per cent in electricity production and 11 per cent in the finance and banking sector. Cambodia has become the second biggest receiver of investment from Vietnamese businesses.

China grants scholarship to Cambodian students

Xinhua | 2012-7-27 23:07:54
By Agencies

The embassy of China to Cambodia on Friday awarded annual scholarships to 56 Cambodian students to pursue their bachelor's and master's degrees in China.

The students major in economics, commerce, information and communication technologies, engineering, agriculture, political science, international relations and laws.

Ambassador Pan Guangxue said the Chinese government has always attached great attention to the development of human resources in Cambodia.

"Education is the foundation for the social and economic development. China will try to offer as many scholarships as possible to Cambodia in order to develop human resources and to further enhance friendly relations between China and Cambodia," he said at the granting ceremony.

According to the ambassador, China provides at least 50 scholarships every year to Cambodian students for studying in China.

Phoeurng Sackona, secretary of state for Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, expressed sincere thanks to China for granting scholarships to Cambodian students.

"The scholarships reflect China's attention to the development human resources in Cambodia, a key element for the country's development," she said.

Sam Rany, Ph.D.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

គុណភាពអប់រំនៅកម្ពុជាត្រូវតែពង្រឹង!

កម្ពុជាត្រូវសង់វត្តបន្ថែម ឬមជ្ឈមណ្ឌលស្រាវជ្រាវ-មន្ទីរពិសោធន៍?

Sunday 29 July 2012

Unscrupulous agents get Chinese students into US schools

Universities admit more poor students in China

UNITED KINGDOM Private college to award its own degrees

Yale stops sending students to Peking University

INDIA Online education market ‘to grow to $40 billion by 2017’

SOUTH KOREA Universities caught lying about graduate employment

Rankings – ‘Multi-dimensional’, ‘user-driven’ are the magic words

Higher education institutions need to rein in (especially internal) costs

UK visa changes driving Indian students away

QS defends paid-for gold star addition to rankings

Saturday 28 July 2012

Former Khmer Rouge Want No More Cases at Tribunal

Students Forced to Pay Bribes

Defence teams press scholar

Samphan's 'integrity' illuminated at Khmer Rouge court

Chandler testimony wraps at Khmer Rouge court

Letter to the editor: Boun Sovicheth

Cambodian scoops Asia's Nobel Prize

Traffic accidents and laws

Anti-corruption chief is guest speaker

Cambodian town with gruesome past lures tourists

Vietnam invests over VND110 billion in sugar planting in Cambodia

China grants scholarship to Cambodian students

Official Resume of H.E. Dr. SAR Sokha, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister (April 2024)

Translate