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Decentralisation of education in Cambodia: Searching for spaces

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Vol. 35, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 205–216

Decentralisation of education in
Cambodia: searching for spaces of
participation between traditions and
modernity
Arnaldo Pellini*
University of Tampere, Finland

This paper analyses community participation in Cambodian schools, looking at the spaces for
participation and the cluster school system strategy adopted by the royal government to
decentralise education. While institutionalised spaces of participation are relatively new,
Cambodian communities have traditionally supported schools despite 25 years of political
turmoil. Today communities provide material contributions but their participation in internal
decision-making processes is still limited. While some local NGOs have shown that more active
participation is possible, the factors that limit the establishment of democratic spaces for
participation are to be found in the institutional set-up and, more importantly, in the trauma
caused by the conflict, and in Cambodian socio-cultural norms.

Introduction
Development is often a process where local cultural values and traditional norms
collide with models from another culture. The government of Cambodia is
struggling to bring prosperity to the country after the damages inflicted by two
decades of civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime. Following initiatives in other
developing countries, the Royal Government of Cambodia has started a
decentralisation reform with the election of commune councils. The councils have
introduced a major change into the traditional hierarchical structure of society: the
opportunity for increased citizen participation in local decision-making processes.
This paper analyses community participation in Cambodian schools, looking at the
spaces for participation created through the cluster school system strategy, which the
royal government adopted in the early 1990s to decentralise education. Starting
from Cornwall’s analysis (2002), that spaces for dialogue are shaped by the specific
cultural context they belong to, this paper will present the specific social and cultural

*Department of Education, University of Tampere, Finland. Email: arnaldo.pellini@uta.fi.

ISSN 0305-7925 (print)/ISSN 1469-3623 (online)/05/020205-12
# 2005 Taylor & Francis Group Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/03057920500129866
206 A. Pellini

norms as well as the institutional set-up of education decentralisation in Cambodia,

and analyse how they influence the participation of communities in schools’
activities.
The evidence presented here derives from literature, project reports and
the author’s work as civil society and local governance advisor in the GTZ
(Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) Rural Development Programme in
the province of Kampong Thom, central Cambodia. The design of the cluster
school system has included a number of committees aiming to support participa-
tion of local communities in school-related decision-making processes. While
institutionalised spaces of participation are relatively new, Cambodian communities
have traditionally supported schools, despite the civil war in the first half of the
1970s and the subsequent Khmer Rouge regime which reduced opportunities
for active community participation in schools. This paper concludes that when
spaces of participation are created through projects and programmes, they should
take traditional spaces of dialogue and local socio-cultural norms more into
consideration.

Decentralisation and the creation of space for participation

In its most basic definition, decentralisation is the transfer of power from the
centre to the local level. The guiding principle is that of subsidiarity, whereby ‘the
most effective governance of any organisation occurs when authority for decision-
making is located as close as possible to the site where the action takes place’
(McGinn & Welch, 1999, p. 94). Decentralisation is claimed to promote democracy
and the establishment of more democratic institutions based on principles of
good governance (Manor, 1999; Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation,
2001). Ironically, although it is intended to provide a foundation for greater
political representation and the participation of marginalised groups, there is no
evidence that decentralisation has been adopted in response to grassroots or civil
society pressure. In fact, decentralisation must be understood as a politically
motivated initiative stemming from central government (Litvack & Seddon, 1999;
Manor, 1999).
Political decentralisation occurs when citizens and their elected representatives are
involved in public decision-making and contribute to the creation of spaces for
participation that can enable and encourage citizens’ mobilisation (Litvack et al.,
1998). Cornwall defines these spaces for participation as the ‘sites in which different
actors, knowledge and interest interact and in which room can be for alternatives,
but from which some people and ideas can also remain excluded’ (2002, p. 51). She
distinguishes between two categories:
1. Transient spaces: these lack official recognition from the government but act to
support schools through self-help initiatives and school associations. They are
the result of pressure or initiative from the bottom to participate in the
development activities and Cornwall considers them to be traditional forms of
participation.
 Decentralisation of education in Cambodia 207

