Kingdom of Cambodia

Nation Region King

Royal University of Phnom Penh

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Department of Tourism

School Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Challenges and Opportunities of Tourism

Study in Cambodia’s Technical and General High Schools’ Programme: A Case
Study of the Academy of Careers and Technology

A Report of Thesis

Submitted by

SAK Sopheakneath

Supervisor

Mr. SAY Bunly

To Department of Tourism

For the Partial Fulfillment of Requirement of the Bachelor Degree of

Arts in Tourism Management

June 2022
 ABSTRACT
Tourism industry though is one of the most important sectors, there are still many
issues, for example lack of skilled workers, existing and awaiting for solutions. Because of
the aforementioned problem, MRA-TP was created. With MRA-TP, the new curriculum
of high school to include the teaching and learning of skills of certain fields/industries
including tourism was made. This research was conducted to find out many aspects, such
as the benefits, challenges, and even suggested solutions to the found problems of the new
program of studying. The study aimed to obtain a very deep understanding of opinions of
stakeholders of the school about the aforementioned aspects of the new curriculum, and
the study also has three main objectives to guide and aid the researcher to stay on track
during the whole research process. Those three objectives include: 1) to seek the reasons
as to why the new curriculum was chosen to be included, 2) to establish the presented
challenges and opportunities, and 3) to identify possible solutions to the problems.

The study employed qualitative research by using case study method. And to obtain
the significant data needed for the conduction of the research, purposive sampling
technique was applied. As for the used sampling technique, it was snowball sampling.
Moreover, the data was collected from three different groups of eleven interviewees,
including 1 member of management team and 2 senior teaching staffs who were
interviewed by using a method called ‘in-depth interview’, and 8 students by the
conduction of ‘focus group’ technique. Lastly, to analyze and closely study the
accumulated data, thematic analysis was used.

The findings of the study showed about various motives, opportunities, challenges,
and solutions to those presented hardships. Firstly, the motives of the study was
differentiated into two categories; internal and external. The internal motives were
providing skill and knowledge to the students, and creating more opportunities for students
to learn about tourism. On the other hand, the external motives included lack of tourism
professional training available, high demand of tourism professional workers, and lack of
students’ awareness. The opportunities, on the contrary, was divided into four sections; (1)
indirect opportunities (economy importance), (2) direct opportunities (students, school, and
tourism industry level), (3) perceived opportunities (economic importance, country’s

I
development, and continuation of students with tourism study), and (4) obtained
opportunities (immediate job opportunities, deeper understanding of tourism, improved
necessary skills, time- and money- efficient, sparked interest of students, and good school’s
reputation). The found challenges were also combined into three different groups. The
internal challenges were related to the triggered higher stress level of students and teachers,
student having limited English knowledge, having lack of resources, big amount of
workload, and unfamiliarity of students with the new implementation. The external
challenges concerned inadequate number of students and high dropout rate, poor public
image, and sensitivity of the tourism industry. The environmental problem were with the
pandemic (led to hardship of online classes), and having limited resources (led to not
enough travelling opportunities). And solutions were also found to be used to deal with
those found challenges.

II
 ACCEPTANCE FORM
This thesis was prepared and guided under the direction of the candidate’s
supervisor and committee Members/Examiners. It was approved and accepted by all
members of the committee, and it has been accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirement for the degree of Bachelor of Art in Tourism Management, Department of
Tourism, in the Faculty of Social and Humanities, Royal University of Phnom Penh.

Examination Committee:

1. Mr. SAY Bunly (Thesis Supervisor) ………………………………………

2. Mrs. KHUN Chanmony (Committee) ………………………………………

3. Mr. KHUN Kakada (Committee) ………………………………………

4. Mr. TOUCH Soputhy (Committee) ………………………………………

5. Mr. OUK Chanveasna (Committee) ………………………………………

III
 CERTIFICATE AUTHORSHIP/ORIGINALITY
This is a certification to certify this particular research study has not been turned in for a
degree nor handed in as a partially fulfillment of any other degree besides the one that has
been fully acknowledged in the research case’s cover page.

I also confidently declare that this study was written by me, the researchers, and the aid
and support that were provided during the process of conduction have all been rightfully
acknowledged.

Signature of Candidate

Date: / /

IV
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express my profound gratitude and give my warmest thanks to my
supervisor, Mr. SAY Bunly, who has been providing help and support to make this research
study possible. Despite his busy schedule and hectic personal life, he still tried his best to
provide the needed support which tremendously aided me to successfully and fruitfully
finish this report writing. His guidance, advices, and assistance have carried me throughout
the entire process of this study. Moreover, I would love to also thank my committee
members for spending time to read my report, giving me valuable and brilliant comments,
and making my defense to become an enjoyable and memorable moment of my life.

Secondly, my utmost sincere gratitude is to be given to the Academy of Careers

and Technology (ACT) for granting me the permission to conduct the interviews to collect
the needed data for my research as well as providing me big assistance during the whole
process of data collection.

Thirdly, I would like to give a special thanks to whole family and friends for their
continuous support, motivation, and understanding during the undertaking process of my
research and producing a written report. Their continual support, encouragement, and
belief are the factors that have sustained me up until this stage.

Fourthly, I would like to thank my own dear mother, Mrs. SEK Mala, for literally
everything. Despite the hardships and continuous struggles that she has been facing, never
once she has displayed signs or desire to give up on life nor her two children. No matter
how much life has been harsh on her, she still tries to keep on a strong image. Besides that,
though she must have been struggling with problems of her own, she still tried to encourage
and give me indefinite support and encouragement. She has always been a supportive and
trusting mother figure. With these, I have been inspired to become a strong individual and
woman; I could overcome all the struggles that I have faced during the research conducting
process, and finally reach the ending stage.

Last but not least, I would love to give my ‘thank you’ to one of my lecturers for
being the best role model, whom I can always look up to, and whose achievements just
bring me the willingness to get myself through thick and thin and continue to put effort
into achieving awesome achievements, too. Without her knowledge, her kind and

V
supportive words have provided me tremendous encouragement and courage to go through
different difficult things and situations, and become who I am today. Moreover, I am also
very thankful that she has always been trying to be an approachable and supportive
individual who is there to listen to my random concerns and to offer me the needed support.
ALWAYS. All the moments and memories were therapeutic and healing, and have been
helping and continue to keep me going on with life.

VI
 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Total gross domestic product generated by the travel and tourism industry
worldwide from 2000 to 2020............................................................................................. 3
Figure 2: Conceptual framework organization ................................................................. 16
Figure 7: Reasons of the Integration of the New Curriculum ........................................... 24
Figure 9: Opportunities of the Integration of the New Curriculum .................................. 26
Figure 11: Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum .................................... 30
Figure 13: Solution to Limited English and Technical Terms of Students ....................... 33
Figure 14: Solutions to High Stress Level of Students and Teachers ............................... 34
Figure 15: Solutions to Lack of Travelling Opportunities of Students ............................. 35
Figure 16: Solutions to Lack of Resources ....................................................................... 35
Figure 17: Solutions to Poor Public Image ....................................................................... 36

VII
 LIST OF TABLES
Table 3: Dictionary and Operationalized Key-terms ........................................................ 18
Table 4: Types, Number of Participants and Used Tools for the Interview ..................... 21
Table 5: Synonymous Abbreviation of the Participants ................................................... 21
Table 6: Timetable of the conduction of the research ....................................................... 23
Table 8: Internal Motives of the New Curriculum............................................................ 25
Table 10: Opportunities of the Tourism Industry ............................................................. 29
Table 12: Internal Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum ........................ 31

VIII
 LIST OF ABBREVIATION
ACT : Academy of Careers and Technology

ACCSTP : ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism

Professionals

AEC : ASEAN Economic Community

CATC : The Common ASEAN Tourism Curriculum

DoT : Department of Tourism

GDP : Gross Domestic Product

MoEYS : Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport

MoT : Ministry of Tourism

MRA-TP : Mutual Recognition Arrangement - Tourism Professional

RQFSRS : The Regional Qualifications Framework and Skills Recognition

System

VIII
 TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................... I

ACCEPTANCE FORM .................................................................................................... III

CERTIFICATE AUTHORSHIP/ORIGINALITY............................................................ IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................V

LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... VII

LIST OF TABLES ..........................................................................................................VIII

LIST OF ABBREVIATION ...........................................................................................VIII

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1

1.1. Background of the Study .......................................................................................... 1

1.1.1. History of Tourism Education in the World and Cambodia .............................. 1

1.1.2. ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement for Tourism Professional and the
Inclusion of Tourism Education into Technical and General High School’s
Curriculum in Cambodia ............................................................................................. 2

1.1.3. Overview of Technical and General High School in Cambodia ....................... 5

1.2. Problem Statement (s) .............................................................................................. 5

1.3. Aim and Objective (s) .............................................................................................. 7

1.4. Significance of the Research .................................................................................... 7

1.5. Limitation of the Research ....................................................................................... 8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 10

2.1. Theoretical Framework .......................................................................................... 10

2.1.1. Tourism Studies’ Place in High Schools’ Curriculum .................................... 10

2.1.2. Advantages of Integration of Tourism Studies into High School .................... 11

2.1.3. Disadvantages of the Integration .................................................................... 12

2.1.4. Tourism Stakeholders’ Perceptions on the integration ................................... 14

2.2. Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................... 15

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 2.3. Defining Concept (s) .............................................................................................. 16

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................................... 19

3.1. Research Methodology........................................................................................... 19

3.2. Approach to data collection and data collection technique .................................... 20

3.3. Data Analysis ......................................................................................................... 21

3.4. Research Ethics ...................................................................................................... 22

3.5. Timeframe .............................................................................................................. 23

CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS ........................................................................... 24

4.1. Summary of the Research’s Aim and Objective (s) ............................................... 24

4.2. Theme 1: Reasons of the Integration of the New Curriculum ............................... 24

4.2.1. Internal Motives............................................................................................... 24

4.2.2. External Motives .............................................................................................. 25

4.2. Theme 2: Opportunities of the Integration of the New Curriculum ....................... 26

4.2.1. Indirect Opportunities ..................................................................................... 26

4.2.2. Direct Opportunities ........................................................................................ 27

4.2.3. Perceived Opportunities .................................................................................. 29

4.2.4. Obtained Opportunities ................................................................................... 29

4.3. Theme 3: Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum ........................... 30

4.3.1. Internal Challenges ......................................................................................... 30

4.3.2. External Challenges ........................................................................................ 31

4.3.3. Environmental Challenges .............................................................................. 32

4.4. Theme 4: Solution to the Presented Challenges of the Integration of the New
Curriculum .................................................................................................................... 33

