Opinion: Confucius Institute Enhances Chinese Language Education, Cultural Exchange in NW Cambodia

 

Please read from the Phnom Penh Post

Please read from the Cambodianess 

Confucius institutes have been playing a vital role in promoting Chinese language education and cultural exchanges, along with enhancing the quality of education in Cambodian higher education institutions for over a decade. Currently, four major Confucius institutes are operational in Cambodia. The first one was co-founded by Jiujiang University and the Royal Academy of Cambodia (CIRAC) on December 22, 2009, an organization that operates under the supervision of the Council of Ministers.

On December 26, 2019, the second Confucius Institute (CINUBB) was established by the Guilin University of Electronic Technology and the National University of Battambang, which is overseen by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport. The Nanjing Vocational University of Industry Technology and the Federation of Khmer Chinese in Cambodia jointly established the fourth one at the Cambodian University of Technology and Science (CICamTech) in November 2022, which is also supervised by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport.

On June 4, 2020, the fourth Chinese higher education institution was founded in Cambodia. Hainan University collaborated with the Royal University of Agriculture at the Royal University of Agriculture to establish the China-Indochina Research and Education Center for Sustainable Development (CIRUA). CIRUA operates under the supervision of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries.

Besides CIRUA, other Chinese higher education institutions, such as Lanmei University of Cambodia and Cambodia-China University of Technology and Science, have also been established in Cambodia. China is promoting STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) diplomacy in Cambodia by supporting higher education in science, technology, and information and communication technology (ICT). This initiative reflects Chinese cooperation and contributes to the debate over China's international development model and its growing role as a global leader.

In addition, on April 25, 2018, former Prime Minister Hun Sen and former Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo jointly unveiled Kratie University. The university cost 12 million U.S. dollars, with 10 million coming from the Chinese government and the rest from the Kratie Foundation for Higher Education Organization.

According to the 2023 Southeast Asia Confucius Institutes Joint Conference report, Southeast Asia has 62 Confucius Institutes (classrooms) as of July 2023, with Thailand having the most at 23—the highest number in ASEAN. The size of the Chinese diaspora population and the perception that China's economic influence provides Mandarin speakers with more job opportunities are the most apparent reasons why Mandarin language learning has grown in popularity in ASEAN rather than in the West.

Southeast Asia is home to approximately 30 million of the estimated 40 million ethnic Chinese diaspora. While Confucius Institutes are lauded for their contributions to education and cultural exchange, they have also been criticized in several countries for concerns about academic freedom, propaganda, and influence operations. The perception and impact of these institutes vary significantly from one country to another. On the other hand, Cambodia can benefit from establishing Confucius institutes that can provide Chinese language education to students to increase employment and economic growth in Cambodia.

The Confucius Institute, a non-profit public educational organization affiliated with the People's Republic of China's Ministry of Education, is critical in promoting Chinese language education and cultural exchange in Cambodian higher education institutions. The Centre for Language Education and Cooperation (CLEC) and the Chinese International Education Foundation (CIEF) provide technical and financial support for C.I.s around the world.

The Confucius Institute has seven significant roles. Firstly, its primary focus is on teaching the Chinese language to Cambodian students. It offers classes led by certified and experienced Chinese language instructors, ranging from beginner to advanced levels. This helps Cambodian students learn Chinese and prepares them for careers in business and diplomacy, where Chinese language proficiency is increasingly valued.

Secondly, besides teaching students, these institutes also frequently train Cambodian Chinese language teachers, contributing to developing a long-term model for Chinese language education in the country.

Thirdly, they organize and facilitate various cultural exchange programs, including Chinese cultural festivals, art exhibitions, music and dance performances, and other events that showcase Chinese culture. These events help enhance mutual understanding and cultural exchange between China and Cambodia.

Fourth, they provide resources such as books, journals, and electronic materials to support Chinese language education and offer scholarships or funding opportunities for Cambodian students to study in China, fostering educational exchanges.

Fifth, some Confucius Institutes engage in academic and research collaborations between Cambodian and Chinese higher education institutions. This includes joint research projects, conferences, seminars, and the exchange of academic staff and scholars.

Sixth, facilitating international collaboration: These institutes facilitate broader international collaboration and partnership in higher education by serving as a bridge between Chinese and Cambodian educational institutions.

Finally, promoting understanding of Chinese policies and developments: through various programs and seminars, the Confucius Institutes also provide insights into Chinese policies, economic developments, and societal changes, which is crucial for countries like Cambodia with strong economic and diplomatic ties with China.

In the meantime, I'd like to share an achievement of one of the Confucius Institutes in Cambodia, CINUBB. The institute has been instrumental in training Chinese language human resources in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, and Phnom Penh, benefitting more than 6,165 students.

It has also helped to strengthen the friendship between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the People's Republic of China, which has a rich history. CINUBB has 21 full-time international Chinese language teachers, most of whom have bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degrees and extensive overseas teaching experience.