2. Institutionalised spaces: these are included in the institutional design of policies

and reforms and, in the case of decentralisation, aim to link citizens with the local
government. Cornwall considers them to be modern forms of participation.
Donors’ and governments’ generally favourable stance towards theories of
decentralisation and participation have to be balanced with the social and political
realities of the countries where they have been introduced. Bonnal (1997) argues
that attempts at greater political decentralisation have largely failed to take into
account the vital dimension of local intuitions. Today, the idea of target groups and
beneficiaries is being challenged by the idea that people must have a more active role
as doers and shapers of their own development (Hailey, 2001). To achieve what
Bray (2001) defines as the move from participation to partnership, we need to create
space for democratic participation where responsibilities are shared, and legitimate
representation is enabled. There is therefore a need to understand the socio-cultural
factors and the institutional arrangements that influence community dynamics and
collective action (Cornwall, 2002).
One form of education decentralisation that can contribute to the creating of such
spaces is school clustering. A cluster normally consists of five to six schools: at the centre
there is a core school responsible for the administration of cluster activities. The core
school is linked to satellite schools. In more remote areas, satellite school can be further
linked to annex schools. School clustering, first piloted in the 1950s in Thailand,
became a popular approach through the 1980s in Latin America and East Asia, where
limited human and financial resources and high population growth rates constrained the
improvement of educational standards. Brendenberg and Dahal (2000) call this the first
wave of school clustering. The second wave started in the 1990s and involved former
socialist countries like Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam following general support for more
localised decision-making. Clustering can be defined as a process of ‘organizing
geographically contiguous schools into a mutual support network’ (Bredenberg &
Dahal, 2000, p. 1) and can be considered a delivery mechanism for quality improvement
and community involvement in decision-making processes. As a delivery mechanism,
school clusters represent an extended arm of the provincial or district education offices
that implement deconcentrated administrative tasks. As a mechanism of participation,
clusters depend on the capacity of the school headteacher, the commitment of
communities and families, and the institutional set-up that regulates the interaction with
communities. Within the cluster there are committees and groups that can be either
transient institutions, to support a certain project, or more institutionalised bodies that
are part of its organisational fabric. These may be responsible for monitoring the
progress of individual schools, collection of additional contributions from communities
and supervision of teachers and school personnel.

Decentralisation reform and school clustering policy in Cambodia

Cambodia has experienced relative peace and political stability since 1998, but
remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, ranking 130 (out of 177) in the Human
Development Index (United Nations Development Programme, 2004). According
208 A. Pellini

to the World Bank (2002), the vast majority of the population lives in rural areas, is
engaged in subsistence farming and is becoming poorer – average income fell from
$280 in 1996 to $268 in 1999. In rural areas 56% of the population lives below the
poverty line of $0.46 per day (Bray & Bunly, 2005); 32% of the adult population is
illiterate (UNESCO, 2003).
In 2000 the Royal Government of Cambodia started institutional reforms that
look at good governance, strengthening of transparency and accountability, and
improved efficiency of service delivery. A central element of good governance is
decentralisation (Ayres, 2001). The main goals of the policy, according to Sokha
(2000), are to: promote democracy, good governance and equity of life; give
ordinary people greater opportunities to determine their future; and encourage
greater and sustainable development, especially the delivery of basic services.
The election of commune councils in 2002 marked the official start of the
decentralisation reform. This reform takes two distinctive forms: political
decentralisation, where the communes represent the new democratically elected
local government; and deconcentration, where central government functions and
services are assigned to appointed officials at provincial, district and commune level
(Ayres, 2001). The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoE) is also involved
in the decentralisation process, possibly, as Losert (2004) points out, more than
other ministries. A number of policies have been introduced since the early 1990s to
devolve more decision-making autonomy to schools, with the Cluster School
Programme starting in 1992. More recently, following preparation of the
main education sector strategy documents such as the Education Strategic Plan
2004–2008, the Education Sector Support Programme 2002–2008 and the
Education for All National Plan 2003–2015, the government has started the
Priority Action Programme. This has successfully provided budgets to individual
schools while promoting community input regarding the use of the funds.
The decentralisation of education that started with the adoption of school
clustering shows that the royal government has been aware of the need to modernise
education (Ayres, 2000). It reflects the adoption of Western democratic values as
well as attributing great importance to the participation of communities in local
decision-making processes. However, in Cambodia, this has to be contextualised
within the hierarchical structure of society and cultural norms that can support as
well as constrain the creation of spaces of participation.

