Cambodia uses a 'discouragement' strategy to manage teachers' engagement in supplying private tutoring (PT). However, previous studies have criticised teachers' professional misconduct in terms of promoting tutoring classes to ensure supplementary income. Currently, examination reforms alongside economic growth propose a new understanding of professional misconduct. Based on descriptive data from 93 students and in-depth interviews with 24 informants, who were tutees and their parents, tutors and school administrators respectively, this study found uncaring pedagogies to be a primary motivator for tutoring demand. This tended to have an association with the inadequate instructional time given to core examination subjects and implementation of the learner-based approach. Additionally, the examination reform brought positive changes in the teacher's behaviour. Although this study's findings are largely aligned with previous studies, it still sheds light on new perspectives regarding teachers' professional misconduct in Cambodia.
This limited topical life history study aims to gain insights into COVID-19’s impacts on teaching at upper secondary schools through Cambodian teachers’ perceptions of online teaching. It presents teachers’ current challenges and needs as well as future impacts on their teaching practices. Online semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data from 29 subject teachers and their school directors. This study concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the quality of teaching and learning due to the limited functions of monitoring students rather than limited digital knowledge and skills. The classroom management is still required although the learning is online. The empirical evidence suggests this effect in science disciplines; especially for calculation-related subjects. However, COVID-19 was viewed as providing secondary education with a great deal for implementing the digital revolution of education 4.0 and created some practical issues for policymakers and implementers. Although the findings largely concur with previous literature on online teaching during the pandemic, they also draw context-specific features of the issue.
This study compares private tuition (PT) patterns and perceptions regarding teaching and learning in public schools versus PT classes in urban and rural Cambodia. Using quantitative data from 108 tutors and 165 12th graders, followed by 21 interviews that included principals, we find that urban students are the main drivers of PT; they trust the quality of tutors they are familiar with, while their rural peers view PT as more effective when provided by their teachers. Nonetheless, examination reform may have prompted more students to seek PT with tutors who could provide adequate knowledge and skills, as opposed to their teachers. Furthermore, hurried teaching was perceived as a common response to dealing with inadequate instructional time and the pressures of trying to implement a learner-based approach. This investigation provides new insights into issues relating to teacher professionalism and students' choice of PT in Cambodia.
Private tutoring is not a new phenomenon for education in both developed and developing countries. However, English private tutoring (EPT) attracted a limited number of studies, although English is viewed as the key to success in non-English speaking countries like Cambodia. By observing EPT as a choice, this mixed-method study, using the convergent design, aimed to explore factors affecting Cambodian 12th graders towards quitting or not quitting EPT during the year of the national examination. Quantitative data were collected from 639 twelfth graders in Cambodia via a self-rated questionnaire, while qualitative data were obtained from 8 respondents. Findings reveal that the decision of leaving EPT is more influenced by their parents, while that of continuing EPT is stirred by educational aspirations, internal motivation as well as part-time employment during their university life. Surprisingly, unlike private tutoring of other core exam subjects, this study found that students from better income families in Cambodia do not seem interested in investing in EPT. It is proposed that an ‘exam-career balance’ syllabus be developed and implemented in both mainstream schools and EPT classes to boost the success probability of Cambodian 12th graders in their exams as well as their future.
Offering private tutoring (PT) to their students is legal in Cambodia. However, teachers are banned from engaging in PT during official hours and holidays. Literature has proven common root causes across contexts such as low salaries, class size, insufficient instructional times and high-stakes examinations. With a new attempt, this narrative paper aims to discuss PT and its effects from the different stakeholders’ perspectives and to reflect PT functions towards mainstream education. On the one hand, symbiosis generates a ‘dependency system,’ divided into two relationships such as ‘commensalism’ between PT and the mainstream system, and ‘mutualism’ between supply and demand side including the mainstream system. On the other hand, parasitism (professional misconduct) exists owing to policy implementers’ laissez-faire approach in exercising the approved codes of conducts. Hence, the parasitism remains in the public classrooms owing to the lack of accountability and monitoring system of the in-charge stakeholders. Its presence enlarges the capacity of the dependency system to cast a shadow over the incomplete shape and size of the mainstream system. Thus, it should be alerted that when it is oversized, this symbiotic function may downplay the mainstream system and moves it away from the core attention of the demand side. Keywords: Cambodia, extra lesson, private tuition, shadow education, supplementary tutoring. Cite as: Soeung, S. (2021). A review of Cambodian private tutoring: Parasitic and symbiotic functions towards the mainstream system. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 6(1), 42-58. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol6iss1pp42-58
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