In collaboration with Battambang's Provincial Department of Education, Youth, and Sports, the Confucius Institute has established 18 Chinese language classes at some high schools, including Pich Chenda High School and Sdao Santepheap High School, as well as higher education institutions, the 5th Military Headquarter Region, and Chinese enterprises, providing Chinese language training at all levels. Currently, more than 200 students are pursuing a Bachelor of Chinese Literature degree at the National Universities of Battambang and Meanchey.

Over the last four years, the Confucius Institute has organized 160 cultural exchange activities and provided opportunities for Chinese language lovers in Cambodia to showcase their talents, including the Spring Festival, Zhuang Festival, Khmer New Year Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Cultural Experience Festival, and teaching activities, including a Chinese poetry recitation competition, a "Chinese Bridge" competition for university students, and a Chinese singing competition. These activities have served as a link between international Chinese language education in northwestern Cambodia and China, fostering cultural exchanges and promoting friendship between our two nations.

National and international media both report on these activities. In particular, the Confucius Institute at the National University of Battambang has received several outstanding awards from well-known Chinese newspapers. Regarding educational exchanges between China and Cambodia, the Confucius Institute is dedicated to enhancing Cambodia's national education system through exchanging knowledge and technology.  Cambodia's Minister of Education, Youth, and Sport, Hang Chuon Naron, and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia, Wang Wentian signed a memorandum of understanding on November 9, 2022, to pilot Chinese courses in some public schools, with implementation scheduled in 2023.

Furthermore, the Confucius Institute contributes to the success of the Belt and Road Initiative. On January 15, 2024, the National Institute of Education trained 100 Cambodian teachers who will teach Chinese in Cambodian public schools. As part of the first phase, 20 public secondary schools teach Chinese. More than 100 Cambodian educational institutions have trained more than 100,000 students in the Chinese language, according to the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sport statement.

In the future, the Confucius Institute of the National University of Battambang will increase the number of Chinese classrooms and teaching sites open to public and private schools and enterprises, integrate Chinese with other related majors, do substantial work for students' employment, and improve their labour skills. CINUBB will contribute to achieving the Belt and Road Initiatives and mutual understanding of both leaders.

Remarkably, Prime Minister Hun Sen and President Xi Jinping signed an agreement on Cambodia-China relations and cooperation in February 2023, including the launch of the "Diamond Cooperation" and the establishment of the "Industrial and Technological Corridor" and "Fish and Rice Corridor." Prime Minister Hun Manet and Chinese leaders, especially President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, exchanged views on propelling the Year of People-to-People Exchange in 2024 into a productive year with concrete outcomes by attracting additional Chinese tourists and more direct flights from China to Cambodia, particularly Siem Reap.

The fish and rice corridor initiative aims to enhance agricultural trade between the two countries, focusing on products like fish, rice, tropical fruits, vegetables, and various agricultural inputs, including fertilizers, pesticides, and animal feed in northwestern Cambodia, particularly in the Tonle Sap Lake area, to develop modern ecological agriculture near Southeast Asia's largest freshwater lake by surface area.

Former Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on March 14, 2023, that the government had designated four provinces—Pursat, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, and Pailin—as Cambodia's fourth economic pole. Cambodian Tourism Minister Sok Soken said the Southeast Asian country recorded 5.4 million international tourists, including some 540,000 Chinese tourists, in 2023. According to Cambodia's Ministry of Tourism, China was Cambodia's most significant source of international tourist arrivals in the pre-pandemic era.

The kingdom received 2.36 million Chinese tourists in 2019, accounting for 35.7 percent of the total international tourist arrivals and generating about 1.8 billion U.S. dollars in revenue. In conclusion, I firmly believe that C.I.s will continue to contribute to providing quality Chinese language education for Cambodians and to be a bridge to facilitate cultural and people-to-people exchanges for mutual benefits and Cambodia's economic growth, not only in Northwestern Cambodia but also in the whole country.

Sam Rany is a Vice-Rector of the National University of Battambang (NUBB) and Co-Director of the Confucius Institute of the National University of Battambang (CINUBB).