4.4.1. Solution to Limited English and Technical Terms of Students ........................ 33

4.4.2. Solutions to High Stress Level of Students and Teachers ................................ 33

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 4.4.3. Solutions to Lack of Travelling Opportunities of Students .............................. 34

4.4.4. Solutions to Lack of Resources ........................................................................ 35

4.4.5. Solutions to Poor Public Image ....................................................................... 36

CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION ............................................................................................ 37

5.1. Summary of the Research Questions ..................................................................... 37

5.2. Motive of the Integration........................................................................................ 37

5.3. Opportunities of the Integration ............................................................................. 38

5.4. Challenges of the Integration ................................................................................. 39

5.5. Solutions to the Found Challenges ......................................................................... 40

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ........................................ 42

6.1. Conclusion.............................................................................................................. 42

6.2. Recommendation for the Institution ....................................................................... 43

6.2.1. Creation of Workshops and the Other Tourism-related Events ...................... 43

6.2.2. Creating Better Relationship with the Government and Relevant Organizations
................................................................................................................................... 44

6.2.3. Occupation Consulting Programs ................................................................... 44

6.3. Recommendation for the Future Study .................................................................. 44

REFERENCES ................................................................................................................. 46

APPENDICES ................................................................................................................ - 1 -

Appendix 1: Interview Questions for School’s Principal............................................ - 1 -

Appendix 2: Interview Questions for Head Teachers ................................................. - 2 -

Appendix 3: Interview Questions for Students ........................................................... - 3 -

Appendix 4: Consent Form ......................................................................................... - 4 -

Appendix 5: Major and Minor Themes ....................................................................... - 7 -

Appendix 6: Letter of Introduction ............................................................................. - 9 -

XI
Appendix 7: Permission Form................................................................................... - 10 -

XII
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Necessary background information of important elements of the study is presented
in this first chapter.

1.1. Background of the Study

1.1.1. History of Tourism Education in the World and Cambodia
In the early 1930s, after the boom of drastic tourism demand for employment
started by Europe through the inclusion of tourism progress into the social science
department, developed countries in the world including Switzerland, Italy, France, Spain
and U.S.A began to recognize the importance of this industry to the economic and political
sector that many programs, including higher education programs, academic journals,
networks, vocational trainings and institutional homes were opened to assist students
whom are interested in this field to explore (Ahmad, 2019). Now, we can see that there are
numerous colleges and universities providing degree for tourism. Upon finishing 2 years
of attending college or 4 years of attending university, students who choose tourism degree
are equipped with understanding of tourism, how this industry is organized, operated and
developed, or how it affects society in local, national and global scale. Besides those
courses, there are also vocational trainings of tourism for people, whom have completed
schooling but whose skill is still deemed to be inadequate to work, to explore and to learn
more.

Same goes for the other countries, education of tourism in Cambodia has gotten
bigger. Students in Cambodia have a wide range of universities to study tourism to opt.
There are 13 universities which are readily available to offer courses to students in Phnom
Penh alone (Free Apply, n.d.). Universities and colleges throughout the nations are
welcoming students into the tourism department each year. Students who choose to major
in this field of education can either indicate to the study of hospitality or management.
Some universities and colleges focus on polishing students to be master in service
providing and hospitality (Academy of Culinary Arts in Cambodia, n.d.) while others focus
on the study of management and development of the industry (American University of
Phnom Penh, n.d); students have abundant alternates to pick from this field of study.

1
1.1.2. ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement for Tourism Professional and the
Inclusion of Tourism Education into Technical and General High School’s Curriculum
in Cambodia
It is widely recognized that tourism is one of the most significant sectors that
contribute significantly to the global gross domestic product (GDP) annually. According
to the figure 1 below, which depicts the number of overall GDP made by tourism and
travelling sector during the period of 20 years, starting from 2000 to 2020, in one-yearly
interval. However, if it is looked at by only the last 10 years, a gradual increase could
always be spotted. There was only a slight decrease in the year of 2019, when it was known
to be the starting year of the pandemic. In 2020, however, when the scale of the virus
escalated and got serious, But even if there were some occurrences of fluctuation in the
earnings from the tourism industry, the travelling sector has never failed to contribute less
than 9.5% to the global GDP from 2000 onwards. Besides the annual income, the
hospitality sector also helps in generating many jobs for citizens of all nations. In
accordance to IBISWorld, Hotel & Resort and Tourism industry, together have created
18,202,106 positions, ranked in 6th and 7th place respectively as the most powerful sectors
by employment in 2022. The jobs generated by tourism surely is fortunate to countries,
however came along with a blessing

2
 Figure 1: Total gross domestic product generated by the travel and tourism industry
worldwide from 2000 to 2020.

is the curse. An article named Tourism confidence is strong but lack of skilled staff a major
issue mentioned due to the low amount of payment, small number of full-time positions
available and the lack of occupational progression, it is not easy to find skilled personnel
to serve in the industry (Smiler, n.d., as cited in Cropp, 2018). Cropp (2018) further
mentioned that the competition to obtain workers who suits the job position was very
intensive when almost new 20,000 jobs were made available in the food and beverage
industry. Moreover, Cropp (2018) also interviewed 354 tourism operators, the result of her
report concluded that approximately 256 participants said they were confident with their
country’s tourism industry’s performance that it would keep getting more prosperous. But
what concerned them was the lack of workers. Additionally, the article, The Skills Gap in
the Hospitality Industry stated that labor is very significant to institutions of tourism, but
the employers of the relevant organizations to the travelling sector is encountering a hard
time due to the shortage of skilled workers throughout the industry. The hospitality industry
might be factor that aids in the increasing wealth of the global, yet there are not a lot of
qualified employees to work/serve across the whole industry ranging from gambling-
service providers (casinos) to cruise ship to hotels and diners (EHL Insight, n.d.).

With the aforementioned problems happening around the globe, the ASEAN
Tourism ministers of all nations in ASEAN Community came together to initiate a project
namely ‘The Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals’ in 2009 as a key
initiative of ASEAN tourism to prepare for the tourism labour mobility across ASEAN
Economic Community (AEC) when the region is fully integrated. Underlying under MRA-
TP, there are three main resources namely the ASEAN Common Competency Standards
for Tourism Professional (ACCSTP), the Common ASEAN Tourism Curriculum (CATC),
and the Regional Qualifications Framework and Skills Recognition System (RQFSRS)
(About the MRA-TP, n.d.). With MRA-TP, it allows a potential employee’s ability,
experience, and certification to be acknowledged by all ASEAN member nations and
permits the individuals to be able to work outside of their native country and in any other
ASEAN nations (Koty, 2016). With the permission of free mobility, people can move to

3
different countries to reside and work without having to worry about visa policies, and thus
the chances of positions in tourism and the other industries to be filled have increased.

However, even if the no-boundary mobility of people within ASEAN countries is

granted and a bigger pool of staffs for the tourism industry has created, it does not mean
the problem involving shortages of skilled labor entirely has gone away. Workers who
immigrate to outside of their home country are just individuals with low-level of
knowledge and thus are readily to only take on lower job positions. Therefore, the need for
human resources who have fully polished and are equipped with high level of knowledge
is still desperately required. To tackle that problem, the government of Cambodia, one of
the members of ASEAN Community, made the integration of vocational tourism skill into
‘Technical and General High School’ happen.

In 2016, Fresh News has released an article on 4th of November saying that inter-
ministry committees of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) and Ministry of
Tourism (MoT) have agreed in launching the project which aims to integrate a new subject,
ASEAN tourism training, into Technical and General high school to provide to students
tourism knowledge within the period of three years. Upon finishing, the students will obtain
a certificate which is equivalent to the regular high school’s certificate. Furthermore, it was
mentioned that besides the certificate, the learners will also be recognized as a tourism
professionals whose skill and ability is matched accordingly to ASEAN’s standard, and
thus their names will be included into the registration system of ASEAN to obtain the
opportunities to get the jobs within their own country or even in the other ASEAN countries
in accordance to the treaty of MRA. Try (2020) reported that as of the month of July, due
to the problem of Covid-19, tourism industry was negatively affected, and so was the MRA
progress. With the severe hit of the global pandemic, the focus of all individuals and
governments of every nation has been shifted to combat the disease from spreading even
more. Tourism and the other sectors were pushed back. When tourism was not cared for,
so was the MRA. The progress declined. However, it did not heavily drop to a very dark
point, for there were still quite a lot of new developments occurring. One of those was the
new launch of ASEAN Tourism Curriculum Standard for technical and general high
school; it was mentioned that in 2020 alone, 20 schools have implemented the

4
aforementioned curriculum into their educational system. Though we can see that 20
schools, which is not too small of amount, involved themselves into the newly launched
programs, however, High School (n.d.) the amount of the technical and general high school
is not yet abundant. Among the available small pool of such high school is Academy of
Careers and Technology (ACT) that was chosen to be the focus of this particular study.

1.1.3. Overview of Technical and General High School in Cambodia

Academy of Careers and Technology (ACT) is situated in the capital city of
Cambodia, Phnom Penh. In Cambodia, ACT is the first private school to provide the
combination of general education curriculum with the trainings of technical skills, which
makes students’ door to be opened to careers upon graduating. The school offers hand-on
experience, opportunities to intern, and so on (EduQuest, n.d.). ACT centers on
constructing effective skills in 21st century for its students by combining general education
subjects and technological-based technical skills along with the development of soft skills.
MoEYS accredited ACT for three different types of educational programs, starting from
grade 1 to 12. At ACT, students from grade 10 to 12 enroll into a program called General
Technical High School Program (Academy of Careers and Technology, n.d.). The tourism
study at ACT are divided into two different types include full-time vocational training (in
hotel and travelling services) and short courses to build up skills in the following positions
include front office and tourism operational skill (EduQuest, n.d.). The classes on ACT
concentrates heavily on working on different projects, role-playing and case studies; as for
the assessment criteria, they consist of 40% of theory-bases learning, another 40% of
demonstration and practices and the rest goes to the building of attitude and morality of
students (Academy of Careers and Technology, n.d.).

1.2. Problem Statement (s)

Through its ability to create a variety of careers for generations for people, tourism
has always been an important contributing factor to the nations’ economy. It is said that
tourism is the most significant source of welfare for many countries (Agaraj & Murati,
2009). However, even though the travelling sector is one of the chief sectors, if compared
to the other sectors including healthcare, energy, underground resources extraction, and
technology field, tourism has far less skilled labor to work for. The problem has always

5
been a concerning issue to the industry, however the global pandemic has made the
aforementioned problem to be even more threatening. An interviewee of Labor Shortage
and Tourism Boom Could Overwhelm Montana’s Hospitality Industry has mentioned:

“The economic rebound has been so fast that many businesses, particularly in the
hard-hit hospitality sector — including restaurants, bars, hotels and outfitters —
have been caught flat-footed and unable to fill all their job openings.”, (Zak
Anderson, 2021, as cited in O’Brien, 2021).

It was added by Patrick Barkey who is the director of the University of Montona that
compared to the period prior to the global pandemic, Montana’s tourism workers
approximately has decreased by four millions.

The tourism industry in Cambodia also faces the similar problems. Evidently,
according to an article of Phnom Penh Post in 2016, the deputy director-general, Try Chhiv,
of MoT announced that the tourism industry of Cambodia was facing the problem of human
resource shortage. Try (2016 as cited in Phnom Penh Post, 2016) said that to be able to
accommodate the expected 7 million international tourists in 2020, the industry required
roughly more than two hundred thousand new workers to serve in the industry. However a
problem was posed because Cambodia in 2016 had been struggling with the problem of
having shortage of professional workers and resources in the tourism industry. And in the
post-Covid-19 period, even though Cambodia is not facing the problem of increasing rate
of empty positions needed to be fulfilled with workers during the post-pandemic period,
the tourism industry of Cambodia was hit with the issue of increasing rate of vaporizing of
jobs existed in the industry (Khmer Times, 2020). Such issue posed problem to the
economic well-being of workers. Moreover, it also triggered problem to the future
development of the tourism industry. Sam (2021) reported that now that the problem of the
global pandemic has passed and that the foreign tourists has already been allowed to travel,
the workers in the industry of tourism were reluctant in coming back. The staffs were
reported to believe that the full recovery was still far away from happening. With the
aforementioned issue, it can be inferred that the industry is going back to face the problem
of having not adequate workers to serve the travelers.

6
 Lastly, even though this is a significant thing that should be heavily attentive of all
the relevant individuals, organizations and the authorities, it can be seen that there is no
study or research have been conducted on this particular topic in Cambodia. It is the truth
that, there are countless studies on many aspects related to the tourism industry, however
researchers seem to overlook and have never worked on finding out about the challenges
and opportunities presented by the initiative of MoEYS to include programs of tourism
study into high schools’ curriculum for students to learn and explore

1.3. Aim and Objective (s)

The aim of this research is to seek tourism general and technical high school
stakeholders’ perception of the inclusion of tourism study into general technical high
schools’ curriculum.

In order to complete the determined aim, the following objectives are developed:
1) To understand why the tourism study was integrated in the general technical high
school curriculum
2) To identify challenges and opportunities when integrating the tourism study into
the general technical high school curriculum
3) To identify the possible solutions responding to those of challenges.

1.4. Significance of the Research

This particular topic of research was worth studying because of its remarkable
significances to different key stakeholders, including tourism industry of Cambodia,
tourism students, teachers and students who are currently teaching and studying tourism at
general and technical high school. As mentioned, tourism is one of the most significant
industry in the country, however not many skilful workers are available to work and serve
the tourists. With this study, it was believed that the interest of more people’s, especially
high school students’, would be sparked, which therefore led to a bigger pool of students
enrolling into tourism department for their higher education. Tourism is a human-touch
industry thus a bigger pool of high-quality staff will be favorable factor which leads the
industry to prosperity.

Besides that, it was also believed that such study would be good to students who
were doing tourism degree, especially for those students whose interest lied with education.

7
This study would provide a helping hand to making the implementation of tourism study
into high school more known to people. Thus, such specialized schools would be created
more; more positions would need to be filled therefore more jobs would be available for
all the graduates.

Lastly, the researcher also had faith that the study titled “Schools’ Stakeholders’
Perceptions on Challenges and Opportunities of Tourism Study in Cambodia’s Technical
and General High Schools’ Programme: A Case Study of Academic of Careers and
Technology” would also be beneficial to teachers and students of tourism in high school
level. Though the implementation has been put into action for years already, there are still
problems, such as lack of needed materials for class and so on, which the teachers and
students have to face. It is important to remember that one of the study’s objectives is to
find the solution to the presented challenges. Thus, the researcher strongly believed, if not
all, most hardships presented would be found the effective solutions to. This consequently
leads to making a more comfortable and easier learning and teaching environment for
teachers and students.

1.5. Limitation of the Research

It was only in 2016 that the initiation of including tourism study into the curriculum
of high school has been kicked off, the implementation is still considered to be a young
project. On top of that, in Cambodia, there are not many people who actually are aware of
this new inclusion just yet. Therefore there are not many researchers who have conducted
any study on this topic. In a bigger scale, too, not so many researchers are interested in this
topic of study. Consequently, there were really only a few literatures for the researcher to
use to discuss with.

In addition to that, it was also quite unfortunate that the number of the potential
interviewees was so too small. The researcher had planned to conduct the interview with
12 different students from three different classes of tourism and three teachers. However,
the researcher was informed by the institute that there are only two classes of tourism
currently. Therefore the number of interviewees was reduced.

Even though the number of the interviewees was deducted, the researcher still
strongly believed the accumulated data and produced results were reliable because the

8
every information was obtained from participants who have more than adequate experience
with the inclusion hence the answer was qualified to be used to establish trustable findings.

9
 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, some relevant information to the conducted research that was found
and published in the previous work of authors is presented.

2.1. Theoretical Framework

The inclusion of tourism studies into the educational system of high schools have
happened more than a decade ago, however the conduction to understand aspects of such
integration is very limited. Though there are not much to be found, below are some
reviewed literatures to provide insightful knowledge of tourism as a subject in high
school’s educational system about what is the position of such subject, what could be the
opportunities or challenges triggered by the integration as well as teachers’ and students’
perceptions about the inclusion.

2.1.1. Tourism Studies’ Place in High Schools’ Curriculum

The paper, Tourism’s place in school curriculum: A case study from Tonga tried to
seek and identify whether or not secondary schools of Tonga are accessible to the option
of tourism studies. To successfully carry out the research, the researchers met with tourism
stakeholders, Ministry of Education and AIS’s sister school of Tonga to consult about the
possibility of the introduction of tourism into secondary school. Furthermore, focus group
was also conducted with the secondary school educators. The aforementioned findings
were very agreeable especially if it were to say that the inclusion of the study of tourism
into the curriculum high school would help in triggering and motivating the students to
study as well as sparking their interest in the travelling industry. But the conclusion would
have been even more convincing if the authors had also used the method of focus group on
the students to find out about their feelings and perceptions of such inclusion as well as
whether or not their studying performance would improve if such integration were to be
done (Addison & Taumoepeau, 2016). Jaber and Marzuki (2019) stated one of the key
strategies which has been considered by the governors of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
was to make betterments about the awareness towards tourism and its educational system
to the younger generations and students. To unfold and find out the important tourism
education dimensions of social studies’ experts in intermediate and secondary schools in
the KSA in order to come up with a process of curricula and make developments to the

10
awareness of students about tourism, Jaber and Marzuki (2019) conducted a research
named Improving awareness of tourism education among students’ in intermediate and
secondary schools in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Experts’ social studies curricula point
of view. The study was conducted using qualitative approach, for the authors believed that
such approach helps in supplying better objectives, reliable data, validity and
representation of reality (Outhwaite & Turner, 2017, as cited in Jaber & Marzuki, 2019).
In addition to that, the authors also wanted to make revelation of differences of number
therefore qualitative approach was applied (Hunter & Brewer, 2002, as cited in Jaber &
Marzuki, 2019). To obtain the needed primary data, the researchers conducted the
interview with six different social studies experts. The findings of the two authors
concluded with highlighting that from the experts of social studies’ point of view, there
was still a lack of tourism education dimension of social studies in the current curriculum.
In addition to that, the communication between curricula developers working for the
Ministry of Education and the teachers who directly teach the students was still deemed to
be weak. Hence, this places the development and implementation of such initiative for the
students to learn to be slow. The findings of Jaber and Marzuki were believed to be very
helpful in the process of making betterments and improving the current curriculum of
tourism in the intermediate and secondary schools, however in their conclusion, no attempt
in seeking the lacking dimensions of tourism education in social studies in accordance to
the experts of social studies’ point of view could be seen even though it was stated as one
of the main goals of conducting the research study in the first place.

2.1.2. Advantages of Integration of Tourism Studies into High School

Many changes including curriculum framework were changed in the year of 1994,
when South Africa changed to a democratic country. Later in 1996, the Department of
Education, short for DoE, which has its name changed to Department of Basic Education,
made the introduction of tourism as a new studying subject as a part of its formal schooling.
Then in 2014, Dube has conducted a research paper to study what are the responses to the
new integration. The paper focused heavily on the case of secondary school, and its
findings stated that most participants’ view it was worthy to include tourism as a subject in
the curriculum because it helped students to be able to explore more about the opportunities
for job in the field compared to in the past. Additionally, Say (2018) conducted a research

11
named Implementation of the Common ASEAN Tourism Curriculum (CATC) and its Effects
on Cambodia Hospitality Training Programmes. To successfully carry out the conduction,
Say used qualitative research method. The researcher interviewed six interviewees using
the in-depth interview method, and employed observation and documentary analysis to
accumulate the primary data. After the data collection, thematic analysis was used to study
the collected information. Through his conduction, the researcher found out that through
the implementation of CATC into the national level, the educational system of vocational
education and training (VET) is enhanced, the education and career of hospitality staffs
can also be advanced, and the tourism sector is also improved. Lastly, Addison and
Taumoepeau (2016), too, stated in their own research study strongly that the students’
interest in the travelling industry could be potentially sparked if it were possible to include
tourism studies into the curriculum in the secondary schools. Students’ interest in tourism
is very important especially for Pacific island where tourism is heavily depended on.
Moreover, it was also argued that tourism study would be one motivating factor to motivate
the inactive students; there is a potential that such study will help in improving the
confident of students while providing appropriate entry level qualification of students to
the hospitality industry. In their pioneering study of Tourism education in New Zealand’s
secondary schools: The teachers’ perspective, Roberts et al. (2018) also suggested to stay
in the competitive state with the other countries, New Zealand had to work on the problems
of not having enough labor to work in the industry. To do so, New Zealand could expose
its students to explore about the industry ever since they were in secondary-school level.
An implication could be drawn from the three research cases mentioned, the authors all
agreed that the integration of tourism into the curriculum of secondary school would give
out positive effects. However, those benefits were only mentioned in the studies as a part
of the research, there is no proper conclusions made for such statements. The
arguments/findings would have been much stronger if they had been backed up by a
research case on its own.