Origin and development of school clusters in Cambodia

The MoE defines the cluster school system as an organisational means of
coordinating central government support, strengthening school management,
managing scarce school resources, increasing capacity of local staff and enhancing
teaching and learning (MoE, 2000). In Cambodia, school clustering was piloted in a
few provinces between 1992 and 1995 by Redd Barna (Save the Children Norway)
and UNICEF. In 1993 the MoE established a National Cluster School Committee
and in 1995 it adopted school clustering as a national policy, to be implemented
 Decentralisation of education in Cambodia 209

through the provincial education offices. Typical interventions consisted of the

creation of provincial, district and local cluster school councils, cluster libraries and
resource centres. The MoE’s implementation of the policy is described by
Bredenberg (2002) as occurring in three phases: ‘cautious optimism’ after the
piloting when the implementation of the policy was managed by the MoE and
clusters did not achieve a high degree of autonomy; a second phase lasting until 1998
of ‘rapid expansion and stalled evolution’ when donors suspended general funding
and opted for grants disbursed to individual schools; a third phase lasting until 2001
of ‘project design convergence’, characterised by alignment with the decentralisation
reform through commune councils, and the tendency to provide operational budget
directly to schools instead of clusters.
Today 95% of primary schools in Cambodia are divided into 760 clusters
nationwide, but only 43% of them receive direct support from various donors. This
figure does not include clusters that have received support in the past and have been
now phased out. As a result of the rapid implementation of the policy after 1995, the
remaining 57% of clusters struggle behind. Each cluster is organised around a local
cluster school council consisting of a senior village leader, the commune council
chief, and local school leaders. Their main tasks are to assist in the development and
implementation of all the schools’ plans in the cluster, liaise with local authorities
and communities to involve them with school functioning and coordinate with the
district education office (Losert, 2004).

Evidence of community participation in school clusters

School clustering, as noted earlier, has been the framework adopted in various
countries to improve education delivery. Bredenberg and Dahal (2000), looking at
the experiences of other South-East Asian countries and being personally involved
for several years in the implementation of school clustering in Cambodia, have listed
some pre-conditions that can help successful policy implementation: political
commitment to decentralised management of schools; a reasonable transportation
and communication network; a reasonable level of population density; a previously
existing culture of cooperation and/or mutual support; sufficient personnel in
schools; appointments based on merit and not affiliation; and availability of locally
generated resources or state support.
When introduced in Cambodia school clustering was considered a way of solving
most of the problems affecting education and has therefore been implemented
nationwide rapidly. This has led to some problem due to limiting factors such as the
low population density in rural areas, the culture of cooperation and mutual support
that has been shattered by years of war, communications which are still difficult, and
low administrative and teaching skills. In addition, as Ayers (2000) suggests, the
school system has also remained too centralised, with the effect that in Cambodia we
can observe ‘the paradox of a centralised implementation of a decentralised
development strategy to support education’ (Bredenberg & Dahal, 2000, p. 13). The
MoE and donors agree that the future of clusters in Cambodia is linked, among
210 A. Pellini

other things, to an improvement in community engagement and the definition of

their linkage with the general decentralisation reform of commune councils
(Bredenberg, 2002; Sar et al., 2002; Turner, 2002).
With regard to community engagement, the MoE (2000, p. 5) has stated that
school clusters represent:
Open and democratic forums that allow also a deeper involvement of communities as
important partners for education as teachers and school principals… Over the past years
the Royal Government of Cambodia has tried its utmost to achieve the goal of
guaranteeing to every child the access to education and quality learning. However hard
the Government has tried, it has not been able to reach this set goal. This is due to the
inadequate participation of the community.