គណៈប្រតិភូនៃសាកលវិទ្យាល័យកម្ពុជាពីរបានទៅទស្សនកិច្ចក្រុមហ៊ុនហុងជូហ៊្រូដ

(ឆុងឆីង)៖ គណៈ​ប្រតិភូនៃសាកលវិទ្យាល័យជាតិបាត់ដំបង និងសាកលវិទ្យាល័យភូមិន្ទភ្នំពេញបានទៅទស្សនកិច្ចសិក្សានៅទីស្នាក់កណ្តាលរបស់ក្រុមហ៊ុនហុងជូហ៊្រូដ (Hongjiu Fruit) នៅទីក្រុងឆុង   ឈីងនៃសាធារណៈរដ្ឋប្រជាមានិតចិនកាលពីថ្ងៃទី៣០ខែកញ្ញាឆ្នាំ២០២៣។ ទស្សនកិច្ចសិក្សានេះមានគោល បំណង ស្វែងយល់ពីភាពជាអ្នកដឹកនាំ វប្បធម៌អង្គភាព ការគ្រប់គ្រងធនធានមនុស្ស គម្រូអាជីវកម្ម និងការប្រើប្រាស់បច្ចេកវិទ្យាឌីជីថលក្នុងការគ្រប់គ្រងខ្សែសង្វាក់ផ្គត់ផ្គង់ ការងារលទ្ធកម្ម ការដឹកជញ្ជូន និងការចែកចាយផលិតផលរបស់ក្រុមហ៊ុន។ លោកដឹង ហុងជូ (Deng Hungjui) អគ្គនាយកក្រុមហ៊ុន ថ្នាក់ដឹកនាំនិងបុគ្គលិកក្រុមហ៊ុនបានទទួលស្វាគមន៍យ៉ាងកក់ក្តៅដល់គណៈប្រតិភូនៃសាកលវិទ្យាល័យទាំងយើងទាំងពីរ។​

ក្រុមហ៊ុននេះបាននឹងកំពុងសិក្សាទីផ្សារ និងលទ្ធភាពក្នុងធ្វើវិនិយោគទន់លើវិស័យកសិកម្មនៅក្នុងខេត្តបាត់ដំបងដើម្បីដាំដុះ និងនាំចេញផ្លែឈើសំខាន់ៗចំនួន៦ មុខរួមមាន៖ ធូរ៉េន ម្ឃុត មៀន ស្រកានាគ ឆែរី និងទំពាំងបាយជូ។ ក្រុមហ៊ុនហុងជូហ៊្រូដបានចុះអនុស្សរណៈនៃការយោគយល់គ្នាស្តីពីកិច្ចសហប្រតិ​   បត្តិការយុទ្ធសាស្រ្តសាកលជាមួយមូលនិធិអភិវឌ្ឍន៍សហគ្រិនភាពនៃក្រសួងសេដ្ឋកិច្ច និងហរិញ្ញវត្ថុនៃព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា និងក្រុមហ៊ុន  Advance Digital World Trade ដើម្បីលើកម្ពស់ឌីជីថលូបនីយកម្មនៃការគ្រប់គ្រងសង្វាក់ផ្តត់ផ្គង់ផលិតផលកសិកម្មនៅកម្ពុជា នៅក្នុងកម្មវិធីពិពរណ៍ពាណិជ្ជកម្មចិន- អាស៊ានលើកទី២០ កាលពីថ្ងៃទី១៨ ខែកញ្ញា ឆ្នាំ២០២៣ កន្លងទៅនេះ។ សាកលវិទ្យាល័យជាតិបាត់ដំបង និងវិទ្យាស្ថានខុងជឺនៃសាកលវិទ្យាល័យជាតិបាត់ដំបងនឹងធ្វើកិច្ចសហប្រតិការលើការអភិវឌ្ឍន៍ធន ធានមនុស្ស ការស្រាវជ្រាវកសិកម្ម និងកសិកមុ្មនាពេលអានាគត។

សូមរំលឹកដែរថា ក្រុមហ៊ុនហុងជូហ៊្រូដជាក្រុមហ៊ុនកសិកម្មចិនឈានមុខគេមួយដែលបានបង្កើតឡើងក្នុងឆ្នាំ២០២២ ដោយផ្តោតលើការធ្វើប្រតិបត្តិការខ្សែសង្វាក់ផ្គត់ផ្គង់ផ្លែឈើដែលមានគុណភាពខ្ពស់នៅបរទេស និងនៅប្រទេសចិន។ ក្រុមហ៊ុនបានប្រើប្រាស់បច្ចេកវិទ្យាឌីជីថលប្រកបដោយប្រសិទ្ធភាពក្នុងការគ្រប់គ្រងខ្សែសង្វាក់ផ្គត់ផ្គង់ និងចែកចាយផលិតផលផ្លែឈើដោយផ្ទាល់ពីកសិដ្ឋានជុំវិញពិភព លោកទៅកាន់អ្នកលក់រាយនៅទូទាំងប្រទេសចិន។

MALAYSIA: Loan defaulters barred from leaving

Emilia Tan24 October 2014 Issue No:340

 

With the cost of university education rising faster than inflation and increasing sums taken out in loans, more and more students are defaulting on their loan repayments. For some, this means being barred from leaving the country.

In fact, almost 85,000 recipients of student loans from the government’s low-interest National Higher Education Fund Corporation have to date been stopped because of loan arrears. They join criminals, tax dodgers and pension fund defaulters in facing departure bans.

Rising costs affect even students from middle-income families who are now graduating with a large debt after a three-year undergraduate degree that costs more than RM60,000 (US$18,000).

The outlay is much higher at a private university or a foreign branch campus. In a public university, a medical degree can cost as much as RM300,000 (US$92,000) whereas private colleges charge three times that much.

Generally, private sector costs have increased by 20% to 25% in the past five years where there are now more than 100 colleges and foreign branch campuses. HSBC Bank estimates the total annual cost of an undergraduate degree, including living expenses, at around US$13,000.

Earlier this year, Yemen’s higher education and scientific research ministry said it would end new government scholarships for its students to enrol in private Malaysian universities because of “poor educational quality and high costs”. Some 9,000 Yemeni students are enrolled in Malaysia, 4,000 of them in private universities.

Although the Yemeni case is unusual, the decision attracted wide publicity and dented the government’s attempts to portray Malaysia as a low-cost alternative to universities in the West and in Singapore.

Loans

While students are able to get low-interest government loans – loans for private university courses are about a third of all government-backed loans – these do not cover the whole cost at private institutions. Yet more and more students are enrolling in the private sector because of a lack of places in the top public universities.

Overall cost of living rises are also putting financial pressure on families. The Keadilan Youth or KeADILan, the youth wing of the National Justice Party of Malaysia or PKR, said that with low starting salaries, Malaysian graduates “cannot make ends meet”.

“Many local graduates have the added burden of repaying their PTPTN [National Higher Education Fund Corporation] education loans and this can cost up to RM300 a month," the group said in a statement.

PTPTN chief executive officer Agos Cholan said the corporation had to resort to barring the defaulters from leaving Malaysia because they had ignored repeated reminders to repay their loans. To have the ban lifted, Agos said defaulters would need to make some payments immediately, depending on their income, and would need to sign papers committing them to pay monthly sums.

Rapidly shrinking fund

Although the number facing bans is unacceptably high, it is down from some 130,000 in 2007 after the government converted some loans to grants for top performing students. More than 14,000 blacklisted PTPTN borrowers paid back their loans in 2013 compared with some 10,000 the year before.

In a statement, PTPTN said as many as 500,000 borrowers had defaulted on their loans since the fund was established in 1997. While not all have been barred, it means the amount of money in the fund is rapidly shrinking and affecting the PTPTN’s ability to lend to new students.

Fund chairman Shamsul Anuar Nasarah said the corporation was finding it too difficult to finance new students because of the high number of defaulters and with RM1.2 billion (US$367 million) in unpaid loans outstanding.

The 2015 budget announced this month gives PTPTN borrowers an incentive to make lump sum payments by March next year when they will receive a 20% discount on their loans. Those who pay consis¬tently for 12 months until the end of 2015 will be offered a 10% discount.

But student groups criticised the government for being more concerned about propping up the loan corporation than easing the fees burden on students with more scholarships.

Their criticisms of the government came after Malaysia’s second Education Minister Idris Jusoh said PTPTN loan defaulters stretching back to 1998 could be blacklisted on a bank database used to sanction new loan applications. This would have an effect similar to being declared bankrupt and could affect graduates’ ability to buy a house, for example.

PTPTN has disbursed RM5.3 billion (US$1.62 billion) to more than 990,000 students since 1998.

Sugar Industry Highlights Conflicts Over Trade Pacts and Land

By The New York Time

By KEITH BRADSHER

Published: September 30, 2013 

Photo: Thomas Cristofoletti for The New York Times

 Activists have called for the exclusion of Cambodian sugar from duty-free treatment in Europe, saying that it triggers corporate land grabs. Above, a worker harvesting sugar at a Phnom Penh Sugar plantation.

OMLIANG COMMUNE, Cambodia — Yim Lon nurses bitter memories of how three years ago the local authorities forced her and her family to dismantle their small home and move it to make way for a sugar plantation. 

The Phnom Penh Sugar Company paid her a few hundred dollars, less than a tenth of what Ms. Yim, 53, says she believes the family’s small plot of farmland was worth. She dreams of being allowed to move their two-room house, made of wood planks and steel siding, back to the site near a stream where they used to grow rice. She is convinced that the other culprits are the Europeans, who buy sugar from Phnom Penh Sugar. “If Europe continues buying sugar from the company, then we will continue suffering,” she said. 

Phnom Penh Sugar says that it has behaved fairly and obeyed local laws. Newly created sugar plantations across Cambodia have created thousands of cash-paying jobs for destitute migrant workers and subsistence farmers, and hundreds of jobs for skilled factory workers. 

But the corporate practice in Cambodia of obtaining tens of thousands of acres from the government as economic development concessions for large sugar plantations, while paying modest compensation to farmers pushed off the land, places a harsh light on international trade pacts that are meant to help the world’s poorest countries. 

To many activists who have heard the tales of people like Ms. Yim, the trade pacts that foster exports can have the unintended effect of encouraging land grabs by wealthy, politically connected families.

Nearly all of Cambodia’s sugar exports go to the European Union under the Everything But Arms program, which eliminates import duties for the sugar. The European Union also sets high minimum prices for imported sugar, well above world levels. Western activists have tried in recent months to organize consumer boycotts against companies that have bought Cambodian sugar, notably Tate & Lyle Sugars, which is owned by American Sugar Refining of West Palm Beach, Fla. 

The European Union has held high-level talks with Cambodian officials about the sugar issue. But it has refrained so far from opening a formal investigation into whether Cambodian sugar should lose duty-free access to the European Union. 

