Education and Power in Contemporary Southeast Asia 1032501669, 9781032501666

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Exploring Power Dynamics in Education across Southeast Asia
PART I: Centralization and Decentralization
PART I: Centralization and Decentralization
1. Mechanisms of Disempowerment: Interrogating Cultural Logics Producing the “Tiny Teacher” in Thailand’s Education System
PART I: Centralization and Decentralization
2. The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia: PISA Tests, Different Conceptions of National Assessment and the Policymaking Process
PART I: Centralization and Decentralization
3. Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority: The Case of Karen Students in the KNU-Controlled Areas in Myanmar
PART I: Centralization and Decentralization
4. Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms in Language for Social and Educational Changes: A Case of English as Medium of Instruction in Indonesia
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
5. The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
6. Counting the Costs of Free Education: Shared Household and Government Costs in Cambodian Lower Secondary Education
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
7. Neoliberalism Meets the Bumiputera Agenda: Student Debt and Higher Education in Malaysia
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
8. Neoliberalism and the Privatization of Higher Education in Myanmar, Pre- and Post-Coup: “A Frame Based on a Fragile Foundation”
PART II: Privatization and Marketization
9. Counter-Hegemonic Discourses and Responses to Neoliberal Restructuring and Neocolonial Education: A Critical Evaluation of K–12’s Development and Implementation in the Philippines
PART III: Equity and Justice
PART III: Equity and Justice
10. The Scholars: Talent Management Techniques and Gender Inequality in State-Sponsored Scholarships
PART III: Equity and Justice
11. Vocational Learning as Infrastructure in Vietnam
PART III: Equity and Justice
12. Bringing Trans-Women “Back to Fitrah”: Islamic (Re)education/Rehabilitation Projects and Discourses in Malaysia
PART III: Equity and Justice
13. Orang Asli Community Learning Centers and Indigenous Resurgence
PART III: Equity and Justice
14. Network of Opportunity or Network of Inequality?
Conclusion: Re/thinking Regionally about Power and Education
Index

Citation preview

Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series

EDUCATION AND POWER IN CONTEMPORARY SOUTHEAST ASIA Edited by Azmil Tayeb, Rosalie Metro and Will Brehm

Education and Power in Contemporary Southeast Asia

This book focuses on education and power in Southeast Asia and analyzes the ways in which education has been instrumentalized by state, non-state, and private actors across this diverse region. The book looks at how countries in Southeast Asia respond to the endogenous and exogenous influences in shaping their education systems. Chapters observe and study the interplay between education and power in Southeast Asia, which offers varying political, social, cultural, religious, and economic diversities. The political systems in Southeast Asia range from near consolidated democracy in Indonesia to illiberal democracy in Singapore and Thailand to the communist regime in Laos to absolute monarchy in Brunei. Structured in three parts, (i) centralization and decentralization, (ii) privatization and marketization, and (iii) equity and justice, these themes are discussed in single-country and/or multi-country studies in the Southeast Asian region. Bringing together scholars from and focused on Southeast Asia, this book fills a gap in the literature on education in Southeast Asia. Azmil Tayeb is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia, a Visiting Research Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, and an Adjunct Professor at the Universitas Negeri Malang in Indonesia. He is the author of Islamic Education in Indonesia and Malaysia: Shaping Minds, Saving Souls (Routledge, 2018). Rosalie Metro is an Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. She is the author of three textbooks: Histories of Burma, Teaching US History Thematically, and Teaching World History Thematically. Will Brehm is an Associate Professor in Comparative and International Education at the University of Canberra, Australia. He is the author of Cambodia for Sale (Routledge, 2021) and co-editor, with Yuto Kitamura, of Memory in the Mekong (TC Press, 2022) and Public Policy Innovation for Human Capital Development (APO, 2020).

Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series

The aim of this series is to publish original, high-quality work by both new and established scholars on all aspects of Southeast Asia. Recycling Infrastructures in Cambodia Circularity, Waste, and Urban Life in Phnom Penh Kathrin Eitel Public Expenditure and Income Distribution in Malaysia Mukaramah Harun and Sze Ying Loo Territorial Change and Conflict in Indonesia Confronting the Fear of Secession Ratri Istania Marginalisation and Human Rights in Southeast Asia Al Khanif & Khoo Ying Hooi Fake News and Elections in Southeast Asia Impact on Democracy and Human Rights Robin Ramcharan and James Gomez Islam, Education and Radicalism in Indonesia Instructing Piety Edited by Tim Lindsey, Jamhari Makruf, and Helen Pausacker The Art of Environmental Activism in Indonesia Shifting Horizons Edwin Jurriëns

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Contemporary-Southeast-Asia-Series/book-series/RCSEA

Education and Power in Contemporary Southeast Asia Edited by Azmil Tayeb Rosalie Metro Will Brehm

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Azmil Tayeb, Rosalie Metro and Will Brehm; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Azmil Tayeb, Rosalie Metro and Will Brehm to be identified as the author[/s] of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Azmil Tayeb, editor. | Metro, Rosalie, editor. | Brehm, Will, editor. Title: Education and power in contemporary Southeast Asia / edited by Azmil Tayeb, Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm. Description: New York : Routledge, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022061936 (print) | LCCN 2022061937 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032501666 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032501659 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003397144 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Education--Political aspects--Southeast Asia. | Education--Southeast Asia. Classification: LCC LC94.S68 E38 2023 (print) | LCC LC94.S68 (ebook) | DDC 370.959--dc23/eng/20230208 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061936 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022061937 ISBN: 978-1-032-50166-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-50165-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-39714-4 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144 Typeset in Baskerville by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Artwork title: Flying Free Artist: Cecilia

We dedicate this volume to the Southeast Asian students who overcome barriers to access education, and to the teachers who make that education meaningful. May the unpredictable transformations that result from their efforts create more just and equitable societies.

Contents

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Acknowledgments Introduction: Exploring Power Dynamics in Education across Southeast Asia

x xii xvi

1

ROSALIE METRO, WILL BREHM, AND AZMIL TAYEB

PART I

Centralization and Decentralization11 1 Mechanisms of Disempowerment: Interrogating Cultural Logics Producing the “Tiny Teacher” in Thailand’s Education System

13

THORNCHANOK UERPAIROJKIT

2 The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia: PISA Tests, Different Conceptions of National Assessment and the Policymaking Process

31

RATIH D. ADIPUTRI

3 Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority: The Case of Karen Students in the KNUControlled Areas in Myanmar

45

SAW THAN MIN HTUN AND SOFIE MORTENSEN

4 Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms in Language for Social and Educational Changes: A Case of English as Medium of Instruction in Indonesia ANIS SUNDUSIYAH

61

viii Contents PART II

Privatization and Marketization83 5 The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities

85

QUANG CHAU AND NGUYEN KIM DUNG

6 Counting the Costs of Free Education: Shared Household and Government Costs in Cambodian Lower Secondary Education

101

ALEXANDER TOWNE

7 Neoliberalism Meets the Bumiputera Agenda: Student Debt and Higher Education in Malaysia

121

OOI KOK HIN

8 Neoliberalism and the Privatization of Higher Education in Myanmar, Pre- and Post-Coup: “A Frame Based on a Fragile Foundation”

133

ROSALIE METRO

9 Counter-Hegemonic Discourses and Responses to Neoliberal Restructuring and Neocolonial Education: A Critical Evaluation of K–12’s Development and Implementation in the Philippines

152

GERRY M. LANUZA AND DAVID MICHAEL M. SAN JUAN

PART III

Equity and Justice169 10 The Scholars: Talent Management Techniques and Gender Inequality in State-Sponsored Scholarships

171

REBECCA YE AND ERIK NYLANDER

11 Vocational Learning as Infrastructure in Vietnam

187

EVA FUHRMANN

12 Bringing Trans-Women “Back to Fitrah”: Islamic (Re) education/Rehabilitation Projects and Discourses in Malaysia GRETA TIMEA BIRO

200

Contents ix 13 Orang Asli Community Learning Centers and Indigenous Resurgence

218

RUSASLINA IDRUS AND ITA BAH NAN

14 Network of Opportunity or Network of Inequality?

231

ANALIZA LIEZL PEREZ-AMURAO

Conclusion: Re/thinking Regionally about Power and Education

252

AZMIL TAYEB, WILL BREHM, AND ROSALIE METRO

Index263

List of Illustrations

Figures 3.1 Pathways to overseas higher education 55 5.1 Bray’s dual-decentralization model in a transition economy87 6.1 The historic balance of government and household education costs106 6.2 Balance of lower secondary education financing between the government and the household (%)113 10.1 Gender composition of top-tier scholarship recipients in Singapore (1979–2018)178 10.2 Proportion of top-tier scholarship recipients by field of study and gender (1979–2018)180 10.3 Proportion of top-tier scholarship recipients by scholarship type and gender (1979–2018)181 10.4 Top-tier scholarship recipients by field of study, scholarship type and gender (1979–2018)182