This leads to the questions about whether community participation is really

inadequate and what the factors influence it.
Community contribution to education in Cambodia has traditionally been
substantial. This has been confirmed by an important study (Bray, 1999) showing
how households contributed in various forms 77% of the combined household and
government expenditures on primary education. Although the percentage is now
down to 56, it shows that communities’ commitment to schooling is still high (Bray,
2005). Bredenberg (2002) maintains that since the early stages of cluster school
development, communities have been successfully involved as a source of local
contributions of cash, labour and materials for construction and improvement of
school buildings. This still seems to be the case. For example, Venerable Ly Kom,
abbot of Vo Yev pagoda in Kampong Thom province, stated that for the
construction of the primary school in his pagoda, the local community was able to
contribute US$1,000 of the US$10,000 needed. He organised the collection himself
and remembers that people and families made voluntary donations of between
US$0.10 and US$1.5. Also, families without children at school provided
contributions (interview with Venerable Ly Kom, 2003). Another example is the
study in 2002 by the local NGO Kampuchea Action for Primary Education (KAPE),
in 14 clusters in the province of Kampong Cham, which concluded that material
contributions constitute the main support communities provide to clusters
(Ó Loisingh, 2001). Another respondent stated that in Kampong Thom the
situation of schools has greatly improved since the Khmer Rouge time and said that
in his opinion community involvement is limited to material contributions (interview
with Mr Ouch Sorn, 2003). The school association of the pagoda of Botum in
Kampong Thom province was established during the 1960s and since then has
organised community contributions to local primary schools. The members of the
associations are satisfied with their material support and feel that matters of
education are the responsibility of teachers and headteachers. They mentioned that
they only occasionally discuss matters related to children who drop out from school
and whose families need financial support (interview, 2003).
The MoE has developed guidelines with the objective of diversifying community
participation in school clusters and mobilising communities not only financially but
also spiritually, with slogans such as ‘schools are for the community, the community
 Decentralisation of education in Cambodia 211

are for schools’ (MoE, 2000, p.15). The MoE guidelines describe a number of
cluster committees designed to improve the participation of community members in
cluster management. However it is not clear whether they are operational.
Committees represent institutionalised spaces for participation included in the
planning and design of the cluster system. When they are operational, responsi-
bilities remain clearly separated: communities are responsible for planning and
management of material contributions, while teachers and headteachers are
responsible for educational issues. This was evident in an observation of the yearly
planning workshop of two clusters in the province of Kandal in 2003, where district
education staff and teachers discussed and agreed teaching material and methods,
while the achar (laymen) invited to represent the community dealt with the
community contributions for improvement of school buildings.
Despite this evidence, alternative and dynamic spaces for participation have been
created in recent years by pilot projects introduced by local NGOs to strengthen the
participation of communities in educational matters. The Life Skills Programme
implemented by KAPE is targeting selected clusters in Kampong Cham province with
the objective ‘to empower children to choose what they wish to learn and provide an
opportunity for the community to participate in the learning of children’ (KAPE, 2002,
p. 1). The project helps the children select a skill they want to learn from a list of skills
available in the community such as bicycle repair, vegetable growing, first aid or music
playing. The children then nominate the community members who will teach them
their preferred skills. Another example from KAPE refers to the school associations
started in 2003. These associations are formed from 15 children elected from among
the students of a school, who, under the supervision of a volunteer teacher and a
community member, will try to improve the school and make it more child-friendly
(interview with Mr Molendijk, 2003). Another local NGO, Mlup Baitong, is also
looking at ways to link schools with communities through extracurricular activities such
as school ecoclubs in the provinces of Kampong Speu and Kampong Thom. The
objective is to improve the school ecosystem and at the same time increase the
environmental awareness of community members. These ecoclubs consist of about 30
students who meet at least once a week and, facilitated by a volunteer teacher, learn
about environmental conservation and how to address environmental problems in and
around their school with activities such as tree planting, composting, waste collection
and so on (interview with Mr Keat Bun Than, 2003).
Potentially, commune councils also represent institutionalised space for participa-
tion in educational matters. However, since their first election took place in 2002, it is
still too early to say how communes can be involved in education. At the moment they
are concentrating their efforts on small rural infrastructure projects, and have not taken
initiatives in other sectors. This is also due to uncertainty at the institutional level about
different decentralisation programmes implemented by different ministries or within
the same ministry. This seems to confirm one of the risks of what Turner (2002)
defines as functional decentralisation – that having different forms of decentralisation
taking place at the same time in different sectors can cause policy coordination
problems and discrepancies. The following example from the MoE is illuminating.
212 A. Pellini