In a written response to questions, Ambassador Jean-François Cautain, the head of the European Union’s delegation to Cambodia, pointed to statistical measures. Rising exports helped Cambodia triple average annual income per person in the last decade, to $980, while reducing poverty to a fifth of the country’s population, he wrote. “We also need to consider the benefits the overall Cambodian economy gets from the ‘Everything But Arms’ scheme and the harm the country would suffer if we remove it,” he wrote. 

Western and Cambodian activists have called for the exclusion of Cambodian sugar from duty-free treatment in Europe, saying that it triggers corporate land grabs. 

“The land is deeply connected to the spiritual life of the people,” said Chum Narin, the land and natural resources program head at the Community Legal Education Center, a nonprofit group in Phnom Penh. 

American Sugar Refining said that its Tate & Lyle unit had bought only two “small shipments” over the years from Cambodia. The first was in May 2011 and the second in June 2012, the company said. It also said that it “has not received Cambodian sugar for over a year and has no plans for further purchases.” 

Both of American Sugar’s purchases were from the KSL Group, another company producing sugar in Cambodia. Phnom Penh Sugar said that it sold sugar to businesses in Spain and Italy, but it declined to identify the buyers. 

Sugar represented only $25.2 million of the $1.34 billion in Cambodian products that the European Union bought in the first six months of this year. Most of the European imports from Cambodia are garments. 

But the developing sugar industry has created jobs chopping sugar cane for previously destitute migrant workers from hill villages even poorer than Omliang Commune. Sugar refineries have also brought multimillion-dollar investments, roads and other amenities to remote areas where investors have long feared to venture in an oftentimes chaotic country like Cambodia.

VIETNAM: As degree mills proliferate, new measures published

Hiep Pham24 August 2013 Issue No:284

 

The arrest of four people on charges of selling fake diplomas, including three in Can Tho in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam, has highlighted the proliferation of degree mills. Racketeers have been shifting from producing fake Vietnamese qualifications to degrees from prestigious international universities.

Last month new decrees were announced, aimed at strengthening official procedures for recognising genuine degrees from overseas universities. But there is still concern that the government is not going far enough to control the lucrative business.

A number of cases came to light recently, as the authorities attempted to crack down on degree mills.

High-profile cases

Last month Dong Van Hai, a member of a gang in Can Tho, was caught by police while delivering a professional certificate to a ‘customer’ to earn VND3.7 million (US$180).

Hai and his associates admitted to police that they had sold at least 500 certificates, ranging from high school and vocational certificates to bachelor degrees, all from legitimate local institutions, and had attracted business from provinces across the country, according to Tuoitre – The Youth – a local publication.

In late July, 10 people were given jail terms by a court in Danang, central Vietnam’s largest city, for selling fake diplomas. The two ringleaders received sentences of three years each.

Another recent high-profile case involved 29 kindergarten teachers in Bo Trach in Quang Binh province, who were fired for having fake certificates obtained from degree mills.

According to Cong An Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh – Ho Chi Minh City Police Newspaper – the teachers admitted during an unscheduled inspection by the Bo Trach local administration they had bought bogus diplomas. The price ranged from VND1 million to VND12 million (US$50 to US$600).

“Transactions often occurred in a coffee shop near the campus of the University of Quang Binh,” said Tran Phong, deputy chair of the Peoples Committee of Bo Trach. “All the [bogus] diplomas were granted by recognised local teacher training institutions” such as Hanoi National University of Education and the College of Education in Nghe An province.

Another case involved Duong Phan Cuong, chair of Chu Van An University, a private institution in Hung Yen province. Cuong was accused of using a doctoral degree granted by a fraudulent Russian higher education entity.

Two vice-rectors were also suspected of buying fake degrees, one of them allegedly from an American degree mill. The other was believed to have only an engineering degree but said he had a masters.

From local to international degrees

The Cuong case showed that the bogus degree business had spread from local to international university certificates, and was on an upward trajectory.

Fake international degrees are easily bought on the internet. One operator based in Canada, but advertising in Vietnamese, said it could provide international degrees to Vietnamese anywhere in the world within 24 hours of placing an order.

“We are confident we are the only entity able to use an embossing seal similar to that used by genuine universities,” the advertisement claimed. With prices ranging from US$1,200 to US$1,500, customers can order a bachelor, master or doctoral ‘degree’ from reputable universities like Yale, Australia National University or University College London.

Another Vietnamese-language website based in the United States said it could provide international degrees and claimed 10 years' experience as a “degree and transcript printing provider for many reputable universities in the US, Australia, UK”, with prices ranging from US$2,200 to US$4,900.

Some blame an overemphasis on ‘credentialism’ or the need for degrees and certificates. “Credentialism has practically encumbered our whole society,” said Nguyen Minh Hac, a former minister of education, in a recent interview published by Giaoduc – The Education.

Degree mills are not a new phenomenon in Vietnam. They began to appear more than a decade ago. However, experts note that they have become more evident in recent years.

