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

RECORDING DURATION: 89 min 11 sec

RECORDING DATE: 10.8.2007

NUMBER OF PARTICIPANTS: circa 20

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS: 3

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

S2: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Swedish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

S3: NATIVE-SPEAKER STATUS: Finnish; ACADEMIC ROLE: senior staff; GENDER: male; AGE: 51-over

SS: several simultaneous speakers>



<PRESENTATION UDEFP140 by S1>

<S2> we live in a an an era often called the late modern era and this is an era of rapid change and globalisation uncertainty and certainty in some in s- some s- spheres we are very certain about what will happen but most often we are very uncertain and also er research especially social research is to some extent uncertain today and there are no i mean formally it was a lot of contradictions between qualitative and quantitative research today it's more a mixture and er and er let's say er we have now much more everyday knowledge entering into the research i will try in this confusion er let's say scientific confusion on in this er er societal development of rapid change i will try to locate the study er conducted by er the candidate er , globally and worldwide as mentioned by the candidate in his thesis there is spread of of er a certain mole- model of education (change) researching of education educational restructuring , educational restructuring includes decentralisation privatisation and introduction of choice or increase of choice er possibilities if there are already are er choice possibilities and er also this is the ca- case in the north and the south and er cambodia belongs to the south and his study is specifically on cambodia and more specifically he also has a case study in one of the provinces and still more in one of the districts so he is proceeding from er let's say global worldwide er level where he is discussing the changes taking place in many many countries of the same type or at least in the policy described in the policy documents it's very similar from country to country but then when it comes to practical implementation it differs and still more it differs at the grass roots level and er what is er important with his er study is that he is both er taking the global the national and the grass roots local level also what is important in his study is er he is er in some way he is o- an NGO activist and he is taking a looking at it from his point of view as an NGO activist but also he is trying to take the let's say the perspective from the local people so he has this is a challenge i i would say and i think he succeeds but it's also makes it very interesting although if i were er social anthropologist i would er require more more in-depth studies but i'm in education so i know you cannot do everything but it's er i mean it's interesting at the grass roots level and he brings up a lot of things which are let's say new and er also challenging old concepts , i will come back to them in my detailed er examination he's a an observer but also participant observer he is has different roles more than the two roles he says himself so it makes it very interesting he is westerner but also trying to be insider in some way er he's trying to combine er the insider NGO activist perspective with a critical distance not so much er individual self-criticism but o- organisational NGO criticism er he to criticise NGOs as such although he is er wa- was in the NGO himself so this study is d- er let's say it takes it takes a dot in the world , in this global flow of the changes and of er policies going around the world and he's taking er er during a certain time period for five years or so four five years in a certain place in south-eastern asia it makes it very interesting and also very challenging and in my er er detailed examination i will come back to many of these points so now i proceed to the more detailed examination <GETTING SEATED, TRACK CHANGE> i have chosen to dig into the thesis and put it on er overhead sheets i will highlight certain things that i want to discuss with him and er i want to bring up for for for discussion and and s- sometimes criticise er it er me- means that i won't discuss everything which appears on the sheets it's just that er to have them there so i have to stand up in order to be able to put the things <PREPARING OVERHEAD> . er here er i go from one point to another as i mentioned i'm not going to take all the points but the points i want to discuss i go through it in this way chronologically through the thesis then i return to his er er what you call the lecture he gave now i will bring up some points there also er first i take the first er issue to discuss culture local culture er defined as (xx) and so on and er i find it to be a very static definition , it seems that er changes are not taking place tradition norms and values they are there , er in a constructivist perspective we would say it's a continuous construction of norms and values what is what will you say about this er </S2>
<S1> i would say my answer to this is that of course norms and values are not static element of a certain society or defines a certain society there are also a pa- er pi- er elements that are more er appearing and , they define the way society then can change or they define also the way er the change er the pace of the change er at which pace change can take place within a society and of course they are linked to the reality of today let's say so of certain society or certain community or a certain group today in the in in a way that mhm their usefulness for today needs defines how much they are used how much they are then present and how much their influences also change there's a continuous let's say er answer to needs of communities and groups and new needs and new answer that are of course defined by norms and value these norms and values of course they are (xx) to the history to the background of a certain community or a certain country and society but they change with time i think in the thesis i also speak about this idea of er a certain culture er can be imagined more as an iceberg so there is a kind of floating er the whole iceberg is floating but the upper part is what is evident to all of us we can see how people interact with each other where they live how they go around for their their business and interaction but actually er all this has a strong influence by the whole part which is submerged so under the water level which is much bigger and has er a very strong influences of these (xx) but of course the whole iceberg is changing , [with time] </S1>
<S2> [i bring it up] yeah i bring it up because it's er something of a red thread in your thesis although it's not very visible but it's under beneath beneath the everything taking place and what you describe so i will now and then come back not exactly to the culture but to the theme you ha- i mean this is a merit that you bring in the local perspective , but er , you have this let's say concretely you have a (village or whatever) the pagoda association and then they have their ideas or very ti- er t- close ti- er tight ties in between themselves and then you come from a NGO from western perspective and you require at least implicitly you require a (xx) and it (xx) that then what happens to the culture something happens when the local culture make attempts to assimilate this so this is what i mean in sum the dynamics come there i think you you missed the dynamics , something happens in the encounter between the NGO for example or whate- whoever <S1> [yes yes] </S1> [it is] westerner and and <S1> [yes] </S1> [the] local culture </S2>
<S1> erm yeah i mean definitely th- er the encounter of different culture in this case it's more a north kind of south encounter is definitely one of the element that makes er culture or society to change so there is an influence i would say which is stronger from the north to on the south i would say if we speak about in terms of development and er the influence is definitely definitely there er , however er you mention now about the individualism that is maybe brought in by this kind of foreign er culture or influence from the foreign culture but also er buddhist itself er is , i came across to this comment several times is a er allows for a quite individualistic way of thinking about your role in life and so on because you are responsible for your own er well-being or also your collection of merits (they mention also merits) <S2> mhm </S2> so is an individualistic kind of er influence that comes from buddhist now , can this be now turned then into something that helps promotion and collective action , yes because if individuals pursuing their own merits collection work together they of course do good for themself <S2> mhm-hm </S2> but the result is also that they can improve situation with local effort and capacity in the village pagodas and so on so individualism i would argue is not on- is coming from outside but from a certain perspective it is already existing in the cambodian context if i can add one more point on this is that because of the civil war and because of the genocide in cambodia individualism that was linked in fact to i must save myself from all what was happening in cambodia was also strengthened by these events that i just mentioned and disrupted in fact the relationship and networks between individuals </S1>