After the commune council elections, commune chiefs have been included as members
of their local cluster school council, and there is one Education for All Committee per
commune. According to Losert (2004) the two committees seem to share similar
objectives, but no cooperation is apparently planned between them.
The experiences mentioned above show that, traditionally, community support to
school has been limited to material support, while involvement in school activities
has been limited so far. Some NGOs have successfully implemented approaches that
promote more comprehensive participation, but these seem to be exceptions. This
suggests that in addition to institutional factors, there are social and cultural
elements that limit community participation to material contributions.

Defining Khmer communities and spaces of participation

The Meaning of Community in Cambodia was the title of an international conference
held in Phnom Penh in 1999. At the end of the conference, participants could not
agree on one definition of Cambodian community and gave three different
interpretations instead. The first was that community relationships were destroyed
by Pol Pot and are therefore characterised by marked individualism. The second was
that community members continue to support each other as they always did. The
third was that Khmer communities have been traditionally limited to family
members or kinship (Nee, 1999; Thion, 1999; Watts, 1999). Cambodian
communities probably include all three, and various characteristics that influence
the way participation and interaction occur both in traditional spaces of participation
and in those set up by decentralisation. The following section analyses which
elements most influence participation.

Modern history
Traditionally, Khmer communities have been based on extended family networks
that maintained close links with the pagoda as the social, cultural and religious
centre of the community (Aschmoneit et al., 1997). The mission civilisatrice of the
French colonial period until independence in 1953 did not change this, as the
reforms failed to reach rural areas (Chandler, 1991; Vickery, 1999; Ayres, 2000).
The regime of King Sihanouk from 1953 to 1970 was more successful in mobilising
community support, particularly with regard to education; the number of primary
schools between rose from 2731 in 1955 to 5857 in 1968 (Sagkum Reastr Niyum,
1994). Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge forced a massive relocation of the
population to rural areas and caused the death of 1 million (or one in seven) or
1.8 million (or one in four) people, depending on the source (Shawcross, 1993;
Vickery, 1993; Duggan, 1996; Kiernan, 1996). The regime’s political agenda was to
rebuild the nation on the basis of equity against individualism, common property
against private property, rural life against corrupted urban life, abolition of money,
self-sufficiency of agricultural production, abolition of religion and family ties, and
international isolation (Vickery, 1999; Ayres, 2000). All forms of community
 Decentralisation of education in Cambodia 213

association were abolished. The school system was eradicated and 75–80% of the
teachers and higher education students fled the country or died (Geeves, 2002).
The consequences of the Khmer Rouge regime are still evident today. Communities
have been shattered by forced population displacements and oppressive military
structures, creating a sense of passivity that has reduced active participation in
decision-making (UNICEF, 1996; Nee, 1999). A study conducted in 1990 by de
Monchy showed that one of the main effects of the years of war is the limited trust that
exists today between individuals. Lack of trust as a result of the Khmer Rouge regime
is the missing element of social cohesion that prevents a more active involvement of
individuals in spaces of participation (UNICEF, 1996).
Nevertheless, examples from Kampong Thom indicate that the traditional social
capital around pagodas was badly damaged but not destroyed during the Khmer
Rouge regime. One respondent from the pagoda association of Botum village in
Kampong Thom, for example, remembers that in 1979, when the Khmer Rouge
regime fell, ‘although people had nothing they came to the first meetings and
contributed as low as 40 Riels to rebuild the capital of the association’ (interview
with Ms Buon Norm, 2004). A study conducted in 1998 in Kampong Thom
concluded that traditional associations are sustainable: ‘because they have their own
purpose, management and funding base in the community their committee members
work primarily for merit and not for profit’ (Sasse, 1998, p. 104).

