The global COVID-19 pandemic brought unprecedented disruptions to the higher education landscape worldwide. Widespread school closures, driven by the imperative of social distancing to combat the virus’s spread forced a rapid and dramatic shift from traditional face-to-face instruction to online learning and teaching environments in numerous countries. Recent research has highlighted the formidable challenges lower- and middle-income countries face, particularly those with weaker ICT infrastructures and less technology-ready teachers and students, when adapting to these new tech-enhanced teaching and learning […]

The second decade of the 21st century marks the time the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) officially directs the nation’s public sector, economy, and society to accelerate technology adoption and digital transformation. This present study aims to observe developments of such direction in Cambodian higher education (HE) sub-sector before and in response to Covid-19 by (1) examining policies and interventions on technology integration of HE system and institutions and (2) analysing perceptions and behaviours of Cambodian faculty members towards technology […]

This Book Brief is a compilation of findings from studies in the LIBROS-Cambodia Project. It provides overall pictures of the primary-level book supply chain situation in Cambodia and Track and Trace (TnT) system, which is now the Core Textbook Supply Management System in Cambodia.

A recent survey study conducted by CDRI found that university students in Cambodia were keen to pursue an entrepreneurial career. The study also found that a simple provision of entrepreneurship education and support programmes at universities fell short of converting those interests into actions. This policy brief presents five recommendations that higher education institutes should consider adopting to increase entrepreneurial activities: Involve SMEs in providing internships and other work opportunities to help students learn from business owners. Organise innovation and […]

In the past two decades, Cambodia has been committed to the global agenda of ensuring that all children from all walks of life have access to education and quality learning opportunities. The focus was not only on access to education but also on gender parity and learning quality. Three years after the adoption of the Dakar Framework for Action in 2003, Cambodia adopted the national plan for Education for All (EFA) as a guiding pathway to realise the government’s commitments […]

This paper investigates the correlation between international experience in China and the self-perceived employability of Cambodian students using an explanatory mixed-methods approach. The findings suggest a positive correlation between international experience and students’ self-perceived employability, with technical knowledge and skills acquisition, employability skills enhancement, and personal traits and attitude improvement reported as the determinants of employability. Integrated results revealed substantial evidence confirming that international experience has given students credits to their employability. Notwithstanding, employability is determined not solely by the […]

This study aims to investigate the characteristics of students who switch versus those who do not switch when they transition from upper secondary to higher education. The data from 1338 students randomly selected from 21 HEIs in Cambodia in 2020 found that upper secondary school students are more likely than not to switch academic majors when they enter higher education. The tendency to switch is more common for female students in science-track, most of whom chose non-STEM majors such as […]

Background Cambodia envisages to become an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050. The country also aspires to develop into a knowledge-based society (MoEYS 2014). To support these goals, it is crucial to consider the role of higher education institutions (HEIs), particularly universities, in training, research and service. However, research has shown that Cambodian higher education is faced with many challenges ranging from skills mismatches to fragmented governance to limited research capacity and stakeholder involvement (Heng and […]

The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was announced as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. Its presence has created significant disturbances across society and particularly within education. On 16 March 2020, as a preventative measure against the spread of COVID-19, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) decided to close all educational institutions. However, in an effort to continue providing education services to students, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) alongside relevant […]

The Royal Government of Cambodia acknowledges the vital role of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in developing a high-quality workforce to better respond to labor market demand and contribute to the national development agenda. In the past decade, with support from and collaboration with development partners, the Government has put effort into expanding access to and improving the quality of TVET. To improve quality, the Ministry of Labour Vocational and Training (MLVT) has developed competency-based training and assessment […]

This study explored students’ entrepreneurial intention (EI) and identified the factors influencing EI under individual, social and educational dimensions. Using a nationally representative survey conducted in 2021 with 834 university students, we found that many students had a strong EI. From the regression analysis, we can confirm that the development of personal positive attributes, namely, innovativeness, critical thinking, proactiveness and propensity for taking risks, is key to increasing the intention in the Cambodian context. The same can be said about […]

Entrepreneurship is crucial to advancing the economy of Cambodia and fostering the development of society. The Royal Government of Cambodia has recognised the importance of entrepreneurship and included the promotion and entrepreneurship education in multiple policies and strategy. Universities and higher education institutes have been more active in providing entrepreneurship education (EE) as well as services and facilities to support startups in recent years. However, to date, there is very limited research on how young people in Cambodia perceive and […]