Tables 1.1 List of participants16 2.1 Online data from three national newspapers from December 2019 to June 2021 (19 months): Kompas, Media Indonesia and Republika33 4.1 Sampling techniques and number of interviewees63 4.2 Interviewee profiles 64 4.3 List of documents reviewed 65 4.4 EMI policy framings 72 6.1 The Abidjan evaluation principles 103 6.2 Educational cost categories 103 6.3 Total household expenditure on education (in KHR) 111 6.4 MoEYS recurrent and capital expenditure (in million KHR) 112 9.1 Stances and analyses of different groups or blocs toward K–12 156

List of Illustrations xi 10.1 Educational fields among top-tier scholarship recipients, by gender and order of dominance (1979–2018)179 13.1 List of in-depth interviews223 14.1 A summary of hiring and recruitment qualifications based on 104 English-teaching job advertisements from eight job sites, pre-COVID period, July 2019242 14.2 A summary of hiring and recruitment qualifications based on 72 English-teaching job advertisements from eight job sites, COVID period, July 2021244

List of Contributors

Ratih D. Adiputri is a Lecturer at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland. Her areas of study are political science, development study, sustainability, and education with a specific focus on Indonesia and Southeast Asia. She is the author of two popular books in Indonesia, The Finnish Education System from an Indonesian Perspective (2019) and Learning How to Teach (2023). Greta Timea Biro is a Doctoral Candidate in the Emmy Noether Research Group, The Bureaucratization of Islam and its Socio-Legal Dimensions in Southeast Asia at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. She is also associated with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle), where she started working on her PhD project in 2017. Her areas of research interest are gender and sexuality, lived religion and self-making, bureaucratization of religion, anthropology of development, and visual anthropology. Will Brehm is an Associate Professor in Comparative and International Education at the University of Canberra, Australia. His research interests include the intersection of comparative and international education with international relations and the political economy of development, focused primarily in Southeast Asia. He is the author of Cambodia for Sale (Routledge, 2021) and co-editor, with Yuto Kitamura, of Memory in the Mekong (TC Press, 2022) and Public Policy Innovation for Human Capital Development (Routledge, 2020). Will also hosts a weekly podcast focused on new educational research called FreshEd. Quang Chau is a Faculty Member at the Department of Education Management, University of Education, Vietnam National University Hanoi. He is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of Educational Policy and Leadership, State University of New York at Albany, where he also works as a research associate at the Program for Research on Private Higher Education (PROPHE). His research interests focus on higher education governance and policy, especially the private higher education sector. He is an editorial board member of the book series, Global Realities in Private Higher Education (with Routledge), and the lead editor of the series’ volume on Asian Private Higher Education.

List of Contributors xiii Nguyen Kim Dung is a PhD candidate at the Law School – Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and is the in-house lawyer for the British University Vietnam and Apollo English Vietnam. She is also the co-chair of the Working Education Group of the Vietnam Business Forum, which contributes to the ongoing development on education policy in Vietnam. An expert in private education policy, she was invited by the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam to participate in the law-drafting committee for the 2018 Amended Higher Education Law. Eva Fuhrmann received her PhD in Southeast Asia Studies at the University of Bonn. She is currently a research associate at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Her current research focuses on gender, work, and learning in Vietnam. Ooi Kok Hin is the executive director of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih). With over eight years of experience in think tank and civil society advocacy, he has written on electoral and party competitions, social movements, identity politics in plural societies and various public policy issues. He studied political science at The Ohio State University (USA) and Waseda University (Japan). Most recently, he is the editor of the book, Making Democracy Work: Institutional Reforms for Malaysia (SIRD, 2022). Saw Than Min Htun is a Development Practitioner focusing on education in the context of Myanmar and ethnic minorities. He is a Program Manager of the Community Leadership & Research Institute, an institution of higher learning affiliated with Thabyay Education Foundation based in Myanmar, and he holds a Master of Arts in International Development Studies (MAIDS) from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. Rusaslina Idrus is a Social Anthropologist who has been conducting research on Orang Asli issues for close to two decades. She is a Senior Lecturer at the Gender Studies Programme, Faculty of Art and Social Sciences, and an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Malaysian Indigenous Studies, Universiti Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Gerry M. Lanuza is a Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is also a Fellow at the Center for International Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman, and at the College of Education, University of the Philippines, Diliman. He is the former Chair of Congress of Teachers/Educators for Nationalism and Democracy. He is currently a member of Alliance of Concerned Teachers and All University of the Philippine Academic Employees Union. Rosalie Metro is an Associate Teaching Professor in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia. As an anthropologist of education, she is interested in the conflicts that arise

xiv  List of Contributors around history, identity, and language in the classroom. She holds a PhD in Learning, Teaching, and Social Policy from Cornell University, and she has been studying education in Myanmar and working with teachers on the Thai border since 2001. Sofie Mortensen is a PhD candidate at the Section for Global Development, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen. She has a background in development studies and has done research on environmental and development issues in the Southeast Asia region since 2017. She currently focuses on emotional aspects of youth migration and exploitation, and how it connects to agrarian change in the Thai-Myanmar context. Ita Bah Nan is a Semai Orang Asli educator and activist based in Perak. She is a Community Development Manager at Malaysia Care, a faith-based organization, where she has worked for eight years. She is also a teacher at PDK Deek Penaniy at Ladang Care and oversees six other PDKs in Pahang and Perak. She has a degree in Public Management (majoring in public policy) from Universiti Utara Malaysia. Erik Nylander is an Associate Professor at the Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning, Linköping University, and previously was the NTUWallenberg Fellow at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He has published on jazz auditioning, folk high schools, bibliometrics, and the sociology of elites. Analiza Liezl Perez-Amurao is involved in both applied linguistics and linguistic anthropology, among others, having received the Linguistic Society of the Philippines’ 2020 Bonifacio P. Sibayan Distinguished Professorial Chair in Applied Linguistics for her work in said fields. She is currently an Assistant Professor and serves as Chair of Mahidol University International College’s Humanities and Language Division, Thailand. She serves as a regional advisory board member for SOAS GLOCAL, University of London. David Michael M. San Juan is a Professor at the Department of Filipino/ Philippine Studies of De La Salle University-Manila (DLSU-Manila) and a Fellow at the Southeast Asia Research Center and Hub (SEARCH) at the same university. He is also the President of Pambansang Samahan sa Linggwistika at Literaturang Filipino/National Organization of Filipino Linguistics and Literature (PSLLF) and one of the lead conveners of Alyansa ng Mga Tagapagtanggol ng Wikang Filipino/Alliance of the Defenders of the Filipino Language (Tanggol Wika). Anis Sundusiyah is a Professor in TESOL, international education, and language policy. She works at the ELT Department, Walisongo University, Indonesia. She manages the working group of language policies in education, hosted by the Institute for International Studies in Education at the University of Pittsburgh.

List of Contributors xv Azmil Tayeb is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia. He is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore and an Adjunct Professor at the Universitas Negeri Malang in East Java, Indonesia. He has done extensive research on political Islam, social movements and local government politics in Malaysia and Indonesia. He is the author of Islamic Education in Indonesia and Malaysia: Shaping Minds, Saving Souls (Routledge, 2018). Alexander Towne is an education researcher and policy practitioner. After a number of years teaching in Southeast Asia, he obtained a Master’s in Educational Planning, Economics, and International Development at the Institute of Education, University College London. Thornchanok Uerpairojkit is a PhD Candidate at the School of Education, Communication and Society, King’s College London. Her doctoral research investigates the nature of policy processes in Thailand’s education system and the disengagement of teachers from these processes. Thornchanok has also published work on Thailand across topics of democratic education, higher education students, international students, and academic migration. Rebecca Ye is an Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Stockholm University. She teaches on the international and comparative education program at the department. Her research focuses on what goes on at the intersection of education and labor markets, paying special attention to vocations, trajectories, and temporality.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment to “Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia for Fundamental Research Grant Scheme with Project Code: FRGS/1/2020/SS0/ USM/02/15” and “Universiti Sains Malaysia Short Term Grant, 304/ PSOSIAL/6315357”.