2.1.3. Disadvantages of the Integration

In 2011, tourism as a subject was presented in Lesotho to make increment of
offering options of vocational subjects of high schools because there is no official reports
announced about the progress and performance of such implementation, Nhlapo et. al.

12
(2019) conducted a research to establish the barricading factors which were faced by
tourism teachers. In their impressive investigation into Challenges facing implementation
of an integrated tourism curriculum: The experiences of teachers in Lesotho, Nhlapo et.
al. (2019) has come to a conclusion that the teachers teaching tourism struggle a number
of challenges, including reception and status of tourism (tourism subject is perceived as an
easy subject), tourism content knowledge (the teachers are not comfortable in teaching
subjects which involve calculation), availability of resources and facilities, problems in
carrying out tourism practical works, which need to be tackled to make the curriculum of
tourism study be able to fulfill the expected goals of easing the problems of poverty and
unemployment of people while encouraging self- employment and reliance. In the
conducted study, Nhlapo and the other researchers semi-interviewed three tourism teachers
and two education officials of high schools where tourism study has been included. To
select the participants, the authors used purposive sampling to choose the interviewees
whom were deemed to have rich knowledge and information about the subject. Tourism
undoubtedly has contributed significantly to economic growth of countries in the world.
Same goes for New Zealand, tourism has been growing nonstop. The industry has been a
fundamental income earner, and it also has become the number one export earner of the
country (Tourism Industry Aotearoa, 2015 as cited in Roberts et al, 2018). However, New
Zealand faces a problem of shortage of the workforce in the industry. Exposing tourism
study to the secondary students was thought to help. It possibly helps with solving the
mentioned problem; however, the authors of Tourism Education in New Zealand’s
Secondary School: The Teachers’ Perspective argued that the authorities should first focus
on finding the problems which associates with delivering tourism studies to secondary level
before actually implementing the study into the curriculum, for the findings of research
said students who were exposed to tourism study in secondary school were less
academically capable compared to those whom only take the customary subjects. Roberts,
et. al. (2018) conducted their research using interpretivist case study approach to seek
understanding experiences of tourism teachers in secondary schools. The primary data was
obtained through the conducted interviews with teachers whom were able to offer
insightful data into struggles faced by educators of tourism. The research case worked in
providing points for the implementers to make improvements, however it was believed that

13
this particular study would have been able to produce a more accurate findings if the
authors had not used case study approach which tried to make major generalization, for
that it is hard to say the finding was valid and verifiable in the other contexts.

2.1.4. Tourism Stakeholders’ Perceptions on the integration

Papua New Guinea’s governors began to acknowledge the tourism industry as a
significant contribution to the economy. The evidence of such statement was the new
allocation of the country’s budget. While some departments’ fund were cut, more money
was used to support the tourism activities. This led to having many organizations both
governmental and non-governmental providing trainings to develop skills needed in the
industry. Even though there are many training sessions provided, not every individual has
the access to such trainings. Especially for secondary school leavers. This actually poses a
problem, for tourism industry is deemed to be the main sector to aid in providing the jobs
to 85% of students who face the problem of unemployment. Having many unqualified
people to serve in the industry can create problems in the industry including bad service to
customers, not being able to fulfill the customers’ demand because of the lack of
understanding, knowledge and skill, barriers in communication and bad hygiene. Thus, to
minimize the brought-up problems, the government brings up the inclusion of tourism and
hospitality study into secondary school as a subject, and the research case named ‘Attitudes
towards the Inclusion of Tourism and Hospitality as a Subject in the Secondary School
Curriculum in PNG’ was conducted to seek opinions of the students. The findings of the
study illustrated that approximately of ¼ of the respondent said such inclusion would
impart their knowledge and skills relevant to tourism industry in so many forms.
Furthermore, 15% of the participant indicated that regardless of becoming self-employed
or working for an organization, the tourism study would definitely expend their chances of
getting a job. Another 30% agreed that the subject would be very beneficial to communities
and students. Overall, majority of the participant possessed a positive attitude and
supported the implementation of tourism as a subject (Imbal, 2005). Despite the impressive
work which resulted in effective findings to the industry at the time, such findings are
inaccurate to apply in the new world’s context where a lot of things have changed. Thus,
there is a need to produce a new research on the topic (Imbal, 2005). Consequently, Sumb
(2020) perceived the education of tourism was significant to the government, the operators

14
of the industry and teachers who know the important contributions made by tourism to the
country, economy and resources (Ashley et al. 2007; Imbal, 2005, as cited in Sumb, 2020).
There have been many papers conducted at Papua New Guinea about different aspects of
tourism education, then in 2020, Sumb saw the need to conduct another research on the
field of education and focused on the Interest and motivations towards tourism studies:
Case of Tusab secondary school, Madang, PNG. The study applied quantitative research
approach and employed convenience sampling to collect data. To collect the needed data,
Sumb conducted survey questionnaire and to make analysis of the obtained data, he used
Excel spreadsheet and Statistical Package for Social Sciences software. In this
comprehensive analysis, Sumb (2020) argued that because of the potential positive effect
of tourism, most of the participants displayed tremendous interest and motivation to
educational tourism in secondary school. Though the deliberate effort of the author to
conduct the study had showed, there was still a flaw in this particular study. The main
weakness with this research case had been that the author used convenience sampling
technique where the chosen participants had been the ones that were easy to reach out to.
The chosen participants should have been the students or teachers whom have abundant
knowledge and have experienced actual classes of tourism studies to provide an accurate
and reliable resources (Sumb, 2020). The studies to find out about the perceptions and
attitudes of tourism stakeholders’ to the integration of tourism as a subject to secondary
school is very limited though such study can produce a very reliable result which can lead
to new ideas in making betterments to the currently existed curriculum of tourism study in
high schools. Moreover the conducted studies on the topic, so far, have only centered on
the students and teachers. It is true that those two actors are the most important, however
it is believed that the other stakeholders’, including relevant ministries, undergraduate
students of tourism and relevant organizations, thoughts also matter.

2.2. Conceptual Framework

In figure 2 below, it shows the organization of the conceptual framework of the
research. The attached figure begins by displaying that the new integration triggers the
tourism study to be included into the curriculum of the general and technical high school.
Because of the new implementation, different opportunities and drawbacks were emerged.
Through the literature reviews, it was found that the new adoption creates new

15
opportunities, including making wider access for the high school students to learn about
tourism industry thus the interest of the students of the tourism industry is sparked.
Consequently, more skilled workers for the industry are available. Besides those positive
things, the new inclusion also causes drawbacks. Those drawbacks consists of students
having poor perception towards the studying of tourism, teachers possessing limited
knowledge, the availability of resources, and the carrying out of practical sessions. After
learning about the drawbacks, solutions must be drawn to be used to tackle and deal with
the found challenges.

Source: (Addison and Taumoepeau, 2016; Roberts et al., 2018; Nhlapo et. al., 2019)

Figure 2: Conceptual framework organization

2.3. Defining Concept (s)

To better understand this particular research study, the figure below gave detailed
information about dictionary and scoped definition of important key-terms of the study.

Previous Research Cases’ Defnition and Operationalized Definitions of Several

Important Terms
TERM PREVIOUS STUDIES’ OPERATIONALIZED
DEFINITIONS DEFINTION

16
 Stakeholders Refers to all the individuals or The relevant individuals,
groups which have the potential including students, teachers and
to negatively and positively head teacher of ACT Academy of
impact a project, initiative, Careers and Technology.
policy, or an organization. They
can be both internal and external
(Hendricks, A., 2019).
Challenges The situation in which being The presented struggles after the
faced with things that require a inclusion; they include poor
more advanced mentality, perception of students towards
physicality, and finicality to be the subject, the limited
overcome (Afolabi, 2017) knowledge of teachers, the lack of
available resources and facilities,
and problems in conducting
practical practices.
Opportunities referred to the chances that seeks The sparked interest of students
to enable persons to obtain towards tourism sector, and the
education and skills, and certain elimination of problems of having
capacities (Liam, et. al, 2017). inadequate skillful workers.
General Defined as schools whose A private high school, Academy
Technical High curriculum is designed to offer of Careers and Technology, that
School students traditional schools offers tourism courses to high
subjects as well as courses which school students.
aim to equip students with skills
of a certain field. Therefore upon
their graduation, students can go
head and work in the field that
they have acquired a certificate
for.
Tourism Study Is referred to as the study in The courses that are relevant to
which the physical, economic, tourism industry. The courses that

17
socio-cultural features of the aim to help students to gain a
travelling sector, tourism’s better understanding of things in
market and destinations as its the travelling industry.
main focus (Mittuniversitetet,
n.d.).
Table 3: Dictionary and Operationalized Key-terms

18
 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
The used tools and methods used to obtain and accumulate the needed data for the
research is discussed in the methodology chapter.

3.1. Research Methodology

The research study employed qualitative methodology. Bhandari (2022) has
defined qualitative methodology as the method which involves accumulating and making
analysis on collected non-numerical data to produce understanding of concepts, thoughts,
and experiences. Such study can also be employed in order to look into an issue by
gathering insightful information or to produce new ideas for a research (Bhandari, 2022).
Qualitative method has its own strengths and weaknesses. There are three main strengths
of this approach. First, it helps researchers to get insightful data out of participants. Besides
surface answer to the pre-determined questions, researchers can always ask following-up
questions to get richer information with qualitative research method. Second, findings of
qualitative approach might possibly lead to new theories to be created. Finally, it provides
a more complete picture and answer can be produced when the qualitative combined with
quantitative method. The weaknesses, on the other hand, include the researcher must be
robust and very thorough when analyzing the collected data, the method is time- and labor-
consuming, and it can also be inadequate to make population-level summary (Crinson &
Leontowitsch, 2006; as cited in Morgan, 2016). This particular study focused on finding
out about stakeholders’ perceptions about the inclusion of tourism study. In order to
produce accurate findings to the research questions, detailed answer from participants was
needed. As mentioned above, qualitative method helps researcher to get very insightful
information from interviewees. Moreover, this study was only conducted at ACT Academy
of Careers and Technology. The result of this study aimed to be generalized and applied to
the other general and technical high school in Cambodia. Therefore, the study titled
Schools’ Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Challenges and Opportunities of Tourism Study in
Cambodia’s Technical and General High Schools’ Programme: A Case Study of Academy
of Careers and Technology employed qualitative study into this research study. Moreover,
case study design, which has been given the definition as a research approach which can
be used to produce very deep understanding of complicated problems in real-life context,
was used (Crowe et. al., 2011). The researcher believed that after employing case study

19
approach into this particular study, the final result would be able to provide accurate and
detailed findings to the research questions. This research study was trying to understand
about a real-life opportunities and problems that have been arisen by the inclusion of
tourism study into the curriculum of high schools. To produce accurate findings, the
researcher had to look deeply into the issue; the employment of case study approach would
offer the researcher the needed approach.