As higher-degree holders receive higher salaries and are promoted faster, more people – especially those in the public sector – want a degree as a prerequisite for applying for jobs or for promotion rather than enhancing their own competence, providing a ready market for bogus diploma racketeers.

Government measures

The Vietnamese government has implemented a slew of measures to tackle the problem.

In 2007, the Ministry of Education and Training’s ‘77’ decision stipulated that all Vietnamese foreign degree holders must have their diploma recognised by the Bureau of Testing and Education Quality Assurance in order to pursue further studies within Vietnam, and to ‘legitimise’ their international qualification in accordance with Vietnamese law.

An amendment to Decision 77 was released last month under a directive called ‘Circular 26’, which appeared to lengthen recognition procedures for overseas degrees.

Apart from submitting the original diploma as required in Decision 77, a foreign degree holder must submit other evidence of overseas study such as a confirmation letter from a Vietnamese embassy abroad, confirmation from the overseas institution, passport stamps providing evidence of a period abroad, or evidence of registration with the ministry’s online overseas-student management system.

This ignited a heated debate on the VietPhD facebook group, the biggest international forum for Vietnamese graduate students, on the effectiveness of the government’s efforts to crack down on diploma mills.

While some believe it is a necessary step to curb the growing racket, others question whether it is appropriate for the Vietnamese government to ‘legitimise’ foreign degrees, while others say it will merely exacerbate already exhausting bureaucracy.

“It’s quite usual for the educational authority of one country to require recognition of degrees issued by other country's education institutes”, said Hau Le, a former legal consultant from an international law firm in Ho Chi Minh City.

Hau, who is currently pursuing a master of laws at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, said the new Circular 26, coupled with Decision 77, would not eliminate the bogus degree problem completely but could be helpful for some employers in considering job applications.

Kien Tran, a PhD student in law at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, agreed with Hau but suggested that it would be better for the ministry to develop a system that “set equivalent standards between foreign degrees and domestic ones”.

Kien, who is also a member of VietPhD forum, told University Word News that given the difference in legal and higher education systems between different countries, “it is unimaginable that the government can conclude that a foreign degree is from a degree mill or illegitimate without confirmation from the country where the degree was granted”. 

GLOBAL: Academics in South Korea top business funding index

Karen MacGregor13 August 2013 Issue No:283

 

Academics in South Korea attract the largest amounts of funding per capita in the world from big business, according to a new index – on average US$97,900 per researcher. Next come academics in Singapore, The Netherlands, South Africa and Belgium.

Ireland (US$8,300 per academic) and Portugal (US$8,600) are at the bottom of the list of 30 countries surveyed for the World Academic Summit Innovation Index, which calculates what big companies invest annually in academics to conduct research and innovation work on their behalf.

The index, compiled by Times Higher Education ahead of its inaugural World Academic Summit to be held in October, was produced from Thomson Reuters data used by the THE World University Rankings. It examines one of the 13 indicators in isolation: ‘Industry Income – Innovation: Research income from industry/academic staff’.

The average value per researcher was calculated, and institutions that did not report research income from industry were removed from the calculation. The index converted all cash values into US dollars for comparative purposes, and used purchasing power parity to take into account the cost of living in each country in the study.

The idea, according to a press release, is to provide “an interesting global snapshot of how successfully the world’s top universities compete for research funding from industry”.

It found that global companies invest on average US$97,900 in each Korean academic. In Singapore, academics receive on average US$84,500 per academic, with The Netherlands in third (US$72,800), South Africa in fourth (US$64,400) and Belgium fifth (US$63,700).

In the Top 20 they are followed by Taiwan, China, Sweden, Denmark and India in 10th place, Russia, Turkey, Canada, the US, Australia, Japan, Finland, New Zealand and France, with Hong Kong (US$20,000) coming in at number 20.

One surprise, the press statement said, is that major companies invest just US$13,300 in British academics, “putting the UK fourth from the bottom”.

“The other surprise result is that, like the UK and Ireland, traditional educational powerhouse the US lies in the middle of the table, in 14th position, with industry contributing nearly four times less to its academic researchers (US$25,800 per person) than in the case of Korea.

“This apparent lack of appetite for Western investment by big business is in contrast to the fact that some of the world’s most significant developments historically come from British and American institutions.”

In recent years, the statement continued, “the world’s increasing enthusiasm for technological advancement and computer science has seen big business shift its attention eastward to Asia; a region known for its strong manufacturing sector and traditional academic focus on these subject areas”.

It cited examples of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology’s collaboration with Samsung to develop the world’s first humanoid robot, and scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore recently displaying the latest ‘invisibility cloak’ by making a cat and a goldfish vanish.

“Whilst the West dominates in terms of quantity, with 15 European countries present alongside the US and Canada, Asia sees five of its nine featured countries in the top 10: Korea in first, Singapore in second, Taiwan in sixth, China in seventh and India in 10th.”