<S2> by the way some sociologists and economists argue that er you have had this economic development and the asian type is because of this indi- er component of individualism as opposite to the african collectivity and let's say the tight er bonds between the people in the (xx) group or in the clan or so so okay er , i don't want to repeat but i think at the o- let's say at some organisational level there are some differences and er i will come back to them later so here , you say next point i bring up in order to avoid then some some taking a deterministic and insular view of culture this thesis applies social capital theory to analyse the characteristics of community , er how does er social capital analysis make the analysis less deterministic </S2>
<S1> social capital helped the analysis social capital @theory@ erm , i think i- if i c- if i can go back to the three dimension that i mention also in the presentation and the thesis the bonding bridging and institutional so the more vertical kind of er idea of social capital i think this kind of analysis helped to , be more aware of the different er influences and let's say er forces that act on society within groups between groups and in the kind of social hierarchy which is also an administrative hierarchy (xx) so it allowed maybe a more broader view er in these three kind of er dimension without er thinking that er societies or culture can be analysed along er a kind of linear line which have cause and effects <S2> mhm  </S2> so development comes in there is an effects and therefore there is some change and so on which is i i was thinking while er preparing also and working on this research it was a bit too simplistic it is often a view that i encounter in my development work so there is a project there is an action there is an effect but i thought that for analysis of this kind of er as you mention also the grass root level dynamics and reason for participation or non-participation there was a need of a more comprehensive analysis and i found that the three dimension which is just one way to see social capital is not the way <S2> no </S2> helped er to structure the analysis </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm , okay er . if i take the last thing on this pap- i mean this is not paper the sheet erm . you l- you talk about governance local governance , and er , i feel it is it's it's a it's a good analysis but still it's in some way you have a rather conventional concept of governance you no- you don't refer you didn't find it worthwhile to to use foucault's analysis where you almost everything is governance </S2>
<S1> i didn't use foucault @analysis@ and erm erm but honestly i must say also that i did i don't know much about his analyses of local o- or of course i know about the studies and the influence he got from er his visit to (xx) and er , no i did not apply as for example i can also add to this that er in with regard to social capital theory for example i also don't mention bourdieu <S2> mhm </S2> which is of course very influential in the in the discourse related to social capital but er i mean from my side i needed to make choices and also i think i had to er to identify the way to think about social capital but then also local governance or the action between communities and er local government er th- the dynamics that links them together in a way that er , followed the three d- the three dimensions or the two dimension horizontal and vertical that i had and foucault didn't (xx) <S2> [yeah] </S2> [but] i'm aware (of this foucault approach) </S1>
<S2> now you you use in some way , er social capital analysis similar to bourdieu's but you you don't mention his name but <S1> [i] </S1> [er] this is not not criticism it's just that it's implicit implicitly understood i understood that it's similar to some of bourdieu's writings er i will come back to this also if i remember [later (xx)] </S2>
<S1> [yes (@okay@)] </S1>
<S2 ORGANISING SLIDES, P:16>
<S2> yes i i go down to the characteristics the meaning of community and i think this is er specific questions you first had the aim and then the more principle questions and then you have more specific questions like you are going to study characteristics of decentralisation meaning of community characteristics of community participation in schools er as you formulated the it's ra- it's very descriptive you just want to describe according to i mean if you respond to these questions it becomes very descriptive <S1> [mhm-hm] </S1> [but] i argue that er it's much more than er descriptive it's analytical and it's also er if you use not expla- explanation in a positivistic sense but explanation in a more cultural sense and understanding (xx) i mean in a (xx) sense then it's much more than i mean you do er much more than res- respond to these questions </S2>
<S1> yeah probably i do erm i think the questions helped mhm they were there from the very beginning and also they didn't change much along the process you know from the first formulation of the research er question and plan et cetera they didn't change that much erm what i tried to do especially with the specific question the first of course is a more general one <S2> mhm </S2> what i tried to do with the the three specific question is to identify the key theme which in a way then i follow also throughout the thesis but also of course in the analysis of the different element and why i did this so these three question maybe has be has to be understood more as a guide <S2> [mhm mhm] </S2> [for me to keep] the focus because you have to make choices <S2> [yeah] </S2> [along] the process on what to focus which topics and er how to go with it and these three question helped me to keep this focus by the first one of course how is decentralisation implemented <S2> mhm </S2> of course the theory of it but also how it fits in the cambodian context , this thesis is about participation in communities or what is the idea of community and this helped me to keep that focus and in the end is then what actually happens in participation what is this participation community in schools so they may be descriptive but er if i achieve more then what then i think for me it's okay and then as i said they helped me to guide <S2> [mhm] </S2> [along] the process very much because you could with the topics er , i mean there is a lot to say about decentralisation how it takes place in cambodia outside cambodia you could expand a lot maybe by adopting a more descriptive kind of approach to answer and i tried to use them more as a guide as [i said] </S1>
<S2> [mhm] no i ask because if you take er for example the meaning of community as an example you describe the meanings that er that local people attribute to to community but you also through some type of of er arche- archaeological studies you can chase back in history why or you understand er why this why have these meanings of community emerged why are they what they are today <S1> yes </S1> so it's more than just descriptive this is what what is my point because these er questions are rather common </S2>
<S1> yeah probably so and you could actually break them down er even in more detail <S2> yeah </S2> probably erm i choose not to do it but p- probably as i said this is what then happen <S2> mhm </S2> when i ask the question what is a community in the cambodian context <S2> mhm </S2> and er then the research about this question led to an analysis of also the history of it not only about community today <S2> mhm </S2> how define these community in cambodia (rural areas they find) today but also why it is so today and the link with the history of the country which of course is always very <S2> mhm </S2> very very relevant and i think also this tracing back to the history of the concept of community and also of the country to quite a consistent part of the research which i had also at some point to reduce because it was it was going to a completely different direction and as i said this question then helped me to put the frames around <S2> mhm-hm </S2> my analysis </S1>
<S2> i er i remember i mean you you chase it back to these pagoda associations which are one thousand years old , if not more and then how the system collapsed with the in in the 70s with the different governments and and the pol pot government and so on but still it survived in the hidden like you have an example of one of these er i don't remember her name </S2>
<S1> [<NAME> yes yes he (xx)] </S1>
<S2> [so yeah yeah (xx)] he he er he er , er he tried to preserve and to he he put it in the soil somewhere </S2>