3.2. Approach to data collection and data collection technique

As for the approach of the study’s sample, the researcher applied the purposive
sampling technique into use. Purposive sampling technique, which is also well-known for
judgmental, selective, or subjective sampling, is non-probability sampling that requires the
researchers to depend on self-judgment to choose participants out of the available
population (Alchemer, 2021). This approach was employed because to be able to provide
the needed answer to the interview questions, the interviewees need to have adequate
knowledge and experience about the implementation. Therefore, the participants must
follow required certain characteristics. The sampling technique, on the other hand, was
snowball sampling technique, which processes by getting recommendation of the next
potential participants from the first chosen participant until the determined number of
interviewees is met (QuestionPro, n.d.). Such method was used because the author had
believed that the participants of this particular topic were the individuals whom are hard to
reach out to and find thus the aforementioned technique would potentially help in finding
enough participants to fulfill the desired number of interviewees.

Additionally, to conduct the interview with the chosen interviewees, two methods
were used. A technique called in-depth interview was employed to interview with the one
of the member of school’s management team of the ACT Academy of Careers and
Technology and also two head teachers of two different classes. All the three participants
were asked questions to get detailed information to answer to the research questions.
Following-up questions were also asked if the answer to the questions had not been fully
provided or was still considered inadequate. Additionally, a method called focus group was
used to interview the selected groups of students. The researcher chose 8 students, 4 from
one class, to be the interviewees. Therefore, to make the process of interview went

20
smoothly, method named “focus group” would be employed to assist the interview of 2
groups of 4 students about their thoughts on advantages and disadvantages of tourism
study’s implementation.

Types of Participant Number of Participant Used Tool

Member of Management 1 In-depth Interview
Team
Senior Teaching Staff 2 In-depth Interview
Student 8 Focus Group
Table 4: Types, Number of Participants and Used Tools for the Interview

To ensure the anonymity of the identity of the participants, participants will be

addressed synonymously as stated in the list below throughout the research study.

Participant Synonymous
Abbreviation
Member of Management Team SP
Senior Teaching Staff #1 HT 1
Senior Teaching Staff #2 HT 2
Student #1 S1
Student #2 S2
Student #3 S3
Student #4 S4
Student #5 S5
Student #6 S6
Student #7 S7
Student #8 S8
Table 5: Synonymous Abbreviation of the Participants

3.3. Data Analysis

Crosley (2021) defined thematic analysis as the technique which studies patterns of
something, meaning the method is about making analysis of accumulated data to create
identification of the data based solely on the pre-determined research questions. It is said

21
that thematic analysis is very beneficial when the scale of the conduction of research is
large, for the technique allows researchers to make division and category of massive
amount of data to make it easier to digest. It is very helpful when the research focuses on
finding experiences, views, and opinions of participants. To apply thematic analysis into a
research, five different steps must be conducted. First of all, getting familiar with the
collected data. To get familiar, the researcher has to read and understand the data. In the
case that the researcher works with audio then transcription is required. After reading and
grasping the data, the researcher has to make different coding out of the available data.
Second of all, researcher has to search for patterns or themes. After many codes have been
created, those code must be categorized into groups accordingly to their nature. With this,
the researcher will have a better understanding of the data. Third of all, revision of the
created themes before finalizing. After subthemes or themes have made, they also needed
to be checked and reviewed thoroughly to ensure that those themes actually answer to the
research questions. Or to make sure that the made themes are not too broad nor narrow.
Fourth of all, the second of last step involves finalization. This steps involves labelling and
finalizing. Though this step named as finalization, it does not mean that the researcher
cannot go back to the previous step and make changes. Fifth of all, production of report is
the last step. The written report informs the readers about the findings of the analysis
(Crosley, 2021).

3.4. Research Ethics

The researcher of this study has abided and conformed to the policies and
procedures in the manner of honesty and integrity when conducting the research. In
submitting the study, the researcher stood by the ethical behaviors, including informed
consent, confidentiality, integrity, and result communication. During the data collection
process, the researcher also sought consent and agreement from the participants before
interview was conducted. After the completion of the interview, identities of the
interviewees were ensured to be strictly kept anonymously and confidentially to any third
party. Additionally, the collected background information or data had all been properly
cited and given credit to their original authors accordingly as stated in reference list and
appendix section.

22
3.5. Timeframe
The study took around 6 months to get done. The researcher began finding the area
of interest before launching the research journey in the first week of January. Afterwards,
a total of one month was dedicated to finding research problem, aim and objectives of the
whole study, research tools and working on the literature review, which out of the four
parts was extended solely to be done within three months. During the process of
undertaking the literature review chapter, on the first week of March, rationale and
significances of the study were thought of. After finding all the tools that need to be used
for the conduction of the research, those tools were also revised thoroughly for two months.
The data collection was started from second week of April to first week of May. The
following week was utilized to work on data entry and analysis in prior to report producing
from third week of May to first week of June. And the final submission was determined to
be on the second week of June.

Timeframe
Period
Jan Feb Mar April May June
№ Activity w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

1 Finding area of interest

2 Research problem (s)

3 Aim and Objective (s)

4 Rationale and
significance
5 Literature review

6 Research tool (s)

7 Research tool (s)

revision
8 Data Collection

9 Data entry

1 Data analysis
0
1 Report writing
1
1 Final submission
2

Table 6: Timetable of the conduction of the research

23
 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH FINDINGS
In the fourth chapter, the analysis of the accumulated data and findings of the
research are presented.

4.1. Summary of the Research’s Aim and Objective (s)

It is important to recall the aim and objectives of the conducted research. The
researcher conducted this study to learn about the perception of general and technical high
schools’ stakeholders on the challenges and opportunities of the integration of tourism into
the curriculum of high school. There were three different objectives: 1) to seek the motives
of the inclusion of the study of tourism into high school level 2) to recognize the issues and
benefits of the inclusion and 3) to find the solutions to the found challenges.

4.2. Theme 1: Reasons of the Integration of the New Curriculum

Figure 7: Reasons of the Integration of the New Curriculum

4.2.1. Internal Motives

When asked about the goals of the implementation, the senior teaching staffs
mentioned about two different internal motivations. HT1 and HT2 agreed that the adoption
had been done to create and offer a wider access to learn about tourism industry to students,

24
whose interest lie with tourism, in high schools. It was also aimed to provide qualified
knowledge and education about the industry to those students.

Category Code Count Cases Quotations

Providing skill and 3 2 …“to provide accurate tourism knowledge
knowledge and skill to students”… [HT1]

…“My goal as a teacher teaching tourism to

high school student is to expend, strengthen,
Motives of the and motivate students and public to start
Integration getting a certain skill from high school level
so that one student will have one specific skill
(one student one skill).”… [HT2]
More Opportunities 1 1 …“to offer to the students the opportunity to
to Learn about study about diversity of tourism industry
Tourism Industry nationally and internationally”… [HT1]
Table 8: Internal Motives of the New Curriculum

4.2.2. External Motives

One of the external motivations of the inclusion is having not enough schools to
offer students the professional tourism trainings. This motivation actually leads to another
motive of the inclusion which is about the high demand of tourism professional workers in
Cambodia. Mentioned by one of the members of the school’s management team was about
the tourism sector being one important sector which helps boast Cambodia’s economy,
however within the industry, there are not adequate workers to fulfill the empty positions.

… “there are also not many schools which provide high quality technical trainer”…
[SP]

…“There is a huge demand for professional tourism talent/skill labor in

Cambodia.”… [SP]

Additionally the issue with the understanding of students in Cambodia about tourism
industry was the last external reason. Many groups of individuals, not just students,
perceive tourism poorly; they view tourism as the industry which requires its staff members
to work as service providers, which is not valuable, to people. Therefore, the

25
implementation was made to expose more people to the industry with the hope to make a
shift in their thinking.

…“there are not that many students who are aware of tourism skill and division of
labor”… [SP]

4.2. Theme 2: Opportunities of the Integration of the New Curriculum

Figure 9: Opportunities of the Integration of the New Curriculum

4.2.1. Indirect Opportunities

4.2.1.1. Economy of the Country
It was brought up that tourism industry is one significant source of income therefore
students of Cambodia should be providing the access to learn about tourism as soon as
possible because tourism industry is a human-touch industry which requires human
workers to provide services and products, and to operate so that the sector can be sustained
and even developed (SP).

…“ And since tourism sector is one that greatly provides income to Cambodia
people, and it is also the source of GDP, students need to have access to learn topics
about tourism in high school or even younger.”… [SP]

26
Additionally, it was believed that the subjects of tourism study can also contribute to the
entrepreneurship of students. Moreover, rural area is also trusted to be developed because
of the integration. When a destination becomes a tourism destination, development tends
to follow.

…“Also some tourism-related topics can be related to entrepreneurships and

development of rural areas.”… [SP]

4.2.2. Direct Opportunities

4.2.2.1. The Students
With the new curriculum, learners are offered with the chances to better and deeper
learn about tourism. They understand and know more of the industry (S2, S3, S4, S6, S7).

…“ I think the advantages of studying tourism in high school level has helped me
to understand about tourism industry better; I know and have a clearer picture of
the accommodation industry.”… [S2]

…“ I get to know much more information and general knowledge compared to

studying at normal high school.”… [S4]

Not to mention, the new curriculum also gives students chances to experience different
opportunities, including internship and some other practical sessions. With these, different
soft and hard skills can be learnt (S3, S4, S6, S8). Next, high school students who have
chosen to involve with the new curriculum are promised with immediate job opportunities
upon their graduation. Traditionally, students were required to experience university for
extra four years to have enough skills to start working. However, with the new way of
studying, students can go straight to work (S4, S5, S6, S8). This is less time- and money-
consuming to students. Moreover, less time is also needed to create a personnel whose
skills can be used to serve in the tourism industry (S4, S5, S6, S8).