Introduction Exploring Power Dynamics in Education across Southeast Asia Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm, and Azmil Tayeb

Education and power are inexorably intertwined. Education may empower individuals to think critically and solve problems. Learning in and beyond the school has the potential to open new vistas of social imagination where one’s capabilities are nurtured, practiced, and perfected (Greene, 2000). As a social process, education can prepare children (and adults) not only to be active contributors to society but also to actively remake it (Dewey, 1916). While the outcomes of education are always uncertain (Vavrus, 2021), powerful elites are often optimistic about their ability to use schooling to instill certain ideas across populations (UNESCO MGIEP, 2017). Contestation over who controls schools, the main institution of education, and what is taught is therefore inevitable. Various actors have used education as a means to perpetuate their interests, be it in an inclusive manner that promotes diversity and the voices of the subaltern or in an exclusive way that marginalizes groups that do not conform to the dominant political and cultural norms. Elite interests have been mostly organized at the nation-state level, but regional and global institutions have added additional layers where myriad actors shape education policy and practice in complex and contradictory ways (Brehm & Kitamura, 2022). In many respects, the power of education makes it a central concern of the powerful. Southeast Asia is a fascinating backdrop against which to observe the interplay between education and power. The region is politically, socially, culturally, religiously, historically, and economically diverse. It is home to many world religions, animistic beliefs, and numerous ethno-linguistic groups, largely owing to the region’s strategic position on water and land trade routes. Historically, Southeast Asia has seen colonial expeditions of the French, British, and Japanese, and imperial conquests by various kingdoms in present-day China and India, as well as by the United States more recently. James Scott (2009) details the way in which the region was the “last enclosure” (p. 4) of the modern state. Many peripheral parts of the region “became a zone of refuge or ‘shatter zone,’ where the human shards of state formation and rivalry accumulated willy nilly, creating regions of DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-1

2  Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm, and Azmil Tayeb bewildering ethnic and linguistic complexity” (p. 7). Some of these non-state practices within and across ethnic minorities continue into the present, creating power dynamics worthy of exploration within contemporary education systems. Put differently: education systems can reveal both contemporary and historic power dynamics. The political and economic systems in Southeast Asia are also diverse. The countries in the region range from near consolidated democracy in Indonesia to illiberal democracy in Singapore to a weak autocratic regime in Thailand to a military dictatorship in Myanmar (Marshall & ElzingaMarshall, 2016). Economically, these relatively new nation-states have seen some of the fastest growth worldwide in recent decades but often distributed unevenly both within and across nation-states. These politicaleconomic dynamics create a wide range of educational possibilities, from world-class universities in Singapore to impoverished school systems in rural Myanmar. The region is also more than its parts. Given its diversity – or because of it – Southeast Asia is, as Amitav Acharya (2012) argues, a “fluid and uncertain [construct]” (p. 31) that is ever-changing yet irreducible to individual nation-states. Understanding the ways in which the region is constructed through education – and the regional institutions that focus on education such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SAMEO), the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework, among others – offers a window into the internal power dynamics of the region (see, for example, the recent co-edited collection Brehm & Kitamura, 2022). In this sense, education generally and schooling in particular contribute to the socialization of people within both the imagined concepts of the nation-state and the region, a point to which we will return in our Conclusion chapter. Studying the power dynamics within education is therefore an excellent entry point to understand the competing discourses over the meaning of nationalism and regionalism. On top of these internal dynamics to the region, the education sectors across Southeast Asia have been impacted by the forces of globalization and neoliberalization experienced in other parts of the world, including the resultant inequalities. Although access to education has increased in recent decades across most of the region, there is a noticeable gap, especially in higher education, among socio-economic classes: children from wealthier families are more likely to attend higher levels of schooling. Beyond intrastate inequality, there is an inter-state gap as well. For instance, using UNDP’s data, David Hutt (2019) reports, “Cambodian men [in 2017] … have 12.2 expected years of schooling …. By comparison, Thai men can expect 2.3 more years, and Singaporeans 3.8 more years, of schooling.” On top of this, although the right to public education is enshrined in many of the constitutions across the regions, privatization has emerged as a persistent and growing phenomenon (e.g., Brehm, 2021). The idea of education

Introduction  3 as a public good – introduced in some societies and never fully enacted in others – is slowly eroding. It is the aim of this edited volume to look at how countries in Southeast Asia respond to the aforementioned endogenous and exogenous influences in shaping their education systems, in a way that is eminently accessible to both specialists and educational policymakers, education, students, and activities. Major themes Since the topic of education and power is broad and multifaceted, and especially because of the rich diversity within Southeast Asia, we have decided to focus on the ways in which education (broadly defined) has been instrumentalized by state, non-state, and private actors. The book asks four overarching questions that tie together the 14 chapters: (1) What educational practices have resulted from the domestic and regional competition among the many actors (both domestically and regionally) and histories (from religious and colonial to independence and contemporary) in the region? (2) How has educational governance been altered because of these actors and histories? (3) In what ways are changes in educational systems reflective of the larger political economy and power relations of the region or globe? and (4) What educational outcomes result from such configurations of these dynamics? These overarching questions begin to showcase some of the main power dynamics within contemporary education in Southeast Asia. We will return to these questions in the volume’s Conclusion chapter. We organized the 14 chapters into three major themes, each of which is separated into its own part of the book: Centralization and Decentralization (Part I); Privatization and Marketization (Part II); and Equity and Justice (Part III). Although these themes blend into one another, artificially separating them enables us to see trends across countries. They allow us to see Southeast Asia as a region rather than as a collection of specific countries. By way of introduction, these themes can be understood in the following terms: Centralization and decentralization: investigations on the motivations for and effects of the concentration or deconcentration of educational control by the state, which groups are affected, and to what ends. This includes issues concerning how national, transnational, and subnational groups promote their interests through education, how they compete and cooperate, who are the various groups targeted by these national, transnational, and subnational educational endeavors, and to what effect. Privatization and marketization: explorations on the debate concerning the idea of education as private and/or public good, particularly in light of the neoliberalization of education systems worldwide and within the

4  Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm, and Azmil Tayeb region; the emerging practice of a parallel shadow education system; and the impact these trends have on states. Equity and justice: focuses on the ways education promotes equity and justice or perpetuates inequality and injustice within and across social groups, with special concern for differences by gender, gender and sexual identity, religion, ethnicity, and disability, and how this inclusion and exclusion are carried out by competing actors. Across these themes, additional issues are addressed by the various chapters. These include discussions over which educational practices are considered “traditional” or “modern,” why, and how has history shaped these conceptions, who are the ones advancing these different approaches to education, and in what ways conceptions of tradition and modernity are used to assign value to educational practices and to what effect. Additionally, interrogations over the extent to which education systems are reliant on development aid, the history of development in the region, and its impact on domestic individuals and institutions are also detailed in select chapters. Why this book? Our book joins several other volumes that examine education in Southeast Asia. Lorraine Pe Symaco and Martin Hayden’s (2021) “International Handbook on Education in Southeast Asia” offers a primer on different types of national education in Southeast Asia but does not delve deeply into specific educational issues that confront these Southeast Asian countries. Other titles focus on specific educational themes in Southeast Asia, such as how post-colonial governments in Southeast Asia have used the education system as part of their nation-building project. This is the main focus of two books: Southeast Asian Education in Modern History: Schools, Manipulation, and Contest, edited by Pia Jolliffe and Thomas Bruce (2021), which has a historical focus, and Equity, Opportunity and Education in Postcolonial Southeast Asia, edited by Cynthia Joseph and Julie Matthews (2014), which covers more the more recent past. Education and Globalization in Southeast Asia: Issues and Challenges edited by Lee Hock Guan (2017), on the other hand, focuses on the ways that forces of globalization and neoliberalization have been changing the educational landscape in the region through, among others, growth of private education and the emphasis on English language education. What these books share in common is their focus on a specific theme, be it education system as part of the nation-building project or education system swept up in the wave of globalization and neoliberalization. While acknowledging the valuable contributions these volumes have made, in this book, we have tried to cover multiple themes without sacrificing the analytical depth and the all-important nuances that country-based

Introduction  5 case studies can offer. Power, which is the major thrust of the book, provides the thread that ties disparate themes into a cohesive body of work. By placing the discussion of power relations and its actors at the forefront, our book establishes an overarching structure that supports uniformity across themes such as privatization and neoliberalization, center-periphery relations, and grassroots movements for alternative education systems, as these themes often involve similar actors and state-society power dynamics. A focus on power relations not only allows us to bind all educational themes together but also to incorporate both top-down and bottom-up approaches in many of the case studies. Education is typically seen as a product of top-down, elite-driven process, but this book also illustrates examples of bottom-up mobilization to counter the state-centered policy-making, such as indigenous education and grassroots pushback against neoliberal education policies in the Philippines. Another important aspect of this book is that our contributors are mostly local scholars who are either based in Southeast Asia or originated from the region. These local scholars are highly attuned to the pulse at the societal level and possess a fine-tuned and empathic understanding of the themes covered by the book. Many of them are also early-career scholars with fresh outlook on the themes and creative ways of writing about them. The book thus serves as a platform for these young scholars to share their illuminating work with the global academic community. We are excited to share with readers this groundbreaking research by upcoming Southeast Asian scholars and others who are expanding the field with new approaches. Convergence and divergence in Southeast Asia and its scholarship As we consider the chapters in this volume, we see both convergence and divergence in the region and the approaches scholars take to studying it. Most obviously, many chapters refer to histories of colonization and the sometimes forgotten colonial roots of current educational practices. For instance, Eva Fuhrmann, in her chapter “Vocational Learning as Infrastructure in Vietnam,” reminds us that formal vocational education was initially a project of the colonial state, designed to meet its own needs for workers. It is equally important to remember that although colonizers often formalized educational practices, rich educational traditions predate colonization – for instance, systems of apprenticeship that facilitated the transfer of skills not only from one generation to the next, but also from one political center to another, via forced migration and slavery (Beemer, 2009). Similarly, Greta Biro’s groundbreaking chapter “Bringing Trans-Women “Back to Fitrah”: Islamic (Re)education/Rehabilitation Projects and Discourses in Malaysia,” names both indigenous traditions of what we might today be called “transgender” identity, as well as the British colonial