<S1> in bamboo sticks [the the paper of the association] </S1>
<S2> [yeah bamboo sticks yeah (xx)] </S2>
<S1> in bamboo sticks and they were <SIC> digged </SIC> in in a secret <S2> [yeah] </S2> [place] and taken out [after] </S1>
<S2> [yeah] this is just a small indication er and i guess that it happened in several cases so you when you describe this we can see how the system that local community the meaning of community continues through these er pagoda associations and then how they are why why they are what they are today </S2>
<S1> can i add one point please <S2> yeah </S2> erm , as i said i went quite in depth about this topic because i found that there is a lot er (xx) from the development point of view or development intervention point of view there is a lot to learn or they need to learn about these dynamics which you you just described because in the case of cambodia what happened in 93 when the UN came in with the peacekeeping mission the UNTAC <S2> mhm </S2> that was the moment when NGOs came in cambodia and e- local NGOs were created and they were identified later as the civil society of cambodia which in my opinion they are not or they are only a small part of it and therefore i wanted to look more into these dynamics of community participation by looking at the history of these association to show that there is a lot of legitimacy which is often not acknowledged or recognised toward these associations </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm , so if i now proceed to chapter two and highlight certain points as i did in chapter one first the chapter presents the concepts (xx) the framework overview of the debate the development debate and definitions and forms of decentralisation promises and (xx) reforms and experiences of decentralisation in developing countries er here you discuss many different theories and er not theories exactly but er let's say conceptualisations er and there you use er to a large extent you use er the writings by the norwegian educationalist sociologist lauglo and this is a one of the tables in the book </S2>
<S1> (xx) </S1>
<S2> er i don't remember what page it is </S2>
<S1> 33 </S1>
<S2> okay in any case you have it and then er i would like to i mean since you put it there could you place your case your case study y- your findings where would you put them in this table </S2>
<S1> erm i think with regard to the er you're you're referring to the decentralisation of education in <S2> [yes] </S2> [cambodia] or where does it fit <S2> yeah </S2> i think there are er two answers here one is where the objectives the stated objective of the decentralisation fit which is of course the aim or goal that the government has or has stated <S2> mhm </S2> the one which is more appealing and where actually dece- or how decentralisation actually took place <S2> mhm </S2> so the aim is to improve of course education allow a greater participation in terms of er communities er have a more democratic way of disc- or of making decision or taking decision within the e- education er system and i would say er that in this in this case to- t- the type of decentralisation which is mentioned here should be maybe erm more a kind of the type is the political decentralisation so that is the aim so the government er try to establish a system which allows for the local needs and demands to be better addressed okay this is official goal now what happen i think in reality given also historical and cultural and social er kind of constraints that of course influences the implementation of this policy is that we are i think cambodia is more implementing a kind of deconcentration so it's the first mhm kind of first step of the reform the one that defines er functions of local agencies like provincial offices of education district offices and schools the next step is (xx) as often stated also the most difficult and i think cambodia maybe lacks there is a generalised lack of capacity also to do that because you need of course in order to empower local level agencies you need capacity at the local level to produce plan to implement plan to monitor plans that probably at the moment is not yet there but i would say that at the at the moment er in cambodia we have still a quite strong influence from the central central level <S2> mhm </S2> on local agencies and the kind of upward accountability not so strong the downwards accountability so there is a difference between the aim of course and what has been achieved so far of course also the reform is a continuous [change] </S1>
<S2> [mhm] . this is not criticism but in my view this er table from lauglo it fits much more high economy high income societies i think it's very difficult to place some country like mozambique or very poor countries in this table because it seems that he has had much more rich countries in mind when he has made this , okay i have tab- one table more and , er would like to ask you this almost the same question , if you could put the cambodian case or discuss it in relation to this er table two three forms of decentralisation and political rationality </S2>
<S1> i think er my answer to this (xx) with what i just said so it's er within this table it's this table may be useful to indicate one type of decentralisation which is more linked to er the goal political goal that the government has and er one of the goal of decentralisation of education is to have er more participatory management and have more community based bodies involved in education and that's it's just the goal so it's the third er from the top there is this idea which er , maybe maybe cambodia but of course has a strong influence from donors supporting er reform process and decentralisation in cambodia of empowering communities and have an er local governance environment which is more based on democratic process of decision-making and i think this populist localism which is a type of decentralisation correspond to this participatory management is er one of the goal er it is also linked er to the lack of resources of course that the government has to support and fund education which is a big constraint that the government through decentralisation tries to offset by having a greater participation which already takes place but maybe i- in in a more institutionalised way so that resources for material contribution sorry for material improvement or support to schools or erm er repair et cetera can be er can be obtained by communities but in a more institutionalised way because as i show in my thesis this is already happening <S2> mhm </S2> they do quite a lot and er within the framework of the decentralisation reform that is one of the goal whether it has been achieved in an institutional reform i argue not in an in an institutionalised form i argue not or not so much the recognition of er committees established through the reform by the government they still represent i think very much a state interference in a way to the local level which is not so much accepted therefore they work if there is a project a donor an agency supporting them if not , very hard </S1>
<S2> isn't it a contradiction to implement er decentralisation of the deconcentration f- form and then in some at the same time expect participation </S2>
<S1> i think the overall goal is to implement the kind of democratic decentralisation i wouldn't go as far as a devolution because that is a bit er too much , the reality is that what is taking place is deconcentration democratic decentralisation would mean also to er from the central er kind of (commune) or central level point of view to lose some of the power and authority they have on local levels and therefore break this very strong vertical hierarchy <S2> mhm </S2> which is there er the goal is there of course to break these ties or this link is very very hard and also as james manor argued it's often the case that not only in cambodia but many other countries er the reform starts it goes into deconcentration but it doesn't make the next step which is (xx) good governance and so on it doesn't make the next steps towards a really democratic decentralisation that is the hardest point </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm <P:05> so then i continue in er chapter two , i cannot check everything which er even if of that which i have put here but er i have to select let's say we have just discussed the definition and forms of decentralisation and er what is the position of cambodia here but if i go back to er where you discuss development theory and er so and so on i miss rostow stages of economic i don't remember [the] </S2>
<S1> [growth] <S2> yeah </S2> er the stages of economic growth by rostow <S2> yeah </S2> so the transition <S2> mhm </S2> of er the the description rostow gave of the development economic er development <S2> mhm </S2> i mean it was it is not here it is not it was i had those stages of economic growth in an earlier draft <S2> [mhm] </S2> [of] this theoretical part and er because of course they represent the rostow position represent of course the development of the whole discourse of er going from economic growth as equals development to a broader view of development with which encompass also the social development the basic needs et cetera which i describe and of course rostow is one of the key figures in this er er development the d- development of this discourse and debate it was in an earlier draft when i revised er the drafts i did not include it but it was there <S2> [mhm] </S2> [and] now it is here it was very easy to <S2> uh-huh </S2> retrace it because the five stages of economic development described er by rostow i already mentioned them because they were relevant then in a edit er version they they came out and i focus on other thing but then they are now in in it again </S1>
<S2> so it's back in the [book] </S2>
<S1> [yes] yes yes yes </S1>
<S2> because i based my er er my er overview i based it on the last manuscript i res- received before it was printed so [okay] </S2>
<S1> [yes] that is [(xx)] </S1>
<S2> [er] but then i also have to ask (what about) critical studies on decentralisation like er studies conducted by or discussed by <NAME> and arnold and welch and mcginn for example mostly arnold </S2>
<S1> erm i'm not aware or these are the , benjamin king i i have this the publication by <NAME> <S2> [mhm] </S2> [and] <NAME> and er i'm not sure whether they are so critical about decentralisation i think they are very much in favour of the position UNESCO has that is to support decentralisation and greater participation which would then improve also a kind of democratic local governance erm i used er welch and mcginn not so much for the categories of decentralisation (or) the forms decentralisation takes place because they refer in fact to manor rondinelli from the world bank et cetera <S2> mhm </S2> but i used welch and mcginn er they had er in my opinion a very good definition of the place for subsidiarity in their publication which i in fact adopted and i also used for my er presentation if i remember correctly towards the end of their book they discuss a bit about precondition <S2> mhm-hm </S2> that needs to be there in terms of er capacity economic development (organisation) in order to be there for decentralisation to succeed so <S2> mhm </S2> which is a bit a checklist of is a country at the moment in this stage <S2> mhm </S2> if so there is a likelihood that decentralisation would work otherwise it's more deconcentration <S2> mhm </S2> if i remember correctly but i think er then i decide not to adopt this and er to u- to use more kind of descriptive way <S2> [mhm] </S2> [(xx)] (chronological) way (for the) development (of the) different [theories] </S1>
<S2> [what] i have in mind is more the challenges problems and er er yeah of decentralisation the the problems the outcomes which are not with in many cases wasn't expected but they discuss it much more not just the how it can fail but also that it has been running in some places in latin america it has been running the way intended but the effects have been very very er disastrous in some places , okay , er <SWITCHING OVERHEAD SHEETS, P:13> i go further in chapter two and want to discuss er you have er i don't remember if it's your wording (xx) participation and pseudo-participation </S2>
<S1> i ca- ah </S1>
<S2> participation if it's real or if it's a just er </S2>
<S1> it's not my word it's a reference to cornwall i think from <S2> mhm-hm  </S2> . you remember the page though </S1>
<S2> no i er don't <S1> [yes] </S1> [(xx)] . anyhow </S2>
<S1> i think it's it's related anyway to the ideas in sussex discussion <S2>  mhm-hm </S2> about if not manchester anyways er UK yes please </S1>
<S2> er sheldon shaeffer and <NAME> or shaeffer has not done it himself but <NAME> he has a paper let's say er graduation or grading of participation <NAME> has seven steps from just being physically present at the meeting into having an influence on the outcomes implementation outcomes or decisions , you did use </S2>
<S1> i i did not use that erm i remember that er i don't know where but i came across this this stair and it's <S2> [mhm] </S2> [there] is a short article which describes <S2> yeah yeah </S2> if we're picturing a stairs actually <S2> [mhm] </S2> [the different] level i came across that i think in some seminar but then i did not use but i came across again i think a couple of weeks ago reading your books actually <S2> yeah [@@] </S2> [@on decentralization@] @and school participation@ which came some time ago into vietnam and (i'm reading them) and erm i printed then i i @searched for the article now i have it@ <S2> yeah </S2> so @it's useful also@ t- in terms of these kind of different categories or degrees <S2> [yes] </S2> [(xx)] participation takes place but it came a bit late [for erm] </S1>
<S2> [mhm] now this er i think it would be very fruitful if you could , i mean if you had had access to this before so when you study the participation (as reported) in this er checklist to the to the different commu- commun- community [(xx)] <S1> [yes yes] yes </S1> er if they could er could where what type of participation what type of participation for parents er if you just you mention it <S1> [yes] </S1> [er] just in terms of contribution either to provide materials or to provide money and so on so it's er in this in this er level it would be the next the lowest the lowest in the this level created by <NAME> i used it in my book <S1> [yes] </S1> [as] as you mentioned to see er there were different chapters from cambodia from (xx) nepal er some african countries and er norway and er nicaragua </S2>
<S1> greece also </S1>
<S2> yeah <S1> yeah </S1> i i tried to see where what type of participation is it and it's mostly at the lowest level just to contribute or come and listen to the (what) the school <S1> yeah </S1> (people say) okay , and then i i don't go into cambodian history that's the third chapter and er we'll get to er chapter four er let let's see , er i just , if i go to this cluster school approach it's not er you you you say and describe quite well what is a pagoda association these associations were there since long time back <S1> mhm </S1> but how then when the westerners came i i'm just <S1> yeah [yeah] </S1> [(xx)] critical (xx) westerners came to introduce these cluster schools how did it how did it corresp- how does it correspond to the pagoda associations are they couldn't they r- use the pagoda associations or did they create new clusters or </S2>
<S1> i think they did not use <S2> [mhm] </S2> [er] the thing is that er as i described in the thesis the , the cluster school policy is the first kind of decentralisation of education that started in cambodia as a policy er it started in 1990 or beginning of the 90s so when just er i mean er around let's say the UN peacekeeping mission in cambodia so when the situation somehow stabilised there was still big problem in terms of security around the country the province i was working 1997 had still security problems in some of its parts so quite recent , i think the cluster school therefore started in few provinces it was a joint initiative by er <FOREIGN> redd barna </FOREIGN> and [UNICEF] <S2> [yes] mhm </S2> but i think they could start them where they could go <S2> mhm-hm </S2> in terms of s- security <S2> mhm </S2> it was of course an approach not just for cambodia but imported er from experience from other also south-east asia countries from the 80s <S2> mhm </S2> it was implemented er i think just in the areas where security was sufficient to do that and where also er it was possible to conduct some assessment to start this er whether they took into consideration the existence of pagoda association one has to see whether at that point if time so just when the peace mhm somehow very fragile peace started in cambodia these association were actually er active or not because you have not to forget that between 79 so the end of the khmer rouge and 89 to just the beginning of this peace er of the peace period in cambodia there were ten years of vietnamese presence in the in cambodia and they established these solidarity groups so again kind of committees at the village level representing different interest of the communities and they had to represent then the the needs and represent the demand and they were appointed to so something again brought from outside which didn't help pagoda association to emerge again </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm , if i jump there for a moment to chapter six just to show i mean this is a pagoda association the pagoda botum pagoda where you made the case study and you have the pagoda and then you have different schools invo- in- linked to this pagoda and this is a pagoda association </S2>