The release said the findings were good news for some countries whose universities did not appear in the THE World University Rankings.

“At number 10, India is ranked fifth most commercially valuable country in Asia, with big business pouring in an average $36,900 per researcher. Yet the three Indian institutions featured in THE’s annual World University Rankings all fall below 226th position.”

Russia, at number 11 in the index, had only two institutions in the THE rankings and both were outside the Top 200. Russian academics are paid US$36,400 by big business.

The Times Higher Education World Academic Summit will be held from 2-4 October at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

A spokesperson for the summit said: “Working with business and industry to move their discoveries and ideas from the ivory towers into the real world – and to make a real social and economic impact – has become one of the most important functions of a modern university.

“For some, an ability to attract funding from big business could even be a case of sink or swim in this age of austerity.”

Cambodia: Grand Plans for $80-Billion Capital City Fit for a Techo

By Hul Reaksmey and Alex Willemyns - August 9, 2013

If Phoeung Sophoan has his way, Phnom Penh’s days as Cambodia’s capital city are numbered.

A secretary of state at the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, Mr. Sophoan has big plans for a new 35,000-hectare capital city north of Phnom Penh called “Samdech Techo Hun Sen Dragon City.”

Mr. Sophoan claims the project has the nod from Prime Minister Hun Sen, and all he needs now is $80 billion to build it. 

“If we study the history of any country, after you have great progress and then stability, you must have a new city,” Mr. Sophoan explained at his office on Tuesday.

He said that Dragon City would provide Mr. Hun Sen the chance to place his mark on the country like only the nation’s Angkorian kings have done.

“In the 12th century, we had Suryavaraman II who built Ang­kor Wat,” Mr. Sophoan said.

“When we go to Angkor Thom, we know this is the city of Jayavarman VII, and when we go to the Bakheng Temple, we know this is the city of Yasovarman I.”

“Now we are in the Samdech Hun Sen period—when we see this city, we will know this is the project of Samdech Hun Sen, the Dragon City,” the secretary of state said.

The mammoth city—containing hundreds of buildings and high rises designed in a sort of eclectic neo-Angkorian meets sci-fi movie style—would be strictly zoned into residential, commercial, cultural, educational and tourist segments, which would be laid out to resemble the face of a dragon.

“When you fly into Cambodia, you will see the lights like the head of a Naga, and you will know you are in Cambodia,” Mr. Sophoan explained.

With the borders of the new capital beginning just beyond Phnom Penh’s northern fringes—where the paths of the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers divert—Mr. Sophoan’s city would end northwest of Udong, the last capital before King Norodom moved his court to Phnom Penh almost 150 years ago.

At the center of Dragon City, as its defining feature, will stand a 600-meter tall building, which would be the world’s second tallest if it is ever built.

At the apex of that heavens-piercing tower, Mr. Sophoan explained, will be Mr. Hun Sen’s headquarters, which the secretary of state has tentatively titled “Samdech Akeak Moha Senabakte Techor Hun Sen’s Imperial Residential.”

“[The building] will be 600 meters tall, and this one will have the headquarters for Hun Sen to control all of our country and see all of our country,” Mr. Sophoan said, illustrating the range of the prime minister’s lofty view with a map with nine blue arrows pointing outward from Dragon City to the farther reaches of the country’s borders with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

Mr. Sophoan, who was educated in architecture in France and returned to Cambodia in 1989, said that he began planning Dragon City in 2010 and pushed ahead after receiving a letter that year from Mr. Hun Sen expressing his approval of the mega-project tribute city.

“At first I did not work too hard because I worried that Samdech Hun Sen did not like it,” Mr. Sophoan said. “Now Hun Sen says that he is very interested in it and told me to find investors to fund the project.”

Mr. Sophoan claimed that plans for the city are progressing, and that a prominent construction firm based in Shanghai was in negotiations to help him secure the tens of billions of dollars he needs from Chi­na’s central bank to create his vision.

Information about the Shanghai-based company could not be found online Thursday, and Lim Leang Se, deputy chief of the prime minister’s Cabinet, said Wednesday that he had never heard of Mr. Sophoan’s Hun Sen Dragon City.

Mr. Sophoan’s project is not secret though.

He appeared on an English-language news segment called “This is Cambodia” on CTN—owned by Royal Group chairman Kith Meng —in March last year, in which the presenter described Dragon City as “part of the government’s response to an ever-increasing population and the country’s fast-paced economic growth.”

In the segment, Mr. Sophoan said that if China were to support the project, it would be “an architectural and urban planning revolution” and improve Cambodia’s image internationally.

Some are skeptical.

Mr. Sophoan’s plans for the new satellite city would be incredibly hard to realize for political as well as logistical reasons, said Simon Springer, an associate professor of geography at Canada’s University of Victoria who has studied Cambodia’s development over the past decade.

“It’s likening Hun Sen to one of the Angkorian God-kings…. It’s intensively problematic,” Mr. Springer said.

