Abstract/Summary

The emergence of global knowledge societies makes it necessary for Cambodian Post-Secondary Education and Training (PSET) system to:

• accelerate its knowledge-creation function, leading to academic excellence and intellectual prowess;
• cultivate vocational value, professional quality, and workplace learning habits in its students;
• build a robust STEM education and pipeline; and
• enable lifelong and life-wide learning space and culture.

Cambodian PSET institutions need to connect to their origin, expand their field of operation, consolidate their position, and start to engage and compete at a regional and global level.

These missions and perspectives allow Cambodian PSET to grow from within and advance further, like a tree whose roots are all-embracing, firmly-grounded and well enriched; whose trunk is strong and solid; whose branches are resilient to seasonal changes; and whose leaves and fruits are treasured by whomever this tree shelters and feeds. The missions will also develop a new generation of Cambodian well-rounded and independent individuals (students, scholars, scientists, professionals, entrepreneurs, leaders, and citizens), not only with different types of knowledge and skills (academic, professional, or technical) needed by a new kind of society but also a strong character on direction, value, and civility of their work and life.

Works driven by such grand missions and perspectives require collective thinking and sincere participation from not only Cambodian government, its ministerial secretariats, and its educating officials but also Cambodian professional and learnt communities and its cultured families. The current edited volume is part of such works. The book raises some important themes and insights to ignite further scholarly, policy, and public discussion on this fundamental, consolidated, and transformative idea of Cambodian PSET in the global knowledge societies.