CAMBODIA: A look at the future of Cambodia's youth and education- Part 1 | WPN World People News

In this discussion on youth, education, and Cambodia's future, topics in vogue today, I would like to introduce some brief theoretical concepts about perceptions and reality; follow with what some regular Cambodians (whom I have not met) write; and examine some observations and survey results by several organizations. My purpose is to provoke discussion about the present situation in Cambodia.

Perception and Reality
Our unique political socialization; the information we've acquired; our cognition, experiences, values and beliefs acquired from different sources, do influence our perceptions and cause us to evaluate the same experiences differently from one another.

From childhood to adulthood and to the end of our lives, we never stop learning. As a child we learn from our parents and those dearest to us. As we go to school, we learn from our teachers and from books. As we grow up, friends and peers, and our surrounding, influence our behavior. I never understood what my father meant when he told me endlessly as I was growing up, "Live with cow, sleep like cow. Live with parrot, sleep like parrot." In college, I learned that political socialization shapes and molds our characters.

Our values and beliefs are learned. The newspaper we choose to read, the magazines on our coffee tables, the books we read and television shows we watch; the job we hold; the special events we encounter, all contribute to molding our personality. Some of us are unconscious of our learning.

Two quotes I like: "Learning without thought is labor lost," said Chinese teacher Confucius (551 BC-479 BC); and American futurist Alvin Toffler's assertion that the "illiterate" of the 21st century will be "those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."

To learn is to think. But all thinking is not of the same quality. An opinion – which changes from occasion to occasion – is not a thought based on careful observation, reflection, and analysis. It's not what we know but the quality of our thinking that determines the quality of what we do, and the quality of our life. Thought leaders urge us to think objectively, positively, creatively, and critically, and to never stop intellectual inquiries, because our future depends on it.

Lord Gautama Buddha taught 2,500 years ago, "We are what we think … With our thoughts, we make the world." Statistically, 95 percent of Cambodians claim affiliation with the Buddhist faith. Buddha's teaching should be natural for Cambodians. Is it?

Recall some psychological experiments that revealed "one in three persons" follow what the majority claim, even if these persons believe the claim is incorrect. Generally, one laughs with the group even without understanding what the laughter is about, and one changes one's stand if it is unpopular with the crowd. That's frightening, but coincidental with the Cambodian aphorism, "Thveu doch ke doch aeng," or "do like others do."

Although genes we inherit from our parents do shape our attitudes and behavior powerfully – apples don't fall far from the tree – I believe our attitudes and behavior are influenced more by our long term socialization, which begins since birth and ends only in death.

To people who belittle Confucius's words, "You cannot open a book without learning something," is Confucius's answer: "Surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."

Perceptions conflict
There are two types of reality. One is tangible: roads, bridges, buildings. The other is what we perceive as real: these are opinions based on our perception and analysis. It's quantitative versus qualitative.

Last month, a Cambodian expatriate on regular visit to Cambodia circulated an e-mail: "I am in Cambodia now. A lot of Khmer youths have no guidance." He alleged the government's half-hearted effort on television to "promote democracy" is less attractive to Khmer youth drawn more to advertisements on "beer, beer, and more beer; and then whiskey, whiskey, and more whiskey"; after alcohol, the youth go for "hard cheap drugs … such as YA BA, and then heroin." The expatriate called on Cambodians "anywhere around the world to return to Cambodia to help reduce the pain of the Khmer youth who have lost their soul without realizing it."

Some university students in Phnom Penh who saw the e-mail, admitted to the alcohol advertisements on TV, but criticized the blanket statements about Khmer youth.

Also last month, another e-mail was sent by another expatriate, after "the first visit since my birth in refugee camp" at the Khmer-Thai border. He said he had just returned from Cambodia where he traveled the countryside and "reached out" to the poor. "I was sad and shocked to see their overwhelming poverty and despair. They have to deal with their miserable life without from the current Cambodian leaders."

He charged, the "new settlers" [read, Vietnamese immigrants] in Cambodia enjoy "better life and advantages" than the poor Khmers; his e-mail appealed to Cambodians to forget their political affiliation for the moment to unite to "save our people and our country before it is too late."

Within the same month, an e-mail from a reader, a manufacturing coordinator who lives on America's West Coast, landed in my box. I never met him. He described himself as "a Killing Field survivor in the US since 1985" who has visited Cambodia three times, the last trip some six months ago.

"From my personal observations, Cambodia is better today than she : more children attend schools, infrastructures are modernized." He described his travels to border provinces, where roads are built, and power lines are up: "Travel which took me more than half day in 2007, now takes me only 2 hours; that is progress."

"I am proud to be Cambodian today than I have ever been," he wrote. He criticized the US that he said "never cared much about Cambodia and her people"; the US "realized China's influence in the region, especially Cambodia," only recently.

The e-mails bring to mind results from a survey of Cambodians by the International Republican Institute (related to the US Republican Party), released in January 2011 that showed 23 percent of respondents believe Cambodia is headed in the wrong direction – citing corruption, joblessness, poverty, inflation – while 76 percent are satisfied with the direction Cambodia is headed – citing infrastructure improvements such as roads, bridges, buildings, schools, health clinics.

Source: AHRC