“The whole plan is beyond ambitious. Even where the funding could come from remains to be seen. Presumably, it would come from China—and China has numerous developments of entire cities like this that are al­most entirely vacant,” he said.

Dragon City also would not be the first overly ambitious satellite city to fail.

About a half-dozen similar de­velopments—all much smaller in scope—have been proposed over the past decade, with none having yet been completed and many scaling back after discovering a lack of demand.

One of the most high-profile sat­ellites, the $1 billion CamKo City, broke ground in 2005 but ran into problems in 2011 amid accusations that its main South Korean investor was illicitly using deposited funds for business deals overseas.

Another satellite city—CPP Sena­tor Ly Yong Phat’s 800-hectare Garden City—broke ground in April and is set to include a convention center, a national sports stadium, two ports, a golf course and an industrial park.

Surprisingly, the land Mr. Sophoan has demarcated for Hun Sen Dragon City actually encompasses Mr. Yong Phat’s land.

Stephen Higgins, who said in 2009 when he was CEO of ANZ Royal Bank that ANZ would not loan money to people looking to purchase property in satellite cities around Phnom Penh, said Thursday that Mr. Sophoan’s project was yet another pie-in-the-sky idea for a new city.

“Hun Sen is a very intelligent guy and I can’t imagine he’d be associated with something like this,” Mr. Higgins said. “It is not feasible. It is beyond a fantasy, and I don’t think it will get past the stage of just being this fantasy in someone’s mind.”

“There’s no property development in the world that is worth $80 billion,” he added.

“To get $80 billion when the country’s GDP [gross domestic product] is $12-13 billion…the idea is laughable.”

In spite of the nay saying and doubters, Mr. Sophoan is confident Hun Sen Dragon City will be a reality one day.

“It will take just 18 years to build if I have the $80 billion.”

© 2013, The Cambodia Daily. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in print, electronically, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without written permission.

Cambodia: Apsara Authority Refutes $200M Revenue Claim

By Kuch Naren - July 13, 2013

The Apsara Authority, which manages the Angkor Archaeo­logical Park, issued a statement on Friday refuting a claim made by Cambodia National Rescue Party leader Kem Sokha about the amount of revenue that it collects from ticket sales. 

The letter, signed by Apsara Authority director-general Bun Narith, said that Mr. Sokha was quoted on July 9 while campaigning in Siem Reap as saying that the revenue from ticket sales for Angkor is almost $200 million per year.

“The Cambodia Na­tional Rescue Party has purposefully pretended to know the correct tourism figures in order to mislead about the number of tourists visiting Angkor,” it says.

The statement went on to explain that not all the 3,584,307 tourists to the country last year visited the temples, meaning the revenues collected at Angkor Park are actually much lower.

The Apsara Authority did not say what its revenues are, but pointed out that children younger than 12 and government delegations are not re­quired to purchase a ticket to enter the park.

The true number of tickets sold last year was 1,808,623, the authority said, and of those, 59.2 percent were single day passes, which cost $20.

Cambodia ‘near bottom’ in budget transparency

Last Updated on 08 March 2013

By Stuart White

 

Cambodia's government ranks among the worst in the world in terms of budget transparency and has shown zero improvement since 2010, according to a biennial report released by an international transparency group yesterday.

According to the report from International Budget Partnership, which was presented at a conference by a coalition of NGOs including the NGO Forum and Transparency International Cambodia, the country scored 15 out of a possible 100 points – the same as in 2010 – putting its score between Nigeria and Egypt in a group of countries identified as providing “scant or no information” about their budgets.

The failing grade, the report says, is largely attributable to the Kingdom’s failure to make key budgetary documents – such as draft budgets and audit reports – accurate, useful and available to the public.

“Publishing the [budget] report, making it transparent, is just part of the process,” maintained Transparency International Cambodia Executive Director Preap Kol.

Failing to do so, he said, “may create a question mark as to whether the government has a real will for change”.

Kol also advocated a wait-and-see approach, noting that the 2014 survey “will tell whether the political will is there or not”.

In the meantime, noted In Samrithy of NGO Education Partnership, uncertainty over the budget among teachers was already causing disruptions in the education sector, and Ros Sopheap of Gender and Development for Cambodia similarly cited a dearth of specificity on funding for women-centric issues in the national budget.

According to opposition parliamentarian Son Chhay, Cambodia’s draft budget isn’t even made public to lawmakers outside of a select few in the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“No one besides the ruling CPP has a right to know or a right to decide on a yearly budget of the country,” he said, while noting that corruption accounts for hundreds of millions in lost revenue each year.

“We are left in the dark,” he added. “We are representing all the provinces, but we don’t even know what they’re doing in Phnom Penh.”

However, Phenn Rithipol, the bureau chief of the Ministry of Economics and Finance’s Department of Budget, maintained at yesterday’s conference that there was “no secret or reason behind” not publicising budgetary matters, but that there was simply no money with which to do so.

During his remarks, Rithipol allowed that there was “a lack of information sharing,” but urged patience, saying that ministry employees worked a difficult schedule, and were “very busy”.