The government must pass a law setting standards for universities soon or it risks losing a major World Bank loan to improve higher education, bank and education officials say.
“I am very anxious and concerned about [the law], about the timing of the project,” said Pok Than, secretary of state for higher education at the Ministry of Education. “If the law doesn’t pass soon, I think the World Bank cannot hold this commitment forever.”
The low-interest loan, originally budgeted at $30 million, would establish a graduate-level program to train future university professors and provide colleges with libraries and computers. The funds will be released, however, only when Cambodia passes a draft law to establish an accreditation board free of political influences.
The board would help set uniform standards for teacher credentials, admissions, curriculum, and school administrative and financial management. The law is currently being reviewed by the Council of Ministers, which must approve it before it can go to the National Assembly.
World Bank economist Peter Moock said government officials assured him in late July, as a seminar on accreditation began, that passage was imminent. “That hasn’t happened,” Moock said.
Meanwhile, the projected size of the loan has been whittled down to $24 million, Moock said. Because of competition from other World Bank programs elsewhere in the world for the funds, the loan could be withdrawn entirely if the government fails to act, he said.
“There is a very limited [loan] program window of opportunity,” he said. “We fought hard to keep this a priority.”
Moock said the major obstacle to passage of the law appears to be official reluctance to establish an accreditation board free of ministry control.
Another concern is the status of the Royal Academy of Cambodia, a well-connected research institution that at one point sought to issue degrees without going through the accreditation process, he said.
But Pok Than said the delays are largely due to Minister of Cabinet Sok An’s busy schedule, not controversy over the law’s content.
At a meeting last week with education and bank officials, Sok An “promised” the law would be passed by the end of this month, Pok Than said. The Royal Academy will not receive any special treatment, he said.
The law will be passed by a Council of Universities, which includes Sok An and representatives from the ministries such as agriculture and health that have their own schools or institutes, Pok Than said.
In the last few years, the number of private universities has greatly risen as the number of college-age students increases. But there is virtually no oversight of their education quality or admissions standards.
Even within the public system, there is little coordination of students’ courses of study, education experts say. Under the new law, all students would be required to study certain essential subjects in their first year, known as a “foundation year.”
The release of the World Bank loan could help attract more funding from a variety of donors, Moock said.
“Other donors who have given to higher education in the past have just walked away,” he said. “They don’t see any payoffs. No one wants to invest because of the problems in the whole system. This puts water in the system…. So there’s a big cost in not moving ahead here.”