6  Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm, and Azmil Tayeb endorsement of sharia law which officially excluded people who blurred gender boundaries. In this volume, we see scholars and educators struggling with legacies of colonialism, reaching for what existed prior to them, and trying to locate post-colonial realities, given the globalized world we occupy. We see the influence of the global context throughout this book, whether we are observing the influence of COVID-19 in Analiza Liezl Perez-Amurao’s chapter “Network of Opportunity or Network of Inequality?” or noticing the trend toward global rejection of inequitable financial structures in Ooi Kok Hin’s chapter “Neoliberalism Meets the Bumiputera Agenda: Student Debt and Higher Education in Malaysia.” We see many authors in this volume noting the particularity of the local. For instance, Thornchanok Uerparojkit’s chapter “Mechanisms of Disempowerment: Interrogating Cultural Logics Producing the “Tiny Teacher” in Thailand’s Education System” presents a careful ethnographic account underscoring the unique cultural, historical, and political factors that influence the status of educators. Moreover, what at first glance appears to be homogenizing global forces can reveal particular local projects. Ratih Adiputri’s chapter “The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia: PISA Test, Different Conceptions of National Assessment and the Policymaking Process” shows that the adoption of this international test did not indicate, as one might assume, a simple case of policy borrowing (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014), but rather “a domestic move to modernize the education assessment system according to global standards.” Indeed, many chapters investigate the complex interplay between international, regional, and local discourses. For instance, Greta Biro’s participant observation of a reeducation program for transgender people is situated in a context of broader global and regional recognition for transgender people and others identifying as LGBTQ, but it is difficult to imagine the scenes she describes playing out in exactly that way anywhere but the Muslim-majority country of Malaysia. The structure of this book invites readers to make intra-national comparisons, observing how multiple educational trends and phenomena coexist in one country. For instance, we see the complex interplay of local and global forces on education in Indonesia in Ratih Adiputri’s chapter on the PISA test, and in Anis Sundusiyah’s chapter on English as a medium of instruction. Or we can consider how the status of Thai and non-Thai teachers differs by reading Thornchanok Uerparojkit’s and Analiza Liezl Perez-Amurao’s chapters. We can also bring our focus back to the regional level by making crossnational comparisons. We can analyze how private higher education impacts the public sector in Vietnam and Myanmar by reading across Quang Chau and Kim-Dung Nguyen’s chapter “The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities,” and Rosalie Metro’s chapter “Neoliberalism and the Privatization of Higher Education in Myanmar, Pre- and Post-Coup: “A Frame Based on a Fragile Foundation.”” Or we can compare the impact

Introduction  7 of gender discrimination in Singaporean education with ethno-linguistic discrimination in Myanmar education by reading Rebecca Ye and Erik Nylander’s chapter “The Scholars: Talent Management Techniques and Gender Inequality in State-Sponsored Scholarships” alongside Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen’s chapter “Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority: The Case of Karen Students in the KNU-­Controlled Areas in Myanmar.” We can consider the financing of education, from primary school to higher education, by reading Alexander Towne’s chapter “Counting the Costs of Free Education: Shared Household and Government Costs in Cambodian Lower Secondary Education” alongside Ooi Kok Hin’s chapter on student debt in Malaysia. These cross-national comparisons construct meanings of Southeast Asia and highlight particular power dynamics that cut across countries. Besides these subject-specific comparisons, we can also learn how scholars are researching Southeast Asian education in the 21st century. What theories and methods are they using? The 20th-century critical theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu come up often (Ye, Ooi Kok Hin), as do decolonial theories such as Walter Mignolo’s (Idrus and Nan). Contemporary scholars of comparative and international education such as Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Adiputri, Metro) are mentioned frequently, as are theorists on neoliberalism, including Aihwha Ong (Ooi Kok Hin). Here we see the power of ideas shaping the way in which the scholarly literature presented in this book understands contemporary education in Southeast Asia. In terms of methods, we see multiple chapters using discourse analysis (Metro, Perez-Amurao), some using quantitative analysis (Towne), and many using ethnographic methods (Thornchanok, Biro). We also see specific attempts to negotiate the complex ethical environment in which researchers find themselves, another form of power relation. For instance, Greta Biro espouses “decolonizing ethnography” in her chapter on transgender people in Malaysia, a topic certainly requiring a nuanced approach. Ita Bah Nan and Rusaslina Idrus describe their collaboration as an indigenous Orang Asli activist and educator, and a non-indigenous “longtime ally” located in the Malaysian academy. Indeed, we find several collaborations between scholars from different backgrounds, including Karen scholar Saw Than Min Htun and Denmark-based Sofie Mortensen. These generative collaborations allow knowledge from multiple perspectives to be presented. We also see scholars struggling with how to conduct research ethically under authoritarian regimes. Lee Morgenbesser and Meredith Weiss (2018) have explained that many field research methods assume a democratic environment, which does not obtain in many Southeast Asian countries (debatably, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Indonesia). These concerns are most evident in the chapters on Myanmar, given its 2021 military coup. Rosalie Metro makes the decision to work with digitally published sources rather than conduct interviews, given

8  Rosalie Metro, Will Brehm, and Azmil Tayeb security concerns for people in Myanmar. Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen have participants check interview transcripts for any potentially identifying details that could endanger them. Given the frequency and durability of authoritarianism in Southeast Asia, it is clear that research in these contexts cannot and should not stop, as insights produced may contribute to amelioration of the suffering that misrule can cause – but it is also apparent that ethics must be at the forefront of any research endeavor in such circumstances. Therefore, there are multiple ways to read this book – when seeking guidance for conducting research, as an expert in a certain country or topic, or simply to gain a broad view of current research on education in contemporary Southeast Asia that pays close attention to issues of power. Given the wide audience we hope this book will reach, readers are sure to find their own ways of connecting the themes and arguments they discover. Conclusion The nexus of education and power is not straightforward in any location. The meaning of education is as diverse as the meaning of power. It is their intersection and interplay that fascinates us, especially when thinking through an entire region. In this edited volume, we have taken broad understandings of both terms to include the rich diversity of experiences and practices across Southeast Asia. We see that education is not only formal schooling but also shadow and non-formal practices that cut across generations. We see that power is not only about certain actors coercing others but also about manufacturing consent through material and discursive means that span the globe (and global institutions). Through this process, we begin to see the ways in which the struggle over education socially constructs the meaning of the region, issues which we will return to in the Conclusion of the volume. The next three parts present 14 chapters that can be read individually, comparatively, and/or collectively. We invite readers to engage in the content based on their interests, picking and choosing chapters at will. Nevertheless, we have curated the parts and the chapters in an order that we think highlights some of the larger regional issues of power and education. For those readers who read the volume cover-to-cover, Part I on centralization and decentralization offers contemporary insights into processes that have existed for a long time in education worldwide. The struggle over if and how to decentralize is a site for crucial insights into the nexus of power and education. In Part II, we move to a more recent issue around the privatization and marketization of education. Here we see direct challenges to state-provided education in a variety of forms. Finally in Part III, we shift the analysis to more inspiring cases focused on equity and justice, topics often underrepresented in the region. The diversity of experiences in this part points toward futures where the power of education is inclusive and imaginative.