…“Moreover, studying about a certain field in high school is also time-saving for
older students who haven’t been able to finish high school”… [S6]

…“ I think it is great because I believe after my graduation from this school, I can
immediately find a job. This helps save me both time and money.”… [S4]

27
4.2.2.2. The School
…“ Lastly, more engagement from our human resources from high school level has
increased.”… [HT2]

…“ Each and every one of the student has successfully passed, and either
successfully landed on a job or continued to pursue their higher degree in
university”… [SP]

Apart from yielding benefits for the students, the school can also acquire better
reputation. It was mentioned by the member of management team that the result of the last
two academic years was very great; all students successfully graduated and moved on to
land on different jobs. This creates a better name for the school. It is also advantageous to
the schools which have opted to adopt the tourism curriculum into their studying and
teaching program. When tourism field produces more human resources, more skilled
personnel is available to also work in the school.

4.2.2.3. Tourism Industry

…“ Each and every one of the student has successfully passed, and either
successfully landed on a job or continued to pursue their higher degree in
university.”… [SP]

With the new inclusion, tourism industry has gained larger pool of qualified
resource to serve within the industry (SP). When students are made known about the
tourism industry, the number of people who get interested in the industry increases. Also
when asked about the benefits of the adoption, as mentioned, students mentioned about the
immediate job opportunities, meaning that skilled workers are made in faster rate to work
in the tourism sector.

Moreover the students also confirmed that after being exposed to the tourism study,
they become more interested in the industry as they get to know more about it (S1, S2, S4,
S5, S6, S7, S8). Atop this, the desire of continuing the study in the higher education was
also sparked (S1, S2, S4, S6, S7, S8).

Category Code Count Cases Quotations

28
 Opportunities Sparked interest in 6 6 …“ I will continue my tourism study after my
for the tourism tourism industry graduation.”… [S1]
industry
…“But I think tourism is an interesting
subject.”… [S5]

Continuation of 8 7 …“ I will definitely continue to study about

students in tourism tourism in my higher education level.”… [S8]
study
…“Yes, I’ll study hospitality management
skill when I go to higher level of
education.”… [S6]

Table 10: Opportunities of the Tourism Industry

4.2.3. Perceived Opportunities

Though some opportunities are deemed to be triggered positively by the new
curriculum, they haven’t happened yet, meaning that those benefits haven’t been obtained
by any stakeholders. The benefits that are believed to be able to be obtained include: (1)
the new inclusion will trigger the development of the country therefore is important to the
country’s economy, (2) such curriculum also helps to create bigger number of staffs
available to serve in the tourism industry, and (3) students will continue to study tourism
in their higher education.

4.2.4. Obtained Opportunities

Some positive things could be seen to have been able to be gotten already. Students
are thought to have adequate skill and understanding to acquire the job opportunities
immediately after their graduation. It was mentioned:

…“ Each and every one of the student has successfully passed, and either
successfully landed on a job or continued to pursue their higher degree in
university.”… [SP]

Moreover, the new method of studying causes students to be more interested in tourism
industry; it also aids students to have deeper understanding of tourism as well as improve
their soft- and hard- skills necessary for their future jobs in the industry. And as mentioned,
students are not obligatory to attend university for another four years before working hence

29
their time and money are saved. Lastly, the new curriculum also helps in building good
reputation of the school.

4.3. Theme 3: Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum

Figure 11: Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum

4.3.1. Internal Challenges

Category Code Count Cases Quotations
Challenges Amount of workload 1 1 …“ I think there are too many lessons,
information, and exercises that I, as a student,
have to complete”… [S2]

More stress for 4 3 …“as a teacher, the aforementioned problem

students and teachers requires me to get assistance a lot from
dictionary which increases the amount of
work for me and the other teachers”… [HT1]

…“ studying tourism in high school level is

hard because there are so many things that I
need to do research on”… [S7]

Limited English and 14 8 …“Emm…the English skill, general and

understanding of foundation knowledge of students is very
technical terms concerning low.”… [HT2]

30
 …“another difficulty is with the English.
Courses here are conducted in English.
Therefore, students who are not expert in
English, like me, find studying a bit
struggling.”… [S5]

Lack of resources 5 5 …“There are issues with the lack of teachers

who are skilled and have adequate
experience”… [HT2]
…“Finances, lacking of students/high student
drop out and very difficult to find trainers.”…
[SP]

Unfamiliarity of 1 1 … “Students cannot quite adapt well to the

students with new lessons as the expectation of the curriculum
curriculum and school.”… [HT1]
Table 12: Internal Challenges of the Integration of the New Curriculum

Followed by the benefits are the drawbacks of the inclusion. The implementation
requires its students to have a greater amount of work. In traditional high school context,
students are only asked to work on certain and limited amount of extra works besides
classes. However, the new curriculum needs students to work on different assignments and
even to experience internships with the external organizations. Moreover, the new method
of studying is still new. With these, students have greater stress with their studying process.
Moreover, it was also found that student’s English skill is very limited. But the new
designed courses of study are conducted in English, and there are also many technical terms
for students to understand, which just complicates thing even more. Additionally, problem
with having not enough resources, such as trainers, finance, and facilities was brought up.
Lack of those resources pose slow development to the adoption.

4.3.2. External Challenges

The new implementation is also faced with some external challenges, including
poor public image which leads to inadequate resources, low enrollment, and high dropout
rate of students. As mentioned Cambodian people do not view tourism industry in a
positive light as one of the valuable and respectable industry. Not to mention, tourism is
very unstable industry. The sector can be easily influenced and affected by external causes.

31
Evidently, with covid-19, people couldn’t travel therefore the traveling industry was halted.
Many people have lost their jobs. These facts and thinking, students and guardians are
reluctant about continuing to study in such field.

…“ It is a skill that is related to providing service or hospitality, many

students/parents find it to be low skill and low public image so they often
withdraw.”… [SP]

…“lacking of students/high student drop out”… [SP]

…” Also, Tourism sector is prone to instability because it requires the country

conditions to be stable, so like what happened in COVID-19, many Cambodian
tourism professionals lost their jobs and many tourism related businesses need to
shut down. This greatly affect the image or opportunity for those who are working
in tourism sector.”… [SP]

4.3.3. Environmental Challenges

It was mentioned that during the period when they were required to take online
classes, it was very hard because tourism study requires students to have practical sessions.
But online studying couldn’t fulfill such need to students. Moreover, the fact that the
adoption is still fresh and new, meaning that resources available to cater the process of
teaching and studying is still very limited, students face hardships during their course of
studying. Students also believe that they should be provided with more chances to travel to
different places, however the lack of financial and the other resources barrier and cut down
such opportunities.

…“ I also don’t have much time to go around to places/destinations to learn and

research more.”… [S7]

…“ Moreover they do not have the freedom to go out and explore besides the
studying at school”… [HT1]

32
4.4. Theme 4: Solution to the Presented Challenges of the Integration of the New
Curriculum
4.4.1. Solution to Limited English and Technical Terms of Students
Three solutions were found to be used to deal with the problem of limited English
and technical skill of students. More English session was suggested to be provided.
Students believe with more time dedicated to the studying of the language, they will be
more familiar with using and interacting. Besides that, practical session and slower and
clearer explanation of teachers were also mentioned. English skill of students might pose
some difficulty, however it does not mean unless students becomes expert in using the
language that they can learn about tourism-related subjects. Students can also be made to
become more familiar with terms and the studying by being involved with practical
sessions. If the English explanation of terms is hard to be understood, students can learn
by actually practicing, for example role playing the situation which is related to the terms.
Moreover, the teachers can also try to explain the terms over and over again to the students.
With these, even students might have some difficulty with the English skill, they will
eventually understand the content of the courses.

Figure 13: Solution to Limited English and Technical Terms of Students

4.4.2. Solutions to High Stress Level of Students and Teachers

To minimize the stress level of students and teachers, solutions were emerged.
Firstly, as mentioned, students were found to face hardships with the English which
complicates the process of learning of students and teaching of teachers and therefore

33
stresses them out. It is believed if the problem of English skill and technical terms of
students can be overcome, they will be less stressful with the new curriculum. And as can
be learned through the earlier part, to tackle the aforementioned, the conduction of English
session to be increased was one of the suggested solutions. Secondly, work reduction and
more time to be given to complete each assigned tasks were thought to help minimize the
scale of the issue with experiences high stress level of teachers and students. Having less
work to be completed and more time to be dedicated to different pieces of assignment will
help students to be more focused on finishing the works. Moreover, having less work
means that there are less papers for teachers to grade, too. Thirdly, the conduction of
practical sessions. Practical sessions, if compared with the lectures which aim to equip
students with absurd theories, are less stressful. Therefore if the students are made to
involve with practical classes a lot, they will be less stressed and tense with the study.
Fourthly, students can also learn a lot from different places and not just in classes. Being
exposed to different relevant events or travelling around help students to learn about

different things.

Figure 14: Solutions to High Stress Level of Students and Teachers

4.4.3. Solutions to Lack of Travelling Opportunities of Students

The problem of having limited access to provide students with opportunities to go
on educational travels is believed to be able to minimize by getting the support in different
34
forms from the outside organizations. With the support in the form of funding, the school
can create more opportunities for its students to travel and get more first-hand experience.
Moreover, the external stakeholders can also help with creating useful events and invite
the tourism students of general and technical high school to attend.

Figure 15: Solutions to Lack of Travelling Opportunities of Students

4.4.4. Solutions to Lack of Resources

The aid from the external parties can also help with the problem of having not
enough resources. Relevant parties have the ability to further promote and make the
existence of the new curriculum and high school known to more people. By doing that, the
larger pool of staffs can be created. Besides as mentioned earlier, financial aid can also
help out the schools that have adopted the new curriculum.

Figure 16: Solutions to Lack of Resources

35
4.4.5. Solutions to Poor Public Image
The aids from the relevant organizations and more engaging events can trigger the
positive effects on the image of tourism subject and industry as a whole. Just like what has
been mentioned earlier, with the support, students can be given more chances to travel or
at least to be exposed to different events, which provides chances for the students to meet
inspiring individuals in the industry. Therefore, it can be inferred that students and
guardians will feel less insecure with the industry. Though it can help in minimizing the
scale of the problem, it does not entirely help. Hence it is also necessary that willingness
of Cambodia people to make betterments to the study of tourism is needed.

Figure 17: Solutions to Poor Public Image

36
 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION
In the fifth chapter of the study, the comparison of the findings with the existed
literature is discussed.

5.1. Summary of the Research Questions

Once again as mentioned in the introductory chapter, the researcher aimed get
detailed, insightful understanding the perception of the general and technical high school’s
stakeholders about the inclusion of tourism into the curriculum of high school. The study
sought to learn about the presented benefits and challenges after the implementation. To
be able to meet the aim, the researcher followed three different objectives; trying to
understand the triggering reasons that led to the creation of such curriculum, identifying
challenges and opportunities of the integration, and establishing solutions to tackle the
existed challenges. To assist the process of the interview and data collection, set of research
questions was established. The main research question was “what do stakeholders think
about the inclusion of tourism study into general and technical high school’s curriculum?”.
The main question was followed by three other mini research questions which were there
to aid in finding answer to the determined three objectives, such as “why is tourism study
integrated into high school’s curriculum?”, “what are the challenges and opportunities
presented after the integration of tourism study into the curriculum of general and technical
high school?”, and “what can be used as solutions to tackle those problems?”.

5.2. Motive of the Integration

Through the previous chapter, it can be learnt that the motives of the integration
were categorized into two different categories, including internal and external motives.
Internally speaking, ACT decided to adopt the new curriculum into its system because the
school aimed to be one of the institutes to create wider access of tourism education and to
offer quality skill and knowledge about tourism to the students in high school level in
Cambodia. Moreover, because of the lack of tourism professionals and trainings available
and lack of workers therefore lead to high demand of staffs within the tourism sector of the
nation, as mentioned, the government of Cambodia implemented the new curriculum with
the hope of being able to create bigger pool of skilled personnel to serve in the travelling
industry.

37
 The finding was found reflecting with one of the previous studies namely
Implementation of the Common ASEAN Tourism Curriculum (CATC) and its Effects on
Cambodian Hospitality Training Programmes. Say (2018) found that one of the key
influences of curriculum changing is the need for improvement. For the training
programme, skill of the teachers and trainers, the learning quality of learners to be
improved, the curriculum should be altered. Similarly, one of this study’s findings argued
that the adoption of the new curriculum of high school yields betterments to different
stakeholders. Students could have bigger access to the education of tourism starting from
high school level. They no longer have to wait for the chance to expose themselves to
tourism study in university level after their high school graduation. Moreover, one of the
motivation, just like what has been mentioned, is related to making improvement to the
issue of having lack skilled workers in the tourism industry. Surely, improvements were
aimed on different aspects. CATC wanted to see betterments within the school level (Say,
2018), and this study’s improvements were with the different stakeholders mainly the high
school students, but the improvement was still one of the main motivation of the new
curriculum.

5.3. Opportunities of the Integration

Different indirect and direct opportunities were found to be triggered by the
integration. After the inclusion, the economy of the country was deemed to be able to
become more prosperous. Talking about the direct opportunities, they go to many
distinguish stakeholders, including students, the school, and even tourism industry.
Students are offered with deeper education and knowledge of tourism which can help them
to understand more of the sector. Additionally, more chances of experiencing different
things are also provided to the students. These can actually aid students in acquiring more
soft- and hard- skills. Learners of the general and technical high school are also promised
with immediate job opportunities upon their graduation. Without having to go to university
for four years before starting to work saves money and time of the students. As for the
schools which have adopted the new curriculum, they can have a better brand name, and
when there are many staffs readily available to be served in the industry, it will be less hard
for the schools to find skilled trainers and teachers to fulfill empty job positions. Lastly,
the tourism industry, it will be able to gain larger pool of qualified workers after the

38
implementation. To make the result even more deliberately looked at, the benefits were
also categorized into perceived and obtained opportunities. The perceived benefits are
deemed to be a part of the positive triggering, however they haven’t taken place just yet.
Those involve the economic importance, country’s development, and the continuation of
tourism study of students in higher level of education. The benefits that have been obtained
are the provision of job opportunities quickly, acquirement of richer understanding of the
industry, improvement of important skills, time- and money- efficient, sparking of interest
about the industry, and building up of good reputation of the school.

The finding was found to be aligned with those of previous studies. Addison and
Taumoepeau (2016) found that when tourism study added to the curriculum of high school
level, students will become more interested with the industry because such curriculum aids
in exposing students to the industry. Aligning with the literature is the finding of this
particular study. Though the mentioned finding could be corroborated with the other
literatures, the other findings cannot be found to be supported by any literatures. As to why,
it is believed that because the previous studies were not conducted with the main focus on
finding out in detailed manner about the opportunities of the new curriculum of adding
tourism study into the context of high school.

5.4. Challenges of the Integration

The challenges were found to be in three different areas; internal, external, and
environmental. And alignment between some findings with the previous studies was
detected. In the internal scale, there were five issues detected. Students complained about
having too much work which required them to complete. Moreover since the curriculum is
still very new, students haven’t been successfully adapted to the new way of studying
therefore both the teacher and students experience higher level of stress compared to
learning and teaching in traditional high school context. Studying tourism also requires
students to possess high level of English skill which can aid them in understanding
technical terms of tourism; however, current students of tourism study have limited English
skill therefore they find the studying process hard. On top of everything, the school also
faces with problems of having lack of resources, such as finance, and human resources
(Nhlapo, et. al., 2019). Externally speaking, problems include having poor public image

39
(Nhlapo, et. al., 2019), low enrollment of students, high dropout rate, and tourism industry
is a very sensitive industry, easily influenced by external factors. The environmental
influences consist of the hardship of online studying and having very little chances for
students to go on educational travelling. The other findings were not found to be supported
by any literatures. Evidently, students and teachers experience stress, and students have
low level of English skill. It is believed that in the other countries’ context where the
research studies have been conducted, English could have been students’ native or
dominant language. Contrastingly, in Cambodia, English though is a second language, it
cannot be used fluently by most people. Therefore the problem was posed, and as
mentioned, when the studying process is tedious, students and teacher are prone to stress.
The hardship of online learning and sensitivity of the industry were not also mentioned in
the other literatures because this particular study had been being conducted in the period
when the pandemic was still around therefore the participants relied on their personal
hardships during the pandemic when answering. Moreover, students of the other countries
though taking traditional curriculum, they are required to take on different pieces of
assignment and thus with the new adoption, they do not find the gap of difference between
the traditional and new curriculum big.

5.5. Solutions to the Found Challenges

Solutions were suggested to the found problems. More English session was deemed
to be able to aid with the issue of students possessing low level of English language. If
students are offered more time to dedicate to the learning of the language, they will be able
to improve their language skill. It was also suggested to cut down some works given to
students. Surely, students need to complete different sets of tasks to learn new things,
however, if they experience stress and feel uncomfortable studying, they will just do those
tasks half-heartedly or do nothing at all. Therefore, giving less tasks can be more effective
for the study of students and is highly recommended to be one of the solutions. Besides
cutting down the amount, students was believed to should be given more time to work on
different assignments, too. Lastly, getting help from different and external organizations.
Say (2018) argued that to deal with the problem of budget constraint, cooperation from
development agencies. This aligns with the suggested solution that was found. As
mentioned earlier, help in various forms from different organizations is suggested to be

40
done to help with the problem of lack of financial resources. The solutions were not aligned
because as brought up earlier, the other literatures were conducted in different environment
and context therefore the found problems and challenges also differ.

41
 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
In the last chapter, a brief summary of the whole study, and suggestions to the
focused institute and further studying are discussed.

6.1. Conclusion
The findings are considered to be acceptable to be used to answer the determined
questions in the research question part of the study because the chosen participants of the
research were all knowledgeable and had personal experience with the inclusion.
Moreover, as mentioned, the researcher believes it is very essential to try to seek the
presented opportunities and challenges of the inclusion of tourism study. With the result of
the study, not just the Academy of Careers and Technology, but schools which have
adopted the new studying-teaching curriculum would be able to have a deeper
understanding of the benefits of such inclusion as well as its drawbacks. In addition to that,
the study also showcased different suggested solutions to some issues, too.

The inclusion yields different beneficial things, including students’ acquirement of

knowledge about tourism, providing immediate job opportunities to students, sparked
interest of students towards the study of tourism, and fulfilling the demand of tourism
professionals. When the students are exposed to the study of tourism at early age, they will
naturally be able to have more opportunities to involve and learn more about tourism
industry. After learning and knowing more about the industry, students’ perception of the
industry will be shifted. Students will no longer think of the industry as only the service-
providing sector which is a lowly and does not pay and give much value to its staffs and
workers. After this, more students will find travelling sector interesting and worthy to learn.
Additionally, since the owners of certifications from the technical and general high school
are recognized as people who have adequate to work; the students no need to spend more
time at university. Lastly, as students pursue tourism more at university, it is also
guaranteed that more professional workers are available.

As included in the earlier chapter, besides benefits, there were some drawbacks
detected, too. First of all, students do not have good enough language skill therefore they
find the process of learning the newly, added subject to be hard. One solution was found
to solve this one issue. It was suggested that the school should try to find and include more

42
English sessions for the students. When they are more familiar with the use of language,
the students will also find memorizing the key-terms related to tourism easier. Second of
all, students do not have sufficient opportunities to travel to different destinations. Students
mentioned to effectively study the tourism subjects, they need to be provided with chances
to travel. However, currently not enough chances is offered to them which is why such
thing was mentioned as an issue. Solution was also found to this problem, participants
mentioned that the relevant organizations and individuals should work to create more
events to engage students to with the tourism industry. Moreover, support in variety of
forms was also sought from those individuals and organizations. With enough support,
more travelling opportunities can be created.

On top of this, poor public image and having little amount of professional workers
were found. To respond to this problem, it is personally believed that as time goes by,
students experience with tourism industry longer, and more students become involved.
Their opinion will be changed and made into a brighter light. Also, the inclusion is still
deemed to be a young project therefore not many students are aware of it, and the number
of graduate is also small. However, when the project gets bigger, more workers will be able
to be produced therefore the problem with not enough staffs will be lessened.

6.2. Recommendation for the Institution

To further develop the implementation of the inclusion of tourism study, there are
some points that the researcher would like to recommend to the focused institution.

