New Generation Schools: National Education Reform for the 21st Century in Cambodia

• In Event: Program evaluation in diverse contexts

Proposal

Background:
Cambodia has a vision to move from a low income to medium-high income country by 2030. Education has been identified as a high priority for the government to achieve this vision. In 2015, the Cambodian national government launched the New Generation Schools reform (NGS), the first ever public-private-partnership national reform focusing on 21st century skills. While relying on official development assistance is necessary but not sufficient in development, this is the first time the Cambodian government has worked closely with the nonprofit sector to implement an education reform for greater accountability and sustainability. Now in its third full year of implementation, New Generation Schools is currently operating at 10 school sites (6 secondary and 4 primary) and serving approximately 4,000 students. Since 2015, the Ministry has invested $4.65 million USD in New Generation Schools, with plans for further expansion and investment.

While the New Generation Schools reform aims to improve the overall quality of education to better prepare students for college and career, the program has a strong focus on developing students’ cognitive competencies in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) and ICT (information and communications technology). This is an important priority, given historically more than half of Cambodian students have not passed the national 12th grade BAC examination in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Biology (Bredenberg, 2018). The reform also emphasizes the importance of critical thinking in preparing students for future employment, as a recent survey in Cambodia identified analytical thinking and decision-making as the skills most desired by employers for skilled and semi-skilled work (Bredenberg, 2018). It is this combination of cognitive processes and explicit content knowledge in STEM and ICT that the Ministry believes will prepare students for future success in the workforce.

Similar to the public charter school model in the US, New Generation School leaders operate with greater autonomy over curriculum, pedagogy, and use of resources in exchange for higher accountability. The underlying theory of action is that by providing space and funding for highly efficient and effective school managers and teachers to innovate at the school level, lessons can be learned and then scaled to improve the larger Cambodian education system. Recent research has shown this type of school-based management (SBM) can be effective in improving student outcomes, but effective implementation requires school leaders have expertise in both instruction and management, as well as the true autonomy to implement changes in their schools (Demas and Arcia, 2015). SBM is effective in improving the quality of education because (1) decision-making at the school-level is closer to student students and families and therefore there is increased accountability and (2) school leaders have a better understanding of their local school context and autonomy which allows them to use their resources to target these specific needs (Demas and Arcia, 2015). Some critics of school-based management policies cite recent evidence that school-based management has been shown to be more effective in improving school quality in high-income than low-income countries (Shoraku, 2008). If key decision makers do not have both expertise and autonomy, they will not have a meaningful impact on teaching and learning in their schools (Demas and Arcia, 2015). This research indicates that the effectiveness of New Generation Schools will be highly dependent upon the quality of school managers and teachers.
Three years of implementation of the reform has created a heated debate in country. The ambitious reform has attracted both praise and criticism across the country. Our independent research will provide the Ministry of Education and the local NGO KAPE, which is managing the implementation of the reform, with a comprehensive analysis of the reform’s vision, goals, design, and implementation. Our analysis will provide specific suggestions for the Ministry as they continue to scale up the New Generation Schools program. Our analysis will also examine similar school autonomy reforms currently underway across Southeast Asia, including Thailand, for international comparison. Our study will not only provide a detailed program evaluation of a critical education reform in Cambodia, but also broader insights for 21st century learning in new governance models aimed at building more sustainable education institutions.

Research Questions:

What impact has the New Generation Schools reform had on student outcomes in the priority areas of STEM, ICT, and critical thinking?
How has implementation of the reform addressed the reform’s goals? What challenges have been encountered?
How can the program be strengthened to better achieve its goals?
What aspects of the New Generation Schools model are most effective and promising for scaling up and/or adopting in other countries?

Methodology:

Literature Review:

By mid-December, we will have produced a 25-page term paper with an extensive literature review of the curriculum, teacher and principal preparation, and theory of change of the New Generations School reform. We will also assess the first three years of implementation, identifying successes and challenges which supported and/or hindered the reform. Finally, we will examine the impact the reform has had for students in the areas of cognitive (STEM and ICT), interpersonal, and intrapersonal competencies.

Stakeholder Interviews:

We are also in the process of conducting interviews with key stakeholders to inform our analysis of the program design and implementation. With funding from the Asia Center at Harvard University, we will conduct field research in January 2019 for in-person interviews, focus groups, and school observations.

We will conduct interviews with the following stakeholders:

Ministry of Education leaders
Senior officials
Education Management Information Systems officials
KAPE leaders
Kurt Bredenberg (Senior Technical Adviser)
Cambodia Development Resource Institute
New Generation Schools stakeholders
School managers
Teachers
Parents
Community stakeholders

Data Analysis:

We will also analyze additional quantitative data provided by the Ministry and KAPE, including:

Student national assessment scores (2018 BAC II) - to compare score of students in New Generation Schools to general population
New Generation School teacher evaluations - to assess alignment of teacher evaluations and professional development to goals of reform
Student, teacher, and family surveys - to assess perceptions of New Generation Schools from a broader range of stakeholders

Authors

• Melissa K Donaher, Havard University

• Nora Wu, Harvard Graduate School of Education