Introduction  9 Here, the meanings of Southeast Asia are open to new interpretations, based on a reconfigured set of power relations and educational practices. Southeast Asia, although shaped by colonial forces and post-colonial imperialism, is reinventing itself through education. References Acharya, A. (2012). The Making of Southeast Asia: International Relations of a Region. New York: Cornell University Press. Beemer, B. (2009). Southeast Asian slavery and slave-gathering warfare as a vector for cultural transmission: The case of Burma and Thailand. The Historian, 71(3), 481–506. Brehm, W. (2021). Cambodia for Sale: Everyday Privatization in Education and Beyond. London: Routledge. Brehm, W., & Kitamura, Y. (Eds). (2022). Memory in the Mekong: Regional Identity, Schools, and Politics in Southeast Asia. New York: Teacher College Press. Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. New York: The Macmillan Company. Greene, M. (2000). Releasing the Imagination: Essays on Education, the Arts, and Social Change. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Hutt, D. (2019, October 10). Confronting Southeast Asia’s big education challenge. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2019/10/confronting-southeastasias-big-education-challenge/ Marshall, M.G., & Elzinga-Marshall, G. (2016). State fragility index and matrix. http://www.systemicpeace.org/inscr/SFImatrix2016c.pdf Morgenbesser, L., & Weiss, M. (2018). Survive and thrive: Field research in authoritarian Southeast Asia. Asian Studies Review, 42(3), 385–403. Scott, J.C. (2009). The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2014). Cross-national policy borrowing: Understanding reception and translation. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 153–67. UNESCO MGIEP (Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development). (2017). Rethinking Schooling for the 21st Century: The State of Education for Peace, Sustainable Development, and Global Citizenship in Asia. New Delhi: UNESCO MGIEP. Vavrus, F. (2021). Schooling as Uncertainty: An Ethnographic Memoir in Comparative Education. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Part I

Centralization and Decentralization

1

Mechanisms of Disempowerment Interrogating Cultural Logics Producing the “Tiny Teacher” in Thailand’s Education System Thornchanok Uerpairojkit

Introduction In many Asian societies, the teacher is traditionally a highly respected figure who not only delivers curricular knowledge but also imparts wisdom (Ma Rhea, 2017), molds values (Shah, 2020), and continues the thread of sacred knowledge carrying the cultural roots of their society (Giordano, 2011). Over the past few decades, however, this status has become threatened by the increased policy and societal demand on the profession, against the backdrop of intensified focus on education and human capital in policy discourse at national and global levels (Kennedy, 1998). Operating under what has been observed as the “Asian Way” in educational reform, where change tends to be driven from the very top levels of “highly centralized administrative structures” (Hallinger, 2010, p. 402), teachers have found their roles and subjectivity increasingly defined, and constrained, by others further away from their classrooms. This has been shown to have important consequences for their professional agency, morale, and motivation. In Singapore, for example, Teng and colleagues (2020) have demonstrated how the “decentralized centralism” and neoliberal turn in education policy have produced “climates of conservatism and censorship” at the expense of trust in teachers and their professionalism. Similarly, in Hong Kong, where managerialist reforms have not only intensified administrative work in schools but also hierarchies in school administrative structures, teachers have reported feeling excluded and ignored in their schools’ decision-making processes (Tsang, 2019; Tsang & Liu, 2016). These experiences of disempowerment have also been shown to resonate among teachers in Timor-Leste, who have expressed concerns about not feeling understood or recognized by the Education Ministry (Quinn & Buchanan, 2022), and in Indonesia where, during the New Order period, authoritarian sanctions on civil society significantly constrained teachers’ political activism with regard to contesting teacher management reforms (Rosser & Fahmi, 2018). Like many other countries in the region, Thailand’s ongoing education reform has been characterized as taking the form of top-down processes of change within a large and hierarchical system (Hallinger, 2010). Teachers, as DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-3

14  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit the closest stakeholder to students’ learning and development, have found themselves increasingly subject to numerous policy directives and administrative micromanagement, complying against their own judgment and at the expense of students’ and their own interests. At the same time, they have not been positioned as equal partners or initiators within the change process, nor consulted for context-sensitive policy formulation and implementation (Hallinger, 2010). This stands in stark contrast with traditional conceptualizations depicting teachers as highly respected figures, not only within educational settings but also within wider society, and previous research has surfaced teacher accounts of disappointment, exhaustion, and powerlessness in light of this disjuncture (Uerpairojkit, 2016). Against the backdrop of a heightened “crisis” discourse in education, where teachers have been identified as crucial to education reform success (World Bank, 2018), how the figure of the powerless teacher is constructed, embodied, and reinforced warrants critical attention. This chapter has emerged from ethnographic interviews conducted with teachers, as part of a wider research project that is investigating mechanisms of policy-practice disengagement in the policy processes of Thailand’s basic education system by inquiring into the perspectives of a range of policy actors. The chapter will first introduce the method and theory used for gathering and analyzing the data and provide a brief overview of Thailand’s education system, its teaching profession, and relevant cultural contexts. The findings section will then present two main concepts that have emerged from the data, which function to impose unrealistic expectations on teachers while also subjecting them to the authority of all other policy actors throughout the education system. The chapter will then conclude with a discussion of how the figure of the “tiny teacher,” which was present in all interviews, is discursively produced and enacted; what this means for education policy, practice, and research; and what might be possible ways of interrupting this cycle. Method and theory Method

Data has been gathered via semi-structured ethnographic interviews (Spradley, 1979) with teachers from public secondary schools administered by the Thai Ministry of Education, which oversees the majority of educational provision in Thailand. The interviews were conducted in Thai (both the participants’ and researcher’s native language) and ranged from one-to-two hours in duration. The participants answered questions relating to their professional identity and experience, as well as their perspectives on education policy processes and teachers’ roles within them. For the purposes of this chapter, seven interviews have been selected out of a larger data set (17) to enable deeper engagement with the data. These are selected for maximal

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  15 variation (Flick, 2009), with regard to, for example, gender, age, subjects taught, professional experience, geographical context, school size, and school status (see Table 1.1). Although generalizability and representativeness are not the aims of the research, the themes surfaced from this selection are generally represented in the rest of the interviews. Data analysis is informed by a critical policy sociology lens, which recognizes “policy as politics” and pays attention to the influence of context on policy work (Ozga, 2019), and a people-centered policy ethnography approach, which seeks to understand “how people experience policies they are subjected to” (Dubois, 2015, p. 468). A grounded approach (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) was employed in analyzing the interview transcripts, which were coded inductively for accounts of:

• • • • • •

teachers’ lived experiences; their subjectivity and sense of professional agency; their understanding of teaching as a profession in Thailand; their perception of school work and policy work; their relationship with the other actors within the education system; and their feeling toward teachers’ roles in education policy processes.

The transcripts were analyzed in Thai in order to preserve as much linguistic and cultural meaning as possible and only translated into English for the presentation of the findings. Theory

This chapter employs Peter Jackson’s (2004) notion of the “regime of images” as a form of Thai power to interpret the mechanisms through which the figure of the powerless teacher is constructed, embodied, and reinforced in Thailand. Jackson describes Thai cultural logic as divided into the public and the private spheres of life, “without cultural pressure to resolve or rationalize any inconsistencies between these two domains” (Jackson, 2004, p. 183). The public domain is heavily surveilled “in an intense concern to monitor and police surface effects, images, public behaviors, and representations” (Jackson, 2004, p. 181), while the private domain is left relatively autonomous. This suggests that, on the one hand, the individual is allowed a sense of freedom or agency to maintain and enact their own values or beliefs in private, as surveillance of conduct is limited to outside of the personal. On the other hand, the individual is also obligated to publicly conform to societal norms and expectations, and breaking the smooth surface of the public domain can carry a heavy toll. Visible displays of difference, disagreement, defiance, opposition, and resistance are, therefore, socially discouraged and not easily tolerated. This is related to the cultural importance of collectivism, conservatism, social harmony, and “face,” as will be explored in the following section.

Namea

Sex/sexualityb

Age range Main subject

School location

School size

School statusc

Yearsd at current school

Yearsd as teacher

Tanawat Anupong Pattama Pisit Pitchaya Chanon Sujittra

Male/hetero Male/LGBT Female/hetero Male/LGBT Female/hetero Male/hetero Female/hetero

20–30 20–30 40–50 20–30 20–30 30–40 50–60

Bangkok; city Bangkok; city North; urban Northeast; rural Bangkok; city Northeast; rural South; urban

1200 2000 1200 400 4000 800 3600

— Top 50 District schoole District school Leading District school Regional top school

5 3 5 5 N/Af 5 23

5 3 15 5 3 5 30

Social studies Thai language English language English language Finance Math Chemistry

All but one participant names are pseudonyms. The first participant, Tanawat, is an activist teacher who preferred to be identified. Categories and the categorization of sex, gender, and sexual identities in Thai culture are different from those in Western understandings. For a closer examination, see Ojanen et al. (2019). c Identified by the participants. d At the time of the interview. e District Schools are the main schools recognized as top quality within the District. Other similar titles include Sub-District Schools (smaller level) and Provincial Schools (larger level). f The teacher had left her job. a

b

16  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit

Table 1.1  List of participants

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  17 At the societal level, this intense focus on public image, or pâap-lák (ภาพลักษณ์), also means that certain representations of “truth” or “reality” are favorable, while others are “kept hidden and [need] to stay unseen” (Bolotta, 2021, p. 5). These shadows of social reality, variously identified as “discursive voids” (Jackson, 2004) and “invisible worldings” (Bolotta, 2021), are contextsensitive and maintained not only through continuous monitoring and occasional action by “key mechanisms of political power and legal authority […] of the contemporary discursive regime” (Jackson, 2004, p. 194), but also via a collective understanding and careful balancing by all parties between what needs to be visible or invisible, spoken or silenced, in a “performative orchestration” of public representations (Bolotta, 2021). This suggests an agentic element to this mode of power, which interplays with, reproduces, and is also governed by, dominant constructions of appropriate representations of society. In addition, this demarcation between society’s “frontstage” and “backstage” (Goffman, 1956) also means that what is perceived as a “lie” behind the curtain may be reconstructed and maintained as “truth” in the public domain, as is argued to be the case with “fake” ID cards in Bolotta’s (2021) work on the “utterable and unutterable realities” of migrant rights in Thailand’s fishing industry. As will be discussed in the findings, some similarities may also be drawn with the blurred boundaries between “fake” and “real” reporting of school data in the realm of Thailand’s education system, which teachers have reflected feeling conflicted about, but also compelled to comply with. Jackson’s theory of the “regime of images” may be contrasted with the Foucauldian conceptualization of biopower, which has been widely used to help make sense of how neoliberal education reforms govern teachers’ individual conduct (see for example: Ball, 2003; Gewirtz et al., 2009; Holloway & Brass, 2017; Perryman et al., 2017). Through governmentality as a technique of the self, individuals enjoy certain freedoms devolved from the government and exercise those autonomies within contexts shaped to induce desired outcomes (Rose, 1999). This concept of biopower, where individuals are encouraged to self-regulate and self-govern in particular directions, resonates with how the regime of images governs the behavior of individuals within Thai society. However, given the “sharp demarcations between visible, obsessively policed, public domains and invisible, relatively unchecked, private spheres” (Bolotta, 2021, p. 3), what the regime of images actually governs remains limited to behavior displayed in the public domain. As Jackson (2004) argues, this Thai form of biopower “operates laterally across surfaces rather than vertically in the panoptic or ‘all-seeing’ mode” (p. 182), which in turn means that governmentality and performativity are also enacted by the subjects of power only at the representational level. This leaves space for “great social depth underneath [the] surface” (Bolotta, 2021, p. 3) where divergent thinking is kept silent, unofficial negotiations are hushed, and forbidden practices are concealed.

18  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit Context The basic education system in Thailand

Over the past few decades, Thailand’s basic education system has been in a deep state of “quality crisis.” From the early 1990s, Thai policymakers and researchers have argued that there is an urgent need for more competitive human capital (NESDB, 1991), with education being identified as the most important tool for achieving this goal. Following the Asian economic crisis in 1997, the Thai government mandated system-wide education reforms via the National Education Act B.E. 2542 (1999). These included standardizing the national curriculum, revising professional training and the teacher certification system, introducing accountability and quality assurance measures for educational institutions, and decentralizing and restructuring educational administration across the system (Pongwat & Mounier, 2010). Much of these reforms had its roots in neoliberal policy approaches of the Global North. In part this not only reflected Thailand’s active engagement in policy borrowing from other education systems (Fry & Bi, 2013), but it was also a corollary of Thailand needing to fulfill the conditions of World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) economic rescue packages (Burford & Mulya, 2019). These reforms continue to the present, punctuated by discontinuous education policy initiatives and complicated by policy hyperactivity emanating from political instability and frequent leadership changes within the Ministry of Education (Fry, 2018). Indeed, between 2001 and 2022, Thailand has had 21 Education Ministers, averaging only 12 months in office per Minister. Despite various attempts at decentralization, scholars have noted the highly centralized and hierarchical nature of Thailand’s education system and how it operates (see for example: Hallinger, 2010). Situated in a hierarchical society (discussed below), this is combined with a cultural association of seniority with authority (Kanjananiyot & Chaitiamwong, 2018), which leads to “participants at all levels [assuming] that orders from above are orders for all concerned and should be followed accordingly” (Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001, p. 388). Indeed, it is normative for policies to be “ordered” or “mandated” by senior figures from within the Ministry, with lower level policy actors, such as those working in education service areas (ESAs) and schools, expected to realize such changes. In such a centralized system, teachers, as practice-level enactors of education policy, therefore rarely have their perspectives or experience consulted in policy decision-making (Fry, 2018). They are nevertheless subjected to policy hyperactivity and administrative micromanagement, resulting from the frequent changes in policy leadership and a bureaucratic culture in educational governance. Previous research on this topic has surfaced accounts of disappointment, frustration, anger, and exhaustion among teachers (Uerpairojkit, 2016).

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  19 The teaching profession in Thailand

In contrast to the powerless practitioner, teaching is a highly respected profession in traditional Thai culture. This can be seen in various constructions of teacher identity which circulate in everyday discourse, as well as in discourses of teacher education and ceremonial occasions. These include the teacher as the third parent/benefactor, as the mold of the nation, as a venerable person, as a sacrificial and dedicated individual, and as the light shining the way (Chantapisit, 2021; Chumjit, 2015). These figures share many similarities with the Confucian conceptualization of the teacher as a moral exemplar, or jūnzǐ, which depicts teachers as being “in loco parentis, […] not only responsible for the teaching of a particular subject, but also act[ing] by virtue of her relationship [with students] as a moral role model” (Shah, 2020, p. 33, original emphasis). The cultural roots of the concept of the teacher in Thailand also lend to a construction of teachers as taking on the heavy responsibility—indeed, the linguistic root of the word Kroo (teacher) translates to “heavy”—of bearing sacred knowledge, continuing its thread, and grooming as well as protecting its recipient: the student. As Giordano (2011) explains, “knowledge itself is something that possesses a weight that transcends the roles of those who transmit it. When one considers the debt and responsibility, it is almost impossible to repay, one can only participate in its flow” (p. 127). The teacher-student relationship is therefore traditionally conceptualized as one of honor, respect, and responsibility, and the appreciation and moral indebtedness that students carry with them is, in turn, demonstrated through the annual Wâai Kroo (ไหว้ครู: pay respect to teachers) ceremony in Thai educational institutions. As the interview data in this study will illustrate, these traditional ideas continue to inform teachers’ professional identity in contemporary Thailand and are broadly referred to as kwaam bpen kroo (ความเป็นครู: “teachership”1). At the same time, education is a public service. Therefore, teachers working in government schools are also government officials (kâa râat-chá-gaan: ข้าราชการ) and part of the civil service, with the vast majority working under the administration of the Ministry of Education. Through decentralization,2 these responsibilities have been delegated to middle-level administrative bodies of ESAs and Provincial Education Committees (PECs),3 who in turn oversee the work of school directors at the institutional level. This means that teachers, as they are situated within the administrative structure of the education system, report to school directors, ESAs/PECs, relevant departments within the Ministry of Education, and ultimately the Minister of Education. In this respect, a possible reading of teachers’ role within the education system is that they operate as street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 1980) of the Ministry of Education, who enjoy a level of discretion and autonomy in their interpretation and enactment of education policies. Another possible reading, and one put forward by Montri Jenwitkarn (1985) writing about teachers’ political activism in 1980s Thailand, is that teachers operate as the “clientele”

20  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Interior who compete to secure teachers’ loyalty and to exert authority over the administration of schools. However, as with the rest of the civil service, in legal terms,4 the structural hierarchy and cascading supervisorial relations are represented as those between pôo bang-káp ban-chaa (ผู้บังคับบัญชา: commander, chief, director) and pôo dtâi bang-káp ban-chaa (ผู้ใต้บังคับบัญชา: subordinate), terminology also used within the military and police force. As will be demonstrated in the findings section below, this latter conceptualization appears most dominant and informs how teachers in this study understand their roles, subjectivities and (lack of) power within the education system. Teaching as an occupation became formally professionalized following the 1999 National Education Act, with the establishment of the Teachers and Educational Personnel Council (TEPC) as a key institution for: determining professional standards and a code of ethics; certifying, suspending, and revoking Teacher Licenses; supporting professional development and promotion; and representing professional education practitioners. Based on this Act, teaching also became the only profession to be legally described as an “advanced profession” (วิชาชีพชั้นสูง).5 The notion of “teachership” was integrated into the Standards of Professional Knowledge and Experience, which are translated into curricular elements across all teacher education institutions in Thailand. The TEPC retains the informal name of Kurusapha (คุรุสภา), its preceding organization, which previously functioned as an advisory council for the Ministry of Education to promote the status of teachers and enable teachers to govern teachers (Wongkaluang, 2017). This union-like role, of representing and protecting teachers’ interests, formally continues with TEPC (Chumjit, 2015); however, the addition of its certifying, monitoring, and punitive powers poses potential conflicts with its representative function. Although the profession did see a period of political activism and influence during 1978–1980, when protest movements resembled those of teacher unions elsewhere internationally, this took place in an era of student movements, mass politics, and democratic governance in Thailand (Jenwitkarn, 1985). As the findings section will demonstrate, the teachers interviewed in this study neither felt represented by any organization nor were they aware of any union-like bodies currently working in their interests. Cultural context

As briefly mentioned above, one of the most important cultural traits with implications for social relations, organizations, and processes within Thai society is the prevalence of hierarchy. As Mulder (1992, p. 106) writes, Thai society organizes itself in a hierarchical fashion in which people occupy mutually unequal positions. Consequently most relationships can be characterized by relative superiority versus relative inferiority.