<S1> there is the pagoda er is a pagoda so really a temple [okay (this) building] <S2> [yeah yeah] mhm </S2> this pagoda is linked to villages which are these five dots <S2> [yes] </S2> [around] so they are all linked to this pagoda for religious <S2> [yes] </S2> [but also] community development <S2> [mhm] </S2> [activities] now to the pagoda there are in the pagoda there are different associations and er they support er in this case if i remember two schools <S2> mhm </S2> one of them was built nearby the pagoda <S2> mhm </S2> just not in the compound in this case but just er nearby <S2> [yeah] </S2> [so] er they are both primary primary schools and children from different villages then go there </S1>
<S2> so then with the cluster schooling approach could it happen that they families would s- came to belong to another cluster </S2>
<S1> yes yes yes definitely <S2> [so] </S2> [there are] for sure there are definitely in some clusters they have to be <S2> mhm </S2> in primary schools <S2> yeah </S2> er which has nothing to do with the distribution of villages or <S2> no </S2> village boundaries or commune boundaries so there is discrepancy in that respect [which is evident] </S1>
<S2> [so it it just] cuts into to a traditional organisation </S2>
<S1> it can or cannot depends moreover the establishment of a cluster means also the establishment of different er committees , one of them is responsible to link schools and communities <S2> mhm-hm </S2> and often you have the people who are already supporting schools from their pagoda er school in- s- school association in the pagoda that are then again elected for these other committees so there is an overlapping and a bit er confusion er in that respect </S1>
<S2> so if i listen to <NAME S1> in the last chapter i don't know for the moment also for the sake of discussion to the last chapter <S1> yes </S1> one of the voices er not the NGO activist voice but the er one of the other voices of <NAME S1> he would this voice would say why don't you er start from the pagoda associations and make them clusters would you agree that this is one of your voices </S2>
<S1> i i think erm , that is of of course possible that that kind of suggestion of a policy kind of policy suggestion it's possible but i think when you create a cluster you have to think first i mean where are the schools <S2> [mhm] </S2> [the first] the focus is on the schools , remote areas have problem for school to be reached and so on so maybe the clusters are a bit bigger but er you should think about the school then the next question is okay now er the issue is to improve participation of communities and areas in the schools , how to do that the policy official policy said we set up a committee and we have some election and people will do that the other point of view which i i i in a way argue in the thesis is that there are already existing groups just start from there they are already providing contribution to schools , there is no need to create again committees and additional layers [(xx)] </S1>
<S2> [but this is the voice] i meant that there that th- this voice argues that there are there i- there are already <S1> yeah </S1> by tradition since long time er working functioning associations and organisations okay er i jump to the you are you are using many other concepts also but i have to go faster so if i go to <SWITCHING SLIDES> . some points in chapter four and then er wh- i'm interested to know er the a lot of things among them the patron-client relationships have been changing transformed by modernisation liberalisation of economy and the monetarisation of social relations and the rural-urban migration , i think this is interesting in the er this is er what happens when modernisation comes er but how are they changing and how does it affect the participation are two other questions i would like to er raise in relation to what you say there that relationships (xx) relationships and , patron er client relationships are changing as community relationships are changing transformed by the modernisation and liberalisation of economies and it's a very big question but if you could say it in a few sentences </S2>
<S1> it's a big question and it it reminds me of comments i had from some cambodian researchers working in phnom penh at the centre for civil er er cambodia development resource institute er because i think also these ideas they were developed by a cambodian researcher kim sedara in his master thesis also about the dynamics of village in two village er villages in rural areas of cambodia i think one point is that modernisation brought a much strong emphasis on money and really er money and increase er of income these patron-client relationships are there they have been there and since a very long time in terms of a kind of secur- to secure oneself against er er problems in the future no no harvest or illness and so on <S2> mhm </S2> what i heard from the cambodian people which i w- with whom i was working but also then talking about this issue that there was anyway a feeling of solidarity between patron and client this was not just only based on monetary terms these things which has been come now so the money issue and the income and the money issue is very very strong and the solidarity of the patron towards the client it was of course always linked to money to some extent but the feeling (it goes with) there's er a big change and this has been brought in by mhm kind of modernisation and the fact that people also look for income sources outside the village and therefore the links also within the village between patron and clients are a bit disrupted <S2> mhm </S2> how this affects er participation mhm , i'm not so sure i have the answer for this <S2> yeah </S2> well this is a question to research [(obviously) @@] </S1>
<S2> [yes true] now i wa- just want to mention that what you describe it's happening in many places in the world so it's er also i mean when with the modernisation it this is what happens okay i go to the methodology chapter er you discuss very well the the your double rule or sometimes i feel it's a triple rule i don't know but could you say something about this you say that you are (flipped) between these two in some way er this this er local level analysis and policy analysis </S2>
<S1> erm the question is about these two levels of analysis or about myself within these [two levels of analysis] </S1>
<S2> [yourself] </S2>
<S1> myself <S2> yeah </S2> erm for this research yeah i had a dual role one is the work as advisor in the project rural development project i was working in and the second is the researcher erm , analysis for this research er my choice was to work of course grassroots where i was but of course you need to have also a kind of er @understanding@ of how policies are implemented from the central level (xx) <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [there are] two level national and local <S2> mhm-hm </S2> the two roles <S2> mhm </S2> yeah at times were a problems at times were an advantage <S2> mhm </S2> and at times was difficult to separate them what i tried to do of course and what i think is one the f- the is the only way you can do conduct a research while you are working in a development project is that the two areas so interests i would say or the questions you are researching overlap as much as possible so what i tried to show with this graph is where at local level or at national level so these policy analyses er my role as advisor match with the one of the researcher so information i need from my role as advisor <S2> mhm </S2> decentralisation policy decrease subdecrease national policy also or er economic development et cetera match my interest as a researcher but then of course i had to dedicate a part of this only to the education part which was not so much part of my work <S2> no </S2> i was advisor for local government <S2> mhm-hm </S2> and er therefore i tried to show here where i had to put er extra er kind of input in terms of the research which is the boxes on the right-hand side where i er had to conduct extra er research <S2> mhm-hm </S2> erm , so i tried to overlap as much as possible because otherwise it would not have been possible <S2> yeah </S2> to conduct the research so that is the main reason </S1>
<S2> yeah i think it's er you describe the problems and the challenges of this double role and i think this is very good because if you had not done it if you had not described it then there would be a lot of questions er there can still be but you've tried to be as honest as possible <S1> yes yes </S1> i think today we always argue that there are two main paradigms maybe there are four or five after the storm from the postmodernist you are talking more about postpositivism including both quantitative and qualitative , for example denis phillips at the stanford university he has written two or three books about postpositivism </S2>