Social hierarchy and traditions

The origin of the structure of Cambodian society goes back to the sixth century,
when Indian traders established a complex social hierarchical structure (Ayres,
2000). Ovensen et al. (1996) describe traditional village social structure as
hierarchical and divided into neak mean (the ones who have), neak kuesom (people
with enough), neak kro (the ones who do not have) and neak toal (poorer than poor).
For their economic survival the poor needed the protection of the better off, based
on strong patron–client relationships. Buddhism and the pagodas have maintained
the system by legitimising the status of the king at the top of the hierarchy, and
patronage within society, and by stressing the ‘imperfection and need of guidance of
human beings’ and that ‘those on the top governed, and the one at the bottom
existed to be governed’ (Ayres, 2000, p. 11).
The notion of hierarchy is therefore structuring the whole society and ‘the social
order is felt to depend upon everybody observing this status hierarchy and keeping
his/her place in it’ (Ovensen et al., 1996, p. 34). Correct behaviour is taught first in
the family and then in schools. Within the family children are taught not to challenge
the authority of their parents and in schools they are taught to respect the teacher.
Khmer social and cultural traditions contrast therefore with Western democratic
ideas of participation. In the Cambodian context, as Bray notes (1999, p. 68), ‘in
most circumstance the personality of the individuals is more important than their
occupation.’ The result is that leadership and authority define and shape social
relations, thus discouraging individual initiatives (O’Leary & Nee, 2001).
214 A. Pellini

All these elements influence community members’ attitudes towards participa-

tion. Within communities, the individuals in charge of traditional associations
are village leaders, achar (laymen), or better-off people with some literacy skills.
Strong leadership seem to be the one element that makes the difference between
dynamic and static associations. Although leadership does not always come with
sufficient skills, villagers with leadership that enjoys their trust can mobilise
community contributions and personally benefit from attendance at training
organised by NGOs and donors, thus making their position inside the associations
even stronger.

Conclusion
The cluster school and decentralisation reforms now being implemented in
Cambodia are bringing changes to the local governance environment and creating
new spaces of participation. These changes reflect the contrast between tradition
and modern development. In Cambodian society, at all levels, power has been
traditionally in the hands of the elite. While the reforms bring with them the idea of
people’s participation in decision-making processes, social relationships are ruled by
hierarchy. While decentralisation attempts to promote democracy, Khmer culture
takes its model for the social order from the past (Ovensen et al., 1996).
Cambodian communities have shown a deep understanding of the importance of
education and, though government spending on education is increasing, they
provide substantial material contributions for the improvement of schools. Despite
the amount of support and resources provided, communities seem to be excluded
from schools’ educational decision-making processes. The school cluster design
includes committees at various levels that aim to promote community participation,
but they do not seem to work. These institutionalised spaces often overlap and
duplicate the role of transient spaces organised around pagodas or in villages. In
addition, while in Cambodia there has never been a strong feeling of being part of a
community, the trauma caused by the civil war and the Khmer Rouge regime have
strengthened individualism and reduced still further the feeling of community. The
rigid hierarchical structure of society and its limited vertical accountability means
that either people do not want to take initiatives, or the ones who enjoy leadership
status become the legitimate community representatives.
In this paper we have seen that traditional spaces of participation are often linked
to pagodas and that they can mobilise material resources and contributions. The
experiences of some local NGOs have shown that it is also possible to build more
active and democratic spaces of participation in schools. The lesson learned from
these examples is that community members provide means to support schools and
also have knowledge and skills to contribute to teaching and participating in
decision-making processes. Therefore traditional pagoda associations and other
community-based associations can play a vital role in the process of promoting
community participation and representing community interests in school clusters.
Policies to promote participation should start from the bottom, from existing active
 Decentralisation of education in Cambodia 215

community groups that are already supporting schools with material contributions,
and link them with schools or include them in the institutional design of clusters.
They should then be supported (along with the school cluster staff) in strengthening
their understanding of the principles of active participation, accountability and
transparency, as well as of educational policies. These processes will benefit
education by creating a feeling of partnership between schools and communities and
will hopefully contribute, as Rusten et al. (2004) suggest, to transforming a culture of
demand into a culture of initiative and participation in Cambodia.

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