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  21 This is noted by many scholars of Thai studies, such as Bolotta’s (2021) observation of relations of deference between pôo noí (“small people”) and pôo yài (“big people”), which are underpinned by and reconstruct “a hierarchically-organized cultural pattern of interaction” (p. 2); Barry’s (2019) analysis of how ethnic minority groups appeal to social hierarchy as a strategy toward achieving their cultural and legal rights in Thailand; and Apirat’s (2014) discussion of how patron-client relations, “[revolving] around a sense of obligation” (p. 181), pose particular challenges for democratic citizenship and reinforce cycles of authoritarian governments. Indeed, the centrality of hierarchy in Thai culture carries important implications for what is understood as possible and desirable—or not—for both the powerful and the powerless. On the one hand, it underlies “a paternalistic style of leadership” within government and administrative processes, whereby there is “an implicit expectation that the orders will be heeded without complaint or resistance” (Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001, p. 391). On the other hand, taking into account the possibility of public-private disjunctures within the regime of images (Jackson, 2004), compliance by subordinates may only be superficial. As Hallinger and Kantamara (2001) argue with regard to the cultural norm of greng jai (เกรงใจ: to be courteous or considerate), it “drives resistance underground and leads to ‘the high level of passive aggressive behavior’ found in Thai organizations generally” (p. 393). Related to the idea of greng jai is the orientation toward collectivism and conservatism, and the importance of social harmony. Again, this becomes particularly visible through the eyes of international researchers, who are concerned about its implications for possibilities of change and progress. As greng jai “leads to kindness, self-restraint, tolerance, and the avoidance of interpersonal irritation” (Mulder, 1992, p. 109), there is a tendency for Thais to refrain from overt conflict and instead employ “a mode of indirectness and a glossing over of tensions” (Aulino, 2019, p. 70). Maintaining and saving “face” is one way of enacting this, especially when it concerns pôo yài, because “To question [their] knowledge is not to question ideas but to question or doubt the person who holds them” (Mulder, 1992, p. 143). While this creates a smooth surface that facilitates relationships, such prioritization of performative harmony discourages individuality and difference, and may do so at the expense of innovation (Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001) and even “epistemological concerns with truth” (Jackson, 2004, p. 223). Given the structural hierarchies within Thai society, the maintenance of collective harmony also runs the risk of maintaining and reinforcing power differentials by validating existing practices, silencing disagreement, and rendering agency undesirable. For Thai society to move forwards in a sustainable and progressive way, it is therefore necessary to inquire into such processes and interrupt their potential negative effects. In Aulino’s (2019) words, “Harmony is clearly a value, harmony is clearly a practice; however, how this value breeds naturalized oppressive patterns warrants attention and action” (pp. 86–87). In the context of Thailand’s education system, in order to make

22  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit sense of an absence of teachers’ political agency and union activity, it is thus crucial to closely examine how these values are articulated in teachers’ accounts of feeling powerless, and how they contribute to constructions of the “tiny teacher.” Findings The interview data surfaces two notable concepts, jìt win-yaan kroo (the teacher’s spirit) and pôo bang-káp ban-chaa (the commander-supervisor), which work to produce the figure of the powerless teacher as an expected and enacted subjectivity. Teachership and the teacher’s spirit

In general, various constructions related to the notion of teachership were present across all interviews and were referred to almost interchangeably with the concept of jìt win-yaan kroo (จิตวิญญาณครู: teacher’s spirit). The ways in which these surfaced indicated the participants’ commitment toward their students’ development. For example, Pattama and Sujittra talked about being behavioral and ethical role models for their students, not only within the school setting but also in everyday life. Anupong likened being a teacher to being a third parent, caring for one’s students beyond the classroom and attending to their holistic well-being—including visiting their homes.6 Similarly, Chanon reflected on his determination to foster students’ personal growth into “good adults in the future,” and in turn also to “learn from the kids and become better versions of [himself].” For Pisit, teachership is “more than just a duty, more than just teaching,” but a sense of dedication, endurance, and sacrifice, which underpins his best intentions to see his students thrive. He recalled his difficult first year as a teacher, when he was the only English Language teacher at his school in rural Northeastern Thailand. He had applied to retake the placement examination in the hope of moving to a different workplace; however, upon realizing that his students would be left without a teacher at least for the remainder of the school year, he decided to miss the exam and has stayed at the school ever since. This concept of the teacher’s spirit, which idealizes the “good” teacher as dutiful, dedicated, and sacrificial, can nevertheless be a double-edged sword. In Pitchaya’s case, the pressure to publicly demonstrate such characteristics produced an individualizing effect which became detrimental to her mental health and ultimately contributed to her decision to leave her job. As a way of illustrating the extent to which she felt she had to be “sacrificial,” she referred to dramatized advertisements by various businesses which are published annually to honor Teacher’s Day. A recent example is a short film telling a story of a teacher in rural Thailand who spent all her personal savings on her students, at the expense of her own health (7ElevenThailand,

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  23 2020). Discourses drawing on idealized constructions of teachers are not only reproduced within wider society, but also, perhaps more intimately and intimidatingly, by fellow teachers and educational personnel within schools. Across the data set, it was apparent that these practices seemed to create the most tension when enacted by senior colleagues calling on desirable actions from more junior teachers. This came across strongly in the account of Tanawat, an activist teacher who identified notions of teachership, the teacher’s spirit, professionalism, and civil service as closely related mechanisms of discursive oppression: [They’d] ask, “Why the rush to go home?” when it’s actually 4pm. “You’re not staying for that event? Tsk. You’re not sacrificial. You have to come to work on the weekends!” for example. Mmm, I don’t know if I need to sacrifice my own life, or how much I need to sacrifice, to be worthy of being [chuckle] a teacher or a civil servant. […] The narrative where, you’re a teacher, you need to sacrifice! You’re a civil servant, you need to dedicate yourself! [chuckle] These words are oppressive, and we can’t say no. As Tanawat put it, despite their oppressive effects, it was not possible to refuse these demands. This needs to be understood in light of the hierarchical nature of Thai society and its regime of images, which work to produce unequal power relations between teachers of different seniority levels. Indeed, knowing that challenging pôo yài carries little probability of productive outcomes, Tanawat reflected elsewhere in the interview on having to navigate these fields strategically in order to achieve his activist goals. The commander-supervisor

The silent/silenced powerlessness that teachers experience is further compounded by the formal commander-supervisor role of “everyone higher up,” which was also prominent in all of the interviews. As explored above, the commander-supervisor concept connotes bureaucratic work relations between supervisors and subordinates throughout the education system that necessitate compliance in an upward direction of accountability. Regardless of their age and work experience, the teachers in this study perceive education policy, whether system-level or institution-level, as “orders” to obey and “make happen” (Pattama). The extent to which teachers feel obliged to comply with their supervisors’ commands can also be at the expense of their students’ learning. Chanon talked of feeling frustrated and “pained” as he recalled having to desert his classroom mid-lesson to fulfill his principal’s paperwork requests. He commented in a bitter tone: “Teachers are simply office workers […] Teaching is just an extra task that adds onto office work.” The normativity of lesson interruptions by school management has also been previously explored as

24  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit revealing of, as well as working to reinforce, a “hidden curriculum” of hierarchical power relations within the school (Assapun et al., 2019). As Chanon’s account suggests, the authority of the school management, conceptualized in civil service terms as commander-supervisors of teachers, also extends to assigning non-teaching responsibilities within the school, such as accounting, procurement, registry, and public relations (Wisaruetapa, 2017). Unsurprisingly, this was a source of dissatisfaction for many teachers in this study, particularly those in the earlier years of their career— though none would display resistance or raise their concerns, particularly because speaking up would disrupt existing representations of organizational culture: “It will backfire on the teachers,” Anupong explains, “and will have implications for work relationships in the school, or […] career growth evaluation. It’s risky business.” Indeed, the inability to refuse such duties, and the pressure that comes with them, can drive some teachers to leave the profession. This was the case with Pitchaya, who “didn’t study education” to review salary payments for all teachers at her school. She “wasn’t proud to call [herself] a teacher,” and, given the precarious nature of her assigned responsibility, felt as if she “already had one foot in prison.” Viewing these power differentials in light of the wider education system also reveals further complexity. Several teachers discussed the impact of national politics on their work, with frequent changes in leadership being the most cited factor. Pisit, for example, talked about the effort he put into enacting policies promoting ASEAN Studies: “They said do ASEAN rooms, so we built ASEAN rooms,” but soon after a cabinet reshuffle, “[the policy] disappeared [laugh]. Nobody talked about it again.” Having a new Minister in office means new policies, and new policies mean that teachers, having to “run after policy” (Pisit), have no choice but to “start all over” (Anupong). The politicization of education policy is not a recent phenomenon. For example, Sujittra confirmed that this has been the case throughout her 30 years as a teacher. Against the backdrop of the regime of images, the authority of commander-supervisors also fosters a particular form of performativity that is oriented toward displays of success and enthusiasm and is enacted by stakeholders throughout the education system. On the one hand, it encourages performative displays of “school quality” where “you won’t see the real problems” (Anupong) on school visits, as well as “fake reporting” (Sujittra) of institutional data in order to avoid having “ESAs coming back to blame us for the failure” (Chanon). On the other hand, this performativity also contributes to excessive proactivity toward policy implementation, in turn amplifying the amount of work schools and practitioners have to do. As Tanawat explained: “Schools cannot say no [to policy], because principals need achievements to show their ESAs, and ESA directors need achievements to show OBEC.”7 From the teachers’ perspectives, this enthusiasm to “perform” even applies to pôo yài’s “casual remarks” (Sujittra), which are “immediately [pushed] into implementation” (Pisit) by their subordinates