6.2.1. Creation of Workshops and the Other Tourism-related Events

Surely to be good and to have a clear understanding of tourism, students need to
involve heavily with the industry. If students cannot be provided with chances to travel to
different destinations to create personal and real experience, they should be provided
chances to attend workshops or tourism-related events. The workshops can be in the form
of experience sharing or tourism-career fair. Moreover, joining the events, they can also
make more connections with people who work in tourism industry; this creates more
chances for the students to acquire secure, good jobs upon their graduation. Plus, students
can also get advices and inspirations from the other inspiring individuals in the industry
which helps in painting a whole new picture of tourism in the students’ mindset.

43
6.2.2. Creating Better Relationship with the Government and Relevant Organizations
Asking for fund and support from the government and relevant organizations is not
an easy task, especially if the school has no prior connection with those organizations.
Moreover, it is not only about in the form of asking for financial support, as mentioned
support in many different forms are also important. For instance, high schools which
provide tourism study to students can reach out to university of tourisms to create programs
which they think might be helpful to their students. With this, it can be seen that having
good relationship with different related organizations helps to make improvement to the
implement, and therefore it is important.

6.2.3. Occupation Consulting Programs

It was mentioned that because of the low public image of tourism industry, students
tend to feel insecure with the industry and soon drop out of studying from the course.
Consequently, it is seen as significant by the researcher that school should offer consulting
programs to students to help them discuss and find a suitable job for them after their
graduation. The program can also change the students’ thinking that they can only fulfill
in small positions with low payment. It is strongly believed that with proper guidance from
the professionals, students can see an even clearer picture of jobs in the travelling industry.

6.3. Recommendation for the Future Study

The researcher of this particular study suggests to the younger generation of
researchers to conduct study to find out about the benefits and challenges of the inclusion
in the context of Public General and Technical High School. This particular research was
conducted at the Academy of Careers and Technology which is considered as a privatized
institution. The findings are trusted to not be able to be applied and generalized in the
context of public schools where the curriculum might be implemented and operated
differently. Moreover, the next generation researchers can also conduct the study in two
different schools which have adopted the new curriculum, and make comparison of the
result of the two schools.

Moreover as can be seen, one found solution is to get assistance from relevant
organizations and outsiders to create betterments to the implementation. However, it is
important to remember that no organization is willing to provide help if that organization

44
gets nothing in return. Therefore the next generation of researchers should look into the
benefits that the organizations can obtain out of having good relationship with the general
and technical high school.

Additionally, once again since it is obvious that the general and technical high
schools, especially the privatized institutes, need support from the other parties to survive
and become better so that students will be provided with good quality of knowledge. It is
also suggested for the next researchers to look into the appropriate organizations and
individuals as well as identifying the forms of support that should be offered.

Lastly, if the researchers have an interest in human resource department or field, it

is highly recommended for them to find out ways to appeal to university students of tourism
to be more interested in becoming trainers and teachers so that the problem of having not
sufficient workers will be solved sooner.

45
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 APPENDICES
Appendix 1: Interview Questions for School’s Principal
1) Could you please introduce yourself a little bit?
2) When did your school begin to implement the tourism courses?
3) Why did you decide to include tourism study into your school’s curriculum?
4) What are your goal in implementing tourism study into the curriculum of high
school level of education?
5) Have any batch of tourism students successfully graduated?
6) How was/is the result?
7) What do you think are the advantages of the inclusion of tourism study into high
school for the school and its students?
8) Are there any possible drawbacks of the inclusion?
9) If there are, what do you think are the main disadvantages/drawbacks of the
inclusion to the school and its students?
10) Please let us know three challenges that the school has faced during the
implementation/currently is facing!
11) Do you think the school has adequate available resources to cater the teaching and
studying of teachers and students in tourism course (s)?
12) If there are challenges, based on your own perception, please let us know three
possible solutions that can be used to minimize/eliminate those challenges.
13) Are there any concerns/comments? If you have any concerns/comments, please
share them now.

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Appendix 2: Interview Questions for Head Teachers
1) Could you please introduce yourself a little bit?
2) What do you think is/are goal (s) of the implementation of tourism study into the
curriculum of high school?
3) What do you think are the advantage (s) that can be drawn out of the inclusion for
the school and its students?
4) Have you ever faced any difficulties while teaching?
5) If yes, please tell us what are the difficulties that you have faced, and what did you
do to solve such problem (s)?
6) Are there any disadvantages of the inclusion of tourism study into high school?
7) If yes, what are those disadvantages?
8) According to your understanding and perception, what can be done to eliminate
those challenges?
9) Are there any concerns/comments? If you have any concerns/comments, please
share them now.

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Appendix 3: Interview Questions for Students
1) Could you please take turn and briefly introduce yourself?
2) Studying at general (normal) high school and studying at technical and general high
school where tourism study is offered, which one is better?
3) If general and technical high school, why?
4) What are the advantages of studying about tourism in high school to you?
5) What do you are the disadvantages of studying about tourism in high school level?
6) Do you think the inclusion of tourism study into high school yields more advantages
or disadvantages to you?
7) Are there any difficulties that you have encountered while taking tourism course
(s)?
8) What do you think the teachers/school should do to make eliminate those
difficulties that you have faced while taking tourism course (s)?
9) Do you recommend students in Cambodia to study tourism in high school level like
what you are doing, or you want the students to study at normal high school taking
just traditional course (s)?
10) What will you pursue in your higher education after you graduate? Will you
continue your tourism study in university, too?
11) Are there any concerns/comments? If you have any concerns/comments, please
share them now.

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Appendix 4: Consent Form
Informed Consent Letter

Date:

Name Participant:

Researchers: Sak Sopheakneath

Research Topic: Schools’ Stakeholders’ Perceptions on Challenges and

Opportunities of Tourism Study in Cambodia’s Technical and General High Schools’
Programme: A Case Study of Academy of Careers and Technology

I am the fourth year students of the department of Tourism at the Royal University
of Phnom Penh. I am conducting research to investigate the challenges and opportunities
of the implementation of tourism study into the general and technical high school in
Cambodia. To invite you to be a participant for this research, I will demonstrate to you the
information about the research, so you can understand the purpose of this investigation.
Moreover, I need to request for your permission for the interviewing for my study. If you
have any doubts or you want to clarify any points about the research, please let us know.
We are happy to provide you the answer.

Purpose of the Research: The objectives of my research are to understand why tourism
study is integrated into the general and technical high schools’ curriculum, to identify
challenges and opportunities when integrating the tourism study into the general and
technical high schools, and to identify the possible solutions responding to those
challenges. Besides that, our goal is also to recognize the drawbacks of the implementation
and to formulate ways to deal with the presented challenges, too.

What Will You Be Asked to Do in the Research: For this research, your participation
will be involved in one-on-one interviews by online platform or face-to-face. The interview
will take around thirty minutes. You will be asked to let us as research students record your
voice, your answer and note down.

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Risk and Discomfort: We are not trying to impose on you to take any risk of being part
of the research, you have the right to not answer any questions that make you feel
uncomfortable, which may be related to your privacy. All the risks, such as physical,
emotional, spiritual value will be no harm to you.

Voluntary Participation: Your participation in this research is voluntary.

Withdraw from the Study: You can either participate or end your participation at any
stage without any reason. If you have any reason that you do not feel like being a part of
this interview, you can stop your participating at any time. Your choice of not participating
will not affect your academic performance or the connection between interviewers or
participants. Moreover, all the information that we have collected from you will
immediately destroy.

Confidentiality: All the information that you provided to us will be held confidential. The
data will not be shared with anyone. The data will only use for the research proposal, it
will not use for any other purpose. The data will be collected by handwriting and using an
audio recording device. Your identification will not be revealed in the research, it will
reveal under a pseudonym. Your document will be erased once the research is approved by
our lecturer.

Questions About the Research: Our research attempts to answer three main questions:
“Why is tourism studies integrated into high school’s curriculum?”, “What are the
challenges and opportunities presented after the integration of tourism study into the
curriculum of general and technical high school?”, and “What can be used as solutions to
tackle those problems?”. If you have any doubt regarding our questions, please feel free to
ask or contact Ms. Sak Sopheakneath through mobile phone, 069 74 70 45, or email
sopheakneath.s@yahoo.com.

Legal Rights and Signatures:

I, ___________________, have read the information above, or it has been read to me. I
have had the opportunity to ask questions about it and any questions. I have been asked

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and answered to my gratification. I consent voluntarily to be a participant in this study,
“Year 4 students’ perspective on the challenges of developing a research proposal in the
Department of English”. My signature below demonstrates my consent.

Signature Date________________

(day/month/year)

________________

Participant

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Appendix 5: Major and Minor Themes
Theme Name (s) How many How many times
participants was it mentioned?
mentioned it?
Goals of the implementation
 Providing skill and knowledge 2 3
 More opportunities to learn about tourism 1 1
industry
 Demand of tourism professional 1 1
 Desire to solve existed problems 1 2
 Youth development 1 1
 Lack of students’ awareness about tourism 1 2
 Lack of tourism professionals/training 1 1
Benefits of the implementation
 Immediate job opportunities 5 6
 Better travelling experience 1 1
 Deep understanding about tourism 6 10
industry/study
 Better and university-like courses 4 6
 Continuation of students with tourism study 6 6
 More travelling opportunities 2 3
 More advanced technology 1 1
 Improved necessary hard and soft skills 9 15
 Time- and money- saving 4 8
 More training opportunities 1 1
 Sparked interest in tourism industry 7 8
 Economic importance 1 3
 Qualified resources 1 1
 Good reputation of the school 1 1
 More engagement of high school students 1 1
 Country’s development 1 1
Challenges of the implementation
 Students’ lack of English skill and 8 14
understanding of technical terms
 Workload amount 2 2
 High stress level of students and teachers 3 4
 Distance learning 1 1

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  Limited courses offer 1 1
 Lack of opportunity to visit sites and get first- 3 5
hand experience
 Lack of technological skills 1 1
 Unfamiliarity of students with the new 2 2
curriculum
 Poor public image 1 1
 Lack of appeal 1 1
 Sensitivity of the industry 1 1
 Inadequate students and high dropout rate 1 1
 Inadequate resources 2 4
Suggested Solutions
 More English session 2 5
 Workload reduction 3 4
 Independency of students 2 2
 More vocational trainings and practical 5 5
sessions
 Clearer and slower explanation of teachers 1 1
 More time to work on assigned tasks 1 1
 Support from relevant organizations and 3 6
ministries
 Understanding of guardians 1 1
 More engaging tourism events 1 1
 Willingness of relevant parties 1 1
Perception about the inclusion
 Advantageous inclusion 9 20
 Recommendation 7 7

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Appendix 6: Letter of Introduction

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Appendix 7: Permission Form

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