Higher Education

As mentioned, higher and tertiary-level education are provided in universities and technical and professional training institutions. Tertiary-level courses last two to three years. Teacher-training colleges train primary and lower secondary teachers (two-year programmes). At the university level, programmes leading to the Bachelor's degree or the equivalent usually last four years. A one-year, post-graduate programme at the Faculty of Pedagogy trains upper secondary school teachers. Studies in the fields of medicine and dentistry last seven years (six years in the case of pharmacy and architecture).

A network of nine public higher education institutions have been established which provide for instruction in areas such as agriculture, medicine, economics, industry, technology, teacher training, science, art and culture. A further fifteen technical and professional training institutions also offer tertiary-level courses lasting 2-3 years. Apart from a recently established private university providing degree programmes, there are a few private institutions providing tertiary-level courses which are non-degree programmes.

There is a growing public-private partnership in higher education. In 1999, the total enrolment was around 22,000 with roughly two-thirds of students as fee-paying students in public institutions or enrolled in private universities. The growth of private provision is a recent trend, stimulated by the establishment of a private university in 1997.

There are significant urban/rural and gender disparities in current enrolment patterns. For example, 45% of students in public institutions come from Phnom Penh and around 40% come from the more urban provinces (e.g., Kandal, Kompong Cham). There are virtually no students from the poorer, more rural and remote provinces. A recent MEYS survey showed that around 40% of students have parents who are government officials, followed by land-owing farmers' children (34%). Virtually all the private students come from Phnom Penh, which emphasizes the very heavy urban-bias of current participation.

Female participation is around one-quarter in both public and private institutions. Two-thirds of females are enrolled as private students. This highlights that private sector expansion has increased opportunities for women, particularly from Phnom Penh. The under-representation of females is a consequence of under-representation in upper secondary education and socio-cultural traditions of limited investment in female education.

The Government has adopted a policy of limiting its own involvement in higher education to public funding of only 2,000 students per annum. Admission exams are used to restrict access for public funded students on an annual quota basis. There is significant evidence of demand with only 1 in 20 students being admitted to the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) in 1999. However, there is significant variation in admission rates due to variable demand from students. For example, 95% of applicants for the Faculty of Music were accepted in the same year.

The current admission practices are both inefficient and inequitable. Students are allowed to apply for as many faculties as they wish, if they can pay examination fees and other costs. There is no requirement to report transparently on admissions criteria. In 1998, the MEYS reduced the admission cycle from two test periods to one, which has improved efficiency and reduced costs. However, the Grade XII examination results are not used as a selection or even screening criteria for rationalizing the admissions strategy, due to uncertain reliability and credibility of the Grade XII testing process. Language policy is another factor. Some admission tests are conducted in French (e.g. for health sciences), which disadvantages students from schools without such provision.

There is little reliable information on the quality or effectiveness or higher education. Repetition and dropout rates could be used as a proxy indicator. Repetition rates in public institutions are variable from 1.3% in RUPP to 9.0% in the Faculty of Law and Economic Science. Dropout rates are higher, reaching as high as 19% in RUPP in 1999. Overall dropout rates for public-funded students are around 8% per annum. However, it is reported that dropout is rarely due to student performance considerations, but more related to social and financial factors. Reliable data on the repetition and dropout for private students is not available.

Student performance monitoring systems are still rudimentary. Some faculties have made progress in putting in place regular student testing procedures and an annual collation of student performance indicators. The extent to which these procedures are used as a basis for student progression is less certain. At present, there is little external moderation of student performance (e.g. use of external examiners from regional/international universities).

The institutional status of higher education institutions remains embryonic. Although public institutions have gradually assumed a higher degree of operational autonomy (largely on the back of institution-based donor support), there is no current legal or regulatory framework to underpin this increased autonomy.

Expenditures on higher education are difficult to estimate due to an aggregated higher education-TVET budget. Based on an estimated 1:2 split between the sub-sectors, it is estimated that the annual per student expenditure by the Government is around R40,000 (or US$100) per annum. Fees for private students are variable, normally ranging between US$150 and US$400 per student per annum. Fees policy is not rigorously regulated with levels largely determined by what the market can bear. For both public and private institutions, financial planning, management and reporting systems are very limited. Public institutions are frequently not informed about their annual allocations and have little delegated authority for spending. For both public and private institutions, there is currently no requirement to produce annual development and financing plans, nor is there any requirement to account for the spending of public or private funding.

Particularly in the public institutions, this lack of delegated authority has reinforced a high dependence on donor support. Donor support is largely institution-based which allows institution managers a high degree of autonomy. It is estimated that over the period 1994-99, higher education aid has amounted to around US$24 million (US$4 million per annum), compared to Government spending of approximately US$4.5 million. In another words, donor support amounts to roughly four-fifths of overall higher education spending. In the absence of a well-defined policy and institutional framework for higher education development, it is problematic to assure or monitor aid-spending effectiveness.

There appears to be significant scope for improved efficiency in the use of facilities and staff. The overall students-teacher ratio in public institutions is estimated at 12.4:1, compared to 17.1:1 in private institutions. There is also a significant proportion of administrative staff which amount to roughly 22% of total staffing in public institutions.

The pressing priority is to implement strategies that will assist the Government to effectively plan, regulate, monitor and provide quality assurance for the public-private partnership in higher education. The key measures required will include: (i) putting in place enabling legislation that defines the status of higher education, including governance arrangements; (ii) designing and implementing regulations for both technical and financial management, monitoring and accounting, for both public and private contributions; (iii) redefining the relative roles of the Department of Higher Education and institutional governors/managers, with the Department adopting greater planning and monitoring functions; and (iv) within new legislation, to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of the Council for Higher Education, especially related to matters of public accountability. A critical consideration will be to put in place incentives that will assist these institutional and governance reforms.

In the medium to long term, a critical issue will be to improve the equity of participation in higher education. The overarching strategy will be to expand access to quality secondary education in currently under-served areas. Another medium term priority is to enhance the quality and efficiency of higher education. The key intervention will be a combination of enhanced operational budget support linked to well-regulated institutional performance monitoring. These measures need to be applied to both public and private institutions. In order to be effective, initial institutional capacity building for quality assurance will need to be put in place. Key measures include: (a) a targeted programme of curriculum and staff development; (b) a selective programme of small scale facilities development, especially in the institutions which supply the public sectors; (c) putting in place effective technical and financial management systems including management development; and (d) an effective programme of national and international quality assurance and accreditation. There may be scope for stimulating these improvements through a demand-driven higher education development fund with well-defined eligibility criteria for both public and private institutions.