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  25 in an effort to please them, “and so it turns into the responsibility of teachers, who have to make it happen, because teachers are followers, right?” (Pisit). In addition, because of the hierarchical distance and power relations within the administrative structure, teachers are not only positioned by others as the least powerful stakeholder in the structure of educational governance, but they are also inclined to embody and enact that subjectivity themselves. Chanon joked about how fellow teachers were “ridiculously” eager to show their support for the Education Ministry during official online livestream sessions: “Teachers from all over the country would leave comments like, ‘I, this name, from this school, from this ESA, am present for the announcement.’ It’s hilarious! [laugh].” Significance Through the lens of the regime of images, the analysis presented here has revealed how notions of the teacher’s spirit and the commander-supervisor prevail and how they function as mechanisms that continue to reproduce such unequal power relations in Thailand’s education system. The teachers’ accounts have demonstrated how these dual mechanisms, operating within a hierarchical, top-down, bureaucratic system, work to produce fear and distrust, which have crucial implications for teachers’ professional as well as political agency. Professionally, teachers have been reluctant to innovate in their practices, preferring to “wait for the boss to tell us what he wants” (Sujittra) rather than having their “dreams crushed” (Pisit) if their commander-supervisors disagree with their ideas. Politically, teachers have also developed an inertia with regard to voicing their concerns, as their previous contributions “didn’t come to anything” (Pattama), “there is no one listening—we’re like air” (Pitchaya), and any change “would mean more work for teachers” (Anupong). The absence of a union-like representative body, as explored above in relation to the TEPC, also contributes to many teachers feeling powerless and further discourages mobilization. While a few participants in this study, such as Chanon and Tanawat, have initiated activist teacher groups to amplify teachers’ voices, the sheer size and diversity of the profession means that cultivating a sense of cohesion and collective agency continues to be elusive. In addition, as the Thai regime of images lends itself to the representational maintenance of a harmonious society, while at the same time “the prevalence of vertical relations weakens social trust and cooperation” (Apirat, 2014, p. 185), it can be expected that few would publicly display or engage in activism that challenges the status quo. As Tanawat explains, “Everyone complains about their bosses, everyone complains about their work. But how many would step up to call for change? Not a lot, because they think, ‘Well, others seem to be getting by. I’ll just do what I’m told, and get it over with.’” It is not surprising, then, that the figure of the “tiny teacher” who “runs after policy” surfaces across all of the interviews, regardless of the teachers’ gender, age,

26  Thornchanok Uerpairojkit work experience, local context, school status, or the extent of their activism. For many teachers, it reflects, as well as contributes to, a system that individualizes and overwhelms them. For the activist few, it discourages open resistance and, in doing so, hinders further mobilization. This has crucial implications for the motivation of teachers to remain in the profession, as well as for that of future teachers who may be discouraged from entering the profession upon learning about the “backstage reality” of teaching. This discursive disempowerment also raises important questions for existing (if any) and future policy efforts to “engage” and “empower” teachers, foregrounding the need for education reforms that are more sensitive to the demands of practice and the classroom contexts where they will be enacted. Indeed, the participants in this study have identified the crucial role of school principals and Ministry-level leaders in helping to “break the cycle” by creating opportunities for more teacher participation, engagement, and agency. At the institutional level, “those who have power over others need to share that power” (Tanawat) and “open up space for people to think for themselves” (Chanon). For the wider education system, participants suggested offering “multiple platforms to collect teachers’ feedback” (Anupong), gathering practice-level information “from all regions and school contexts” (Sujittra), engaging school representatives in policy formulation processes (Pattama), and ensuring that policy evaluation work “really happens, so that good policies are continued for the long term” (Pisit). Notably, Pisit also pointed to the potential contribution of the study reported in this chapter, and research on teachers more generally: “Get [yourself/your research] into the Ministry, because you’ve now listened to the voices of the tiny teachers.” In order to ensure meaningful engagement, however, it is crucial that these attempts recognize—and actively seek to engage beyond—the representational surface of collaboration and trust that may limit teachers’ participation at the performative level. As Pattama said with conviction, “All the teachers are ready, ready to speak the truth so that it turns into something fruitful.” While Thailand has come a long way in expanding access to education, much remains to be done in order for its reform goals to be realized. The issue of educational quality has long been identified and prioritized within policy discourse, with various efforts to improve curricula, pedagogy, assessment, resources, facilities, and personnel over the past three decades. Although educational change does indeed require long periods of time to show results, this chapter has sought to demonstrate that meaningful engagement with teachers might be a key, yet overlooked, missing ingredient. For teachers to be able to “innovate” in their practices and “dedicate” themselves to their students and schools—in ways that are not only desirable for policy but also sustainable for the educators—their professional autonomy, subjectivity, and agency cannot be taken for granted. This study has shown that these have been largely undermined: discursively via the imposed notion of the teacher’s spirit, and structurally via the power differentials

Mechanisms of Disempowerment  27 between teachers and their commander-supervisors. This raises important questions for policy, practice, and research. How might existing power relations be redefined so as to encourage voluntary, meaningful, and productive engagements with teachers? What might these processes look like? Additionally, which aspects of teachership and the teacher’s spirit do we want to keep and continue, and which no longer serve their purpose in contemporary Thailand? How might these be productively fostered, embodied, and enacted? Indeed, arriving at the answers will not be an easy task, but it is certainly the case that teachers’ engagement will be a necessary ingredient for this journey to be successful. Notes 1 This English term is used in many teacher education curricula across Thailand. 2 Via the National Education Act, B.E. 2542 (1999), the Regulation of the Administration of the Ministry of Education, B.E. 2546 (2003) and the Government Teacher and Education Personnel Act, B.E. 2547 (2004). 3 PECs were introduced in March 2016 as a structural reorientation of how the education system was to be decentralized, placing an emphasis on the level of the province. At the time of writing, the transition from ESAs to PECs remains unclear and in progress. 4 See, for example, the Government Teacher and Education Personnel Act, B.E. 2547 (2004), the Regulation of the Administration of the Ministry of Education, B.E. 2546 (2003) and the Government Administration Act, B.E. 2534 (1991). 5 See, for example, Section 52 of the National Education Act, B.E. 2542 (1999). 6 Traditionally, visiting students’ homes was an expected responsibility of teachers, who also tended to be local to the area. In contemporary times, although this role has become more challenging to fulfill for many teachers, it continues to be encouraged in policy and teacher education. 7 The Office of the Basic Education Commission. It is one of the four pillars within the Ministry of Education and oversees all affairs of basic education.

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The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia PISA Tests, Different Conceptions of National Assessment and the Policymaking Process Ratih D. Adiputri

Introduction It is common for policymakers to refer to “international standards” when engaging in the transformation of domestic education policy (SteinerKhamsi, 2012, p. 9), and thus this was expected when the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology (henceforth “Ministry of Education”) made a decision to follow international practices—e.g., the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS)—when it introduced a new assessment system in 2020. Ministry representatives admitted the need to use these global tests (particularly PISA) as models for assessing the national education system but denied that this was a case of “policy transfer” (or “policy borrowing”), despite the fact that their model bore similarities to PISA in terms of assessing students’ literacy, numeracy and scientific abilities (see the Appendix for the Indonesian Education Roadmap [2020] and interviews conducted in 2021). In 2018, 15-year-old Indonesian students scored consistently low results in PISA, a trend from the first test conducted in 2000. Indonesia fell into the “low performance” category, scoring 371 points for reading (Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development [OECD] average: 487), 379 for math (OECD average: 487) and 389 for science (OECD average: 489) (Ministry of Education, 2019). Due to these poor results, the newly appointed minister of education, Nadiem Anwar Makarim, introduced five strategies to increase Indonesia’s PISA test scores—one of which was introducing a national assessment system according to global standards (Standar Penilaian Global) (Harususilo, 2020). At the time of writing, the National Assessment (Asesmen Nasional, AN) has replaced the old national standardized test (Ujian Nasional, UN) and includes three instruments: (1) the Minimum Competency Assessment (Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum, AKM), which assesses the minimum competency in literacy and numeracy as well as cognitive values; (2) a character survey