Negotiating Globalization: The Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

Closed to the outside world during the Pol Pot regime, restructured as a socialist state, then pushed towards democracy and a market economy as a result of foreign technical assistance provided through numerous multi- and bi-lateral aid and development programs, Cambodia Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in the Asia-Pacific Asia-Pacific region, albeit with a now rapidly growing economy. One consequence of the recent economic growth is that private higher education institutions are proliferating with little regulation. The Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), like the handful of other government universities Universities, remains under central government control but, like countless universities around the world, has been forced to make commercial decisions as a result of inadequate recurrent funding. This has engaged the RUPP with the processes of globalization in a way similar to that faced by higher education institutions in so-called ‘developed’ countries. However, one difference is the obliteration of an entire generation of academics that occurred as a result of the Khmer Rouge regime. In this chapter, the authors examine some of the ways in which the Royal University of Phnom Penh is negotiating the impact of globalization within this unique historical context.