<TITLE: Decentralisation Policy in Cambodia: Exploring Community Participation in the Education Sector
ACADEMIC DOMAIN: behavioural sciences
DISCIPLINE: education
EVENT TYPE: doctoral defence presentation
FILE ID: UDEFP140
NOTES: continued in UDEFD140

RECORDING DURATION: 18 min 38 sec

RECORDING DATE: 10.8.2007

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: circa 20

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 1

S1: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Italian; ACADEMIC ROLE: research student; GENDER: male; AGE: 31-50>


<S1> okay , mr <FOREIGN> kustos </FOREIGN> my distinguished opponent and ladies and gentlemen , while preparing this lectio an article i read with er for my thesis studies in education some years ago came back to my mind , the title was education organisations as loosely coupled systems and it was written by karl by karl E weick in 1976 the author described the education sector as a soccer match played without rules , players are the s- are are at the same time referees coach players and spectators the field is an unconventional circle with several goals scattered around the border of the circle people can enter or leave the game when they want they can throw the ball in whatever goal as many times as they want they can do as many goals as they want if now we'll substitute referees with principals coaches with teachers players with students spectators for parents and play the game that is how our school organisation work , weick defined this complex system where elements are tied together with minimum interdependence and coordination as loosely coupled weick however noted that these negative characteristics represent also opportunities because educational organisations are responsive to the local environment and permit a greater self-determination by local actors suth- er such as teachers and parents in my opinion the description by weick fits well with the processes leading to the decentralisation of education which are at the centre of my research , decentralisation on the one hand provides a framework to a loosely coupled system on the other creates the condition for local initiatives and solutions to emerge , in today's presentation i will refer to the case of cambodia the country where i have lived between 2001 and 2005 and touch upon three main things education as a key sector for development institutional reforms based on decentralisation and the community dynamics of participation in schools , in doing so as argued by swedish economist gunnar myrdal in his asian drama i want also to make explicit the value premises of this study according to myrdal in fact personal values always enter the choice of the research approach as well as the selection of programmes in my case an underlining value of the study is that participation is indispensable for sustainable development and a democratic development based on good governance but let's now turn to the first theme on education , since the beginning of the 1950s economists have been trying to explain ho- why economies grow early answers put a strong emphasis on capital accumulation and technology advancements during the 60s as it became evident that capital accumulation did not fully explain the difference in economic growth rates between countries education was identified as the missing element economist theodore schultz in 1963 coined the term human capital to describe the critical contribution of individual's abilities their knowledge and competencies in other words their education for economic growth a recurring question ever since is whether it is human capital that contributes to growth or the other way around the present research however goes beyond the narrow education-growth dichotomy and refers to the so-called basic needs approach to development this term has been coined during the 1970s to highlight the importance of reaching the marginalised and poor who have not benefited from economic growth and advocated the provision of basic services such as education and health as well as the enhancement of people's participation in local decision-making processes , this perspective has been expanded by amartya sen during the 1990s for sen education growth and development are all mutually reinforcing elements of the same process the well-being of individuals is not limited to income but it includes quality of life as well as individual freedoms in exercising individual's choices based on individual's capabilities , economic development is therefore not simply linked to growth but it includes also human rights the rule of law and access to basic needs such as education and health services , education in cambodia has been dramatically hampered by the civil war between 1970 and 1975 and the subsequent khmer rouge regime until 1979 the des- the destruction was not only material for an estimated 1.7 million people died during the regime for overwork starvation or execution under the khmer rouge most of the educated people were also considered as enemies of the state and were either killed or took refuge abroad with the result that in 1979 when the regime fell no more than 300 qualified people from all disciplines were left to rebuild the country , the impact of those years can still be felt today 40 to 45 per cent of the people in rural area areas live with less than half a dollar per day and 62 per cent of the adult population are functionally illiterate with 36 per cent being completely illiterate education is considered by the royal government of cambodia as a key sector for the social and economic development of the country and a considerable effort has been put in expanding access to education and to increase enrolment rates , however the government is struggling to provide quality education and ensure access to schools for marginalised communities and groups in rural areas one of the strategies adopt by the government to overcome these difficulties is the decentralisation of education which i will now describe in more detail , in the words of james manor decentralisation has quietly become one of the fashions of our time according to UNESCO it is one of the most important phenomena in educational planning over the past 20 years , at the most basic level decentralisation refers to bringing government closer to the people it is linked to the principle of subsidiarity by which the most effective governance of any organisation occurs when authority for decision-making is located close to the site where the action takes place , decentralisation is a widespread phenomenon in the industrialised countries as well as developing countries powerful aspirations such as democratisation equality participation and empowerment usually accompany the adoption of decentralisation however despite its widespread implementation there is still limited evidence of its impact in on improving livelihoods , given the loosely coupled nature of education systems described earlier it has been argued that the education more than other public sector may be particularly suited for decentralisation efforts at the same time some of the specific characteristics of education systems may also create obstacles to the reform , schools are in fact sources of political power because of the large number of people employed in the education system and the share of the national budget allocated to education in addition established patronage and clientele within the education bureaucracy can feel threatened by the redri- redistribution of power involved with decentralisation , depending on the degree of decision-making power given to the local level and schools it is possible to distinguish between three main forms of decentralisation the first administrative decentralisation also called deconcentration refers to the dispersal of administrative responsibilities from higher level of government to lower l- level local agencies with the government retaining political authority and control , the second fiscal decentralisation refers to the process through which the central government gives financial responsibility to the lower levels of the administration while retaining control the third devolution or democratic decentralisation refers to the transfer of political power decision-making authority and accountability to lower level authorities which are largely independent of higher levels of government , my research focuses on this third type (xx) with the aspiration of participation and empowerment of communities as well as the development of democratic local governance and school-based management , since the beginning of the 1990s with the return of a relatively peace to the country the cambodia government has been implementing different and somehow overlapping decentralisation reforms , in 91 the decentralisation of education started with a cluster school policy a cluster is formed by five to six primary school grouped around the core school to improve the access and sharing of educational resources teachers information and reduce transaction cost , school clusters are also considered by the government effective mechanism for communities to participate in school planning and provide financial and material support through community and school cluster committees , a second decentralisation initiative within the education sector the priority action programme started in 2000 and is characterised by the provision of budget from the central ministry directly to school thus bypassing the cluster system , with regard to the public administration in 2001 the government approved the national decentralisation reform that started with the first election of commune councils in february 2002 , although all these policies have participation as a the objective they represent a typical example of a piecemeal approach to decentralisation whereby similar policies are implemented in different ways by separate ministries leading to policy coordination problems and discrepancies , i now turn to the third theme of the research community participation in schools , participation is one of the key opportunities which in the words of amartya sen people must have in order to be able to exercise their right to choose the life they want to lead , with regard to education parents' or community participation in school activities is one of the more often stated objectives of decentralisation reforms participation and decentralisation seem in fact to be on er in an almost symbiotic relationship to the extent that participation has been considered as a precondition for successful decentralisation , democratic decentralisation however entails a paradox while decentralisation cannot be effectively implemented and sustained without diffused political support and widespread participation those whose political commitment is necessary to initiate the reforms often consider such a diffusion of participation and power as a serious threat , the issue of community participation in local governance is central to the decentralisation reforms undertaken by the cambodian government however this also challenges the traditional social hierarchies and requires in order to succeed elements of trust and social cohesion that due to the war and the genocide are often considered missing in the cambodian society , in the research i analyse the characteristic of community participation in the management of rural primary school by referring to the soc- to social capital theory , social capital is a contested concept which has entered economic development only recently it has been described by some as the missing element explaining besides capital and human capital accumulation economic growth and by others as a sack of analytical potatoes , american sociologist robert putnam defines it as a feature of social life such as networks norms and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives three social capital dimensions have been adopted in the research the first bonding social capital refers to the links that exist between like-minded people that contribute to reinforce homogeneity but can also be the walls that exclude those who do not qualify , the second bridging social capital refers to the horizontal connection between heterogeneous groups and the third institutional social capital looks at the vertical relationships between communities and public institutions such as local government institutions (xx) agencies and schools , societies always demonstrate a mix between these three dimension which defines the degree or orientation of communities towards collective action , therefore the study explores the meaning of the whole community in the specific social and culture cultu- cultural context of cambodia and investigates the role played by buddhist (xx) and pagodas for community mobilisation through the creation of village and pagoda school associations , analysing quanli- quantitative and qualitative data collected at local and national level one of the conclusions of the research is that the linkages between members of school associations are strong and based on trust , moreover the solidarities that underlines extended family networks the buddhist concept of earning merit during the present life and the respect for traditional community leaders are also driving forces behind community mobilisation this shows that bonding social capital is behind community support to schools and is not a missing element of cambodia society , bridging social capital between school associations and other types of community based groups is still weak and cooperation limited resulting in a fragmented civil society at the local level , while buddhist pagodas do represent the spaces where groups and traditional leaders meet the cooperation and exchange between them is still limited this shows a limited perception of the importance of networking for influencing decision-making processes and assisting service providers , institutional social capital between school associations and schools is hampered by the mistrust towards school officials and the parents' reluctance to become more involved in educational matters , the dialogue between schools and communities is limited to the topic of financial and material contributions to support school improvement and the children that are at risk of dropping out from school , moreover the results show that the decentralisation policies in education tend to promote participation through the creation of institutionalised committees , these committees have not succeeded in reducing the mistrust between community and schools because they have failed to gain the necessary legitimacy among the rural population , to conclude my presentation i would like to say that this research has strengthened even more my belief that development intervention should help to nurture home-grown solutions to development problems and avoid to the blind adoption of blueprint models , decentralisation reforms which are democratic in nature provide opportunities for this element of society to emerge , cambodia is a fragile state , despite the history characterised by top-down decision-making processes by all level of government participatory school governance can be developed in cambodia because traditional norms and values that characterise social capital in rural areas are strong elements of collective action and mobilisation , this requires a recognition by the government and donors that traditional association such as the ones described in this study represent indigenous form of social capital that are not only a part of cambodian civil society but perhaps its largest and most solid part , they represent departure points to give ordinary people a greater say not only in education but also in local governments and development . i now request you professor <NAME S2> as the opponent duly appointed by the faculty of education to make those comments upon my dissertation which you deem appropriate </S1>
