Page 59 - JICE Volume 7 Isssue 1 2018

Governance of HiGHer education in Malaysia and caMbodia: runninG on a siMilar PatH?
The manifestation of neoliberalism is also seen in laissez faire competition in this teaching
enterprise. There is little formal state regulation of fees and teaching wages/salaries. The state
institutional capacity to supervise and steer HE development is limited. Accreditation and assessment
(an inexpensive neoliberal approach to ensure quality and inapplicable to neo-patrimonialism), for
example, are well known for their pro forma and lack of rigour in practice. Institutional accreditation
is yet to be put into practice, and since its inception in 2003, the ACC, the sole accreditation body,
has only managed to accredit foundation year programmes (first year of an undergraduate degree).
Internal quality assurance is yet to be carried out with rigour. According to the sub-decree on
licencing, once they are licenced, HEIs will be legally permitted to run permanently with no risk of
licence revocation, as there is no stipulation on re-licencing and de-licencing, which is a very sensitive
issue. The lack of supervision and regulation has produced fertile ground for quality downgrading
and cost-cutting to attract students. This has created a ‘race to the bottom’ in both fees and quality
(Ting, 2014).
The emergence of neoliberalism is also reflected in language use in national and sectoral plans
and policies, especially since 2000, although there has been no systematic effort to operationalise
these neoliberal concepts. Terms like efficiency, effectiveness and result-based planning are frequently
seen in plans and policies and are well-used by technocrats and politicians – but ways to measure
them are vague or absent. There is no requirement on KPIs or targets/outputs, and neither is there
any commitment from the Government to fund HEIs based on these new initiatives. There has been
talk of institutional autonomy and accountability in the past decade, but the operationalisation of
these notions is sketchy, and there seems to be little will from top political leaders to grant meaningful
or full autonomy to public HEIs. A skills mismatch and HE relevance to labour market needs is seen
in all key policy documents. 1

Autonomy and Accountability
Like Malaysia, Cambodia has been talking about institutional autonomy and accountability. However,
the State remains reluctant to adopt this neoliberal ideology in its entirety, although perhaps for
2
different reasons. Limited autonomy and accountability is known to be a sticky issue, although
variations in the degree of (de facto) autonomy and accountability exist and ad hoc reforms towards
these ends have been implemented. In practice, HEIs have considerable substantive (i.e. academic)
autonomy in selected areas. They have significant autonomy in curriculum design, research policy
formulation, entrance standards, and awarding degrees. Nevertheless, autonomy in staff (i.e.
civil servant) appointments, promotion and firing is still centralised and rigid, and full-time staff,
who are civil servants, are on the Government payroll and have secure lifetime employment. Like
many ASEAN countries, Cambodia is less generous with procedural (i.e. non-academic) autonomy,
although both types of autonomy need to be aligned and are complementary (see Berdahl, 1971;
Raza, 2010; World Bank, 2012). Financial management and procurement measures in public HEIs
have to adhere to ministerial regulations, and line item budgeting is the norm. In principle, budget
reallocation is hard and complaints of slow and cumbersome disbursement are fairly common (Un
and Sok, 2014; Sok, 2016).
Because of its inability to fully finance HE, the Government has allowed public HEIs to generate
revenues. Attempts to legalise this practice have resulted in establishment of some PAI HEIs later.
Public HEIs have virtually full autonomy in managing the resources they generate and are allowed
to spend their budgets as they see fit. The lack of supervision and oversight has nevertheless led to
complaints and concerns about a lack of transparency and accountability in financial management and
mismanagement of the self-generated revenues (from both concerned state agencies and university
staff). With their budgets, public HEIs can purchase casual services from non-civil servant staff. This
has created a de facto dual personnel system. HEIs also use the money to top up the salaries of
administrative and management staff, including rectors and board members. It is important to note

Journal of International and Comparative Education, 2018, Volume 7, Issue 1 55