<S1> mhm my reaction to this is that i mean the the description of two er main research paradigms so one which is more quantitative <S2> mhm </S2> and another which is more qualitative that of course may be more in the er more descriptive that i try to explain in this chapter are more the two extreme let's say <S2> mhm </S2> and then this research as other research of course er go tend to move around this line and depending on the choices of the researcher you are you can be more towards the kind of positivist paradigm or more the participatory or descriptive one or in between which is a more er kind of postmodern kind of idea where you you merge them what i try to describe are these two poles and my position within these two poles is er by adopting in fact qualitative kind of research er tools but also quantitative so i didn't er er choose one side or the other but in the end i felt myself more comfortable by having a mix of quantitative and qualitative and probably there are more paradigms that can be spelled out in this line between er positivist and more descriptive which i did not but i position myself definitely more in between because i adopted both both ways and i think here cames out again my also role as advisor in a project because in the development work you tend to think very much in these two ways <S2> mhm </S2> you conduct qualitative analysis or quantitative and that is er to analyse data so i guess i was influenced by that </S1>
<S2> i er have the feeling that you are more postpositivist than you imagine yourself <S1> @yes@ </S1> because i mean er in in a very er the pure positivist er the numbers are leading and er lo- lot of statistical er analysis are leading the the text in some way in your case the text is leading and i mean you put in quantitative information when you need it to illustrate or to capture something so i think it's more er let's let's say postpositivist you don't need numbers but because you use numbers when you need it <S1> @yes@ </S1> and you don't er abuse numbers or technical and statistical er testing and so on some people er abuse it and then you find find er er statistical significant statistically significant correlations but these don't exist in reality they exist in your material but <S1> [@@] </S1> [@@] er also let me see er i just want to discuss a bit also the er checklist that you sent to (xx) pagoda associations this is also some quantitative er technique but did you do it for the sake of research or did you do it for the sake for information you needed for your NGO work or </S2>
<S1> erm , there is a link between the two <S2> mhm mhm  </S2> this er checklist was er t- which is a questionnaire basically we call it checklist that was er word we used with our NGO partners and so on erm is a questionnaire basically and i use it for the sake of the research or as you said i needed i felt more comfortable having also numbers <S2> mhm </S2> in the whole descriptive parts i was collecting or information i was collecting to interviews observation meetings et cetera et cetera er however this was a tool that i er developed also in my work maybe you have seen in the thesis that i mention in a kind of suggestion or an example from our province where we tried through an approach called village network to bring together existing groups and when we were conducting assessment at the village level with NGOs and to improve their capacity also to do that we were using this kind of checklist and i continue that also by testing it in a separate way with different topics but i applied the same questionnaire also for the thesis </S1>
<S2> mhm , i will come back to this checklist later just (to name) this methodology chapter er , i'm not going to say very much about the p- community participation in schools findings from kampong thom or how do you pronounce it province province er . i er use this again because i think it's very illustrative (xx) , you have this province kampong thom and then er you make a special study of this er botum pagoda association </S2>
<S1> it's one case study <S2> yeah </S2> it's one of the yeah or more qualitative way to analyse participation yes </S1>
<S2> so this is er in some way one of the aspects i meant when in my er overall speech that that you have a globalled flow the global flow at educational reforms and then you have the national description of the cambodian society and then you have this province at the province level and then finally at the more local level so i- i- just to to once again locate your study er then you're going to and this is also a merit of the thesis that you you don't bring in some people er they bring in a lot of of discussions concepts and then they use very few of them in the empirical analysis and this is good in your study because you you don't use very many concepts but when you use them you the ones you have you use them really an in an empirical analysis and you apply very much to these er findings from your checklist i cannot go into the details but er let me see there are certain points i wanted to bring up <ARRANGING PAPERS> . yeah sometimes er you have a lot of findings and you quantify them er for example here we have the <ARRANGING PAPERS> , (er where is it now) . er (xx) . yeah what a- are the principle activities of these er school associations school infrastructure is 40 per cent students 40 per cent these are the the erm most important or most frequent activities of the </S2>
<S1> [or topics topic topics of discussion when they meet when they meet] </S1>
<S2> [school associations uh-huh yes] </S2>
<S1> so material support and students means er the support to children which may be at risk of dropping out so they look for funding or a way to support them </S1>
<S2> yeah . here er i wonder how the questions of community role what response categories you had because er th- 33 per cen- 63 per cent mention that meetings of the school association committee are open to public and then the r- remaining ones what did they say that that they are closed or what did they say </S2>
<S1> they said it was closed or they either did not have an answer so it was <S2> [ah] </S2> [kind of] don't know </S1>
<S2> so they [really could] </S2>
<S1> [they didn't] understand the meaning what is what does it mean open <S2>  uh-huh </S2> er for them <S2> uh-huh </S2> the meeting </S1>
<S2> [uh-huh so could both] </S2>
<S1> [which we we understand] it's where you can go and <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [participate] and so that was not clear </S1>
<S2> so the remaining ones could be both er closed [and er (no response)] </S2>
<S1> [or don't know] yes </S1>
<S2> so then here you have the how often they meet in these school associations and you have er ordered them according to to the frequency of the meetings <S1> [yes] </S1> [but] still i feel it's a a bit strange i would have it er this i mean if you look at this monthly is the most frequent second six times per year third four times per year but you have ordered them according to frequency so the first time i read it i what was very confused <S1> yeah </S1> and then i understood that you had you did er order them according to the frequency of meetings but the nu- the number of responses [in er yeah so] </S2>
<S1> [yes yes yes] not the time but the number of </S1>
<S2> but still if i i were you i would have it in the other way <SS> [@@] </SS> [it's a matter of taste] <ARRANGING PAPERS, P:05> er er , mhm we come er but er <P:10> i just jump to another point in erm in chapter six we have discussed the open meetings (xx) and then commune councils cambodia is an example of piecemeal approach to decentralisation you say and you say it also in the last chapter and you also said it in your lecture , there er okay this is a piecemeal approach slowly slowly you decentralise and start with deconcentration and then maybe it will be something more in the future but then i feel that you are ambivalent , you are so impatient with what is happening in cambodia if it's piecemeal then er it is piecemeal so why should they hurry up why why aren't you satisfied with what has happened until now </S2>
<S1> that is my @personal@ er judgement but er this erm wording piecemeal approach to decentralisation is not mine it comes from er professor in public administration mark tur- mark turner <S2> mhm-hm </S2> who is er working at er canberra university he works a lot er in cambodia and he conducted a study for the world bank to assess their education quality improvement programme back in 2003 or something like that , so he he saw in his report that different decentra- that actually cambodia government is implementing different decentralisations so they started with the education sector in the 90s and only in 2001 er started the or 2002 sorry started the decentralisation of really the whole public administration okay so first they look at the sector the same happened with health although i don't have the detail here and then came the public administration so in his opinion the fact that you start i- at different times and in in different way create problems now one of the big needs er which has been also spelled out by the cambodia government at the moment and also by donors is that cambodia is lacking a kind of organic law which would bring all these together an example of organic law is more the philippines are an example of that there is a law that defines also what happens in (sectors) now this is not there yet soon it will be there i think they will pass the law in 2008 but at the time of writing and also at the time of the assessment conducted by mark turner this was a problem because for example because er i- it implies that borders like school cluster borders or even school borders don't match then with commune's border okay so you have a discrepancy now what happen it happens that there are some responsibilities that communes also have on education also or inspect (xx) regulation but these thing don't match so it's difficult to identify at those local level who is responsible for what and an organic law which would address the problem what piecemeal approach would have <S2> mhm-hm </S2> and i think this is coming very soon because it's perceived also by the government as a real need now that the process is growing and growing </S1>
