Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the entire world. While causing massive disruptions, COVID-19 has served as a catalyst for the digital transformation of higher education in Cambodia. This chapter discusses how the pandemic has provided opportunities for the digital transformation of Cambodian higher education. The chapter focuses on opportunities related to blended learning, online continuous professional development, and digital higher education. It also examines key challenges to the digitalization of Cambodian higher education, including limited information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure and accessibility; limited digital knowledge, skills, and experience; unfavorable attitudes toward online learning; issues with the curriculum and assessment; and a lack of preparedness for ICT-enhanced education. The chapter then discusses the way forward for key stakeholders in higher education in Cambodia to support the momentum for higher education digitalization and further accelerate the digital transformation of Cambodian higher education.
TopIntroduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the world since early 2020. Its impact has been far-reaching and substantive in various dimensions of human lives and societies. In the education domain, the main impact of COVID-19 has been the considerable disruptions to the continuation of education, as many educational institutions across the world were temporarily closed to contain the spread of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (United Nations, 2020). For example, the United Nations (2020) noted that the pandemic “has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion learners in more than 190 countries and all continents” (p. 2). This means 94% of the world’s student population and up to 99% of students in low and lower-middle-income countries have been impacted by the closures of schools and other learning spaces (United Nations, 2020).
As a lower-middle-income country, Cambodia was not spared by the COVID-19 pandemic which started to hit the country heavily in March 2020. All educational institutions were ordered to close at that time, and they remained closed throughout the year (Heng, 2021b). Although Cambodia has coped with the impact of COVID-19 relatively well, thanks to the generous support from development partners and international organizations, as well as quick actions from the government and active involvement from different layers of society (Heng, 2020a; Heng & Ang, 2020), there have been great disruptions to its education system. According to a joint report by UNICEF Cambodia and the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), for instance, a total of 13,482 Cambodian schools and 3.2 million students have been affected by the school closures (UNICEF Cambodia & MoEYS, 2021). In addition, it was found that although MoEYS and its development partners had made great efforts to provide distance learning opportunities to all students, financial barriers and other issues related to internet connectivity, knowledge, and time had constrained students’ access to distance learning during the pandemic.
Despite the enormous impact and disruptions caused by COVID-19, there have also been opportunities induced by it. Heng’s (2020b, 2021a) work has been among the first to discuss the opportunities made possible by the pandemic to the education system in Cambodia. Heng (2020b), for example, argued that COVID-19 was a silver lining in the crisis for the education system in Cambodia. He added that the transition from physical classes to online learning during the pandemic “provides a unique opportunity for the digital transformation of the country’s education system” (p. 42). Likewise, Heng (2021a) maintained that COVID-19 is a catalyst for digitally transforming the Cambodian education system. As he noted:
Efforts to improve Cambodia’s education system have been seriously disrupted by COVID-19 since early 2020. However, the pandemic has also brought the opportunity to not only deepen educational reforms but also strengthen the utilisation of ICT [information and communication technology] and modern technologies in education. In fact, the pandemic serves as a catalyst for transforming and modernising the education system. (p. 7).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Online Learning: Often referred to as e-learning, an approach to education that is entirely delivered through the internet using technologies to mediate the teaching and learning process.
Cambodia: A developing country located in Southeast Asia, bordering Thailand, Vietnam, and Laos.
Blended Learning: Also known as hybrid learning, an approach to education that combines face-to-face instruction with technology-mediated instruction.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT): All sorts of technologies that are used to facilitate communications and information sharing. Key components of ICT include, but are not limited to, cloud storage, digital data, software, hardware, digital transactions, and the internet.
Higher Education: A post-secondary education leading to a particular degree. In Cambodia, higher education includes technical and vocational education and training (TVET) that generally takes two to three years and regular degree programs that lead to undergraduate and graduate degrees.
Digital Transformation: The increased process of adopting digital technologies to perform and deliver services in a more efficient way. In this chapter, the terms digital transformation and digitalization are used interchangeably.
COVID-19 Pandemic: A global health crisis caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus.