The National University of Management has been reorganized as an autonomous entity and similar reorganizations are planned for the Faculty of Law and other state-run educational establishments, education officials said this week.
Formerly under direct control of the Ministry of Education, the state’s foremost business school is to become a state-owned public enterprise with its own board of directors by order of a March 1 Council of Ministers subdecree, the officials said.
The move coincides with a similar reorganization of the government’s telecommunications business, but officials said while Telecom Cambodia is in the process of being fully privatized, there are no plans yet to fully privatize NUM.
“It [is] still under the management of the state of the government…the main point for the university is that it will be financially autonomous,” Pit Chamnan, Ministry of Education secretary of state, said Monday.
“Now the board will run it, and they will declare to the Ministry of Finance how much money they make,” he said, adding that the plan will make the university’s finances more transparent.
Pit Chamnan said similar reorganizations are planned for the Faculty of Law and other state universities.
NUM’s board will be made up of five members, two from the university, one from the Ministry of Education and one from the Ministry of Finance. The fifth member could not be confirmed Tuesday.
Chea Vannath, president of the Center for Social Development, said that she hoped the reorganization will not come at the expense of poor students.
“Some private schools are near bankruptcy because of the competition, so if a university becomes more private, or semi-public, there need to be guarantees that it will still accept poor students on scholarship,” she said.
Sor Sophann, National University of Management’s bureau chief of education, said that every year the university accepts 300 scholarship students, while other students pay $360 per year.
NUM currently has 7,000 students studying for bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees.