<S2> but you can't blame turner you use his weapon in your attack on the situation today </S2>
<S1> no i don't blame him but er </S1>
<S2> you use him three times at this or t- this er concept of piecemeal approach </S2>
<S1> yeah because i think i could also see the problems of having communes er somehow er responsible for some educational function commune chiefs responsible for example for commune education for all councils but all these councils don't work because they don't feel they have a link actually with education <S2> no </S2> and so i tend to agree with him </S1>
<S2> yeah , okay then i go to , here you have a number of conclusions , one of the key conclusions and so on like the promotion of the participation in education through the creation of institutional spaces and so on and so on , how i mean er , to what extent is this generalisable to whole the whole of cambodia or to other countries </S2>
<S1> i think to the extent that erm , reforms in the educational sector but also other sector try er to create or establish committees which has the goal of increasing participation often are based on models that go from country to country and are actually er supply driven so it's the donors who say you have to establish cluster you have to establish VDC village development committees and so on so in that respect it's a practice which is happening i think in many many many countries and it fails in my opinion to take into account the local norms and values how society organised <S2> mhm-hm </S2> er because of a certain cultural and historical development et cetera and in that respect i think it can be er generalised </S1>
<S2> yes this is also what i think also to other countries <S1> yes [yes] </S1> [even] in africa </S2>
<S1> for example i th- i know you know (xx) much more than me in eastern africa i came across a publication for from kenya about the these er community groups marambe or how are they called </S1>
<S2> harambe </S2>
<S1> harambe <S2> mhm </S2> and i don't know to what are they to what extent are they then institutionalised but not to lose i think their own kind of nature <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [yes] but becomes part of a bureaucracy and therefore then they lose the power they have to bring people <S2> [mhm-hm] </S2> [together] er i think this often happens (xx) but y- you know more for east africa than i do so </S1>
<S2> i know from senegal that some er community (xx) were then kidnapped by the state and then it t- they became very institutionalised and very (how) to say there were a lot of (xx) in the system after this they had taken over okay and also the next er <READING ALOUD> participation in education is to take into account traditional forms of social capital and define spaces where these can actively link with the local institutions </READING ALOUD> to what extent is it really generalisable </S2>
<S1> i think it's similar er to before to what i just i just said i think er it goes back to mhm in the theoretical part i made the distinction from andrea cornwall (for my ideas of er) spaces of participation which are institutionalised or established <S2> mhm </S2> and often fail to have the necessary legitimacy to work and the spaces which are more open in terms of er inf- influx or influences of local norms and the values so she called them transient spaces <S2> mhm </S2> i think transient spaces can er as the one i described here have a value and again this is not only cambodia it's south-east asia and it's eastern africa or countries who have suffered also from conflicts like cambodia where then this needs for people to come together helps the recovery and their self- er development </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm , the next also , er there er there are also clear signs <READING ALOUD> of long-standing social capital associated with traditional associations in rural areas supporting schools therefore the claim that cambodian civil society is limited to NGOs trade unions et cetera is misleading and perpetuates the idea that traditional associations lack the legitimacy to contribute to institutional change </READING ALOUD> er there , is it just in cambodia or is it does it happen in other places </S2>
<S1> i think it happens in different places to different extent er i think it has it is linked of course to the idea government has to involve communities and whether they er kind of er respect or take advantage of existing groups because of their strength <S2> mhm </S2> or not probably erm i'm not sure now about this er i also don't mention it in the thesis in in south asia so i mean that more india or bangladesh where there are very large very large NGOs <S2> [mhm] </S2> [(xx)] for example i think they make use also of the possibility given by traditional er dynamics of er self-help and so on <S2> mhm </S2> in that respect they reflect more the existing reality countries like can- c- cambodia which come out from such a history there are many of these countries er i think this link is less evident and they tend the intervention or development tend to favour NGOs and other kind of more official groups rather than the public the traditional association i c- i can make a very brief example of this er in our work we were trying to find support for these association to support their capacity building but also their work and one question we always got either from embassies or donors when we were asking for funding is that they are not registered <S2> mhm-hm </S2> they are not registered in the ministry and so we cannot support them <S2> mhm </S2> NGOs are but they are all based in the capital mostly and they received this help so </S1>
<S2> i think this is what you realise if you make grassroots studies i've done it myself in western africa and since long time back and and the you s- come to know that they are even these permanent er associations which are there they're not active all the time but they're active when it's necessary for example female associations when one of the women is ill she cannot make the rice harvest suddenly one woman 20 women are there to help her and next er time there is some other woman and so on these are not the they haven't even even been counted they haven't they aren't included er there are some books from the 90s about civil society in africa for example some of the chapters they have a very liberal western liberal er definition of civil society excluding all these types of organisations that even if they are ad hoc and like the (xx) in afghanistan they are there , people are members of that (xx) but but they are they join then they meet when it's necessary you don't have to meet er every week if it's not necessary so and this is also if i link back to your thesis there are maybe er some some or three per cent say th- of the school associations say that they they meet when it's necessary when they need it so maybe it's a western view to try to get them tell to tell how often they meet <S1> @yes@ </S1> in sweden the municipality board meet once a month whether it's necessary or not <S1> [@@] </S1> [but but] most often it is necessary but in these societies maybe they they meet when they really need it <S1> [exactly] </S1> [not] just for getting the money from being there or <S1> yeah </S1> okay er okay this is also i feel generalisable and this is also what is evident i think in my book from a- appearing er december last year er in the different context low grassroots studies i- it's the same everywhere and these things also appear so it seems to be generalisable so when you next after you have defended now and you start to write er more articles then you can generalise and and if i- i think okay . yeah okay <ARRANGING SLIDES, P:07> you are you have suggestions in the (xx) last chapter suggestions to different levels , suggestions for the national level and then er suggestions for the local level <P:08> you say er i don't have to read them all but you say suggestions for the national level defining a tradit- traditional associations' council at commune level and some (xx) and institutional so- social capital that has cut down the links between associations </S2>
<S1> between [yes] </S1>
<S2> [er] horizontally and then vertically <S1> yeah </S1> er government assigned (xx) capacity building and awareness (xx) for democ- democratic governance donor agencies assist (xx) deepening er knowledge about traditional forms but aren't you i mean you er defend from er you you were the representative of do- of a donor agency the german donor agency , but i th- i have a feeling that donor agencies people in donor agencies they don't know very much about what you know i mean you have done this study and you have come to learn more than people of the ministry of education in cambodia even so how could the donor agencies , except another <NAME S1> <S1> [@@] </S1> [could could] how could they @er@ advice the government about er inform them about local associations i could i just add i know from africa that many people feel ashamed of coming from they were were grown up in a rural village and they feel ashamed about mentioning it even they don't want to to admit that they are from a rural (site) and they feel ashamed about all these traditional associations they don't feel that they are relevant so how do you th- think the could donor agencies convince them that it's worthwhile to rely on traditional associations </S2>
<S1> they could if they would know more about that <S2> mhm </S2> that is a problem and often there is limited link what to what happens at the local levels in the case of er the GTZ project or the german government project that was involved , er there is a history of this concept which i will not now er describe but it's one of the few a component of this project it's one of the few examples of donor coming to a certain area studying who is active and doing what selecting different kind of association to promote and self-help and kind of or credit association which is something that normally does not happen <S2> mhm </S2> normally there is an idea cash association rice association or exchange of books or whatever is com- an elec- a committee is elected they have to implement they receive capacity building <S2> mhm </S2> and that's it so there should be a greater i think from a donor point of view a greater investment in learning about the local reality but i must say that i have also the feeling that people cambodian people sitting in the government they don't know much about it <S2> uh-huh </S2> they are urban people educated and the focus is on national policy so this is maybe too grassroots also from a policymaker <S2> mhm </S2> point of view and the dialogue goes between donors and policymakers <S2> mhm-hm </S2> not with the involvement of traditional association if i can expand a little bit on this one idea we had in our project was to bring together different types of existing association link them in a network this project started in my component so i was the advisor for that in one province it was expanded to the second province it was taken up now by a U-S-I-D project in half er one third of the provinces of the country it will ta- be taken up by GTZ in another province in a forthcoming project which will include school association (and other) types so if these things developed this way of course you can influence policy but there is a need to invest on learning about the local reality and then try to replicate as much as possible but based on exchanges between people local people </S1>
<S2> in this context i have two questions which i had planned to bring up at the end but i can do it now when you how did it start you started as a representative of the you were employed by the german er german er donor <S1> [yeah] </S1> [agency] and then you f- found that you can make a case study for your PhD or you planned to do a PhD study in cambodia and then you were employed by the german agency </S2>
<S1> erm oh the first i @@ when i went to cambodia on the first place er i was supposed to work in a project which did not exist <S2> mhm-hm </S2> so i was there and didn't find er anything it was the reintegration of ex-comba- er soldiers <S2> mhm-hm </S2> in the er village er kind of life but the soldiers had gone back 15 years ago so not now so there was a lack of information from the donor point of view in this respect and then there was also the ministry was not very helpful in giving the right information but anyway so there was no project okay and GTZ was there there was a rural development project commune council elections so decentralisation of the public administration started <S2> mhm </S2> and i started to work as advisor for civil society local government so i started to work with traditional association and so on and i could see then the link t- i could see then the possibility to conduct also research because i was somehow involved in with school association and to some extent association providing credits er for people to be able to send their kids to school so i had a a link but of course this was not 100 per cent <S2> mhm </S2> and in the graph you saw before i had some overlapping and some other areas not so i had to devote then some special investigation for that </S1>
<S2> okay and then when you had collected your data and started to analyse you were still employed by the german donor agency </S2>
<S1> i was not no <S2> no </S2> no i think most er the of the analyses of quantitative er data erm happen last year when i was here in tampere to write this thesis so that is when the quantitative analysis er took place with regard to the qualitative data so interviews observations and also the er review of literature that was while i was employed because in the meantime i published article in journals one chapter <S2> mhm </S2> in a book i went to conferences i had to collect more this descriptive part which i included in my publication er throughout these er four years five years but the quantitative analysis took place when i was full-time here to write the thesis </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm so you didn't have the opportunity to convince the donor agencies that they should assist in finding out more more about traditional [(xx)] </S2>
<S1> [with regard] to education no but the approach we were developing these village networks is ongoing and i think that is what i left behind and hopefully it will influence policy as well </S1>
<S2> mhm-hm <P:05> yeah and then er you have also suggestions for local level and we have been in some way discussing these also <S1> yes </S1> erm so when you say talk about directions for further research you say more studies on cambodia cambodian civil society <BROWSING PAPERS> , no , okay you say many more things [but i kind of yeah yeah] </S2>
<S1> [yeah but it's yeah civil society traditional forms of] civil society </S1>
<S2> okay then my er let's say detailed examination is over and er <STANDING UP> , er , as a final statement er i go back to what i said initially that this is a study studying processes going on in many places in the world but he has done it in in depth in er cambodia and it's he has been very courageous er from different points of view to do this at the grassroots level i know from my own research and from my many of my PhD students that it's rather difficult sometimes to do research at this level and also that you er don't accept this er let's say very liberal view of civil society eliminating important er associations and organisations which exist and have existed er existed in cambodia when we were still at the iron age in finland and sweden <S1> @@ </S1> and er they are in many times excluded for example still in 97 in a world bank report er defining civil society civil society is equal to NGOs in their definition so this is a merit of the thesis it's a merit also that you go to the grassroots level and look at the outcomes because m- much of the research on restructuring of education especially decentralisation has been from this national policy level and er it seldom it has come recently and one my one book my book the cases in my book is one one er example that people study at the grassroots level the outcomes of decentralisation -sation and this is also a merit that you er do this and also er a third component or third ingredient is the er analysis of social capital that er through this analysis of social capital you also see or ha- have to deal with the traditional so-called traditional associations and organisations er , and this er this is a piece of research which contributes to the field of knowledge in this area and er . we need much more of this type of the the studies that offer outcomes at the grassroots level so er i hope that you continue and i would er finally say that this er thesis er is approved and it's i don't know the grading but it's above average i will say thank you </S2>
<S1> well thank you professor <NAME S2> i now call upon those distinguished member of the public wishing to make comments to my dissertation to request the <FOREIGN> kustos </FOREIGN> for the floor </S1>
<P:06>
<S3> the defence is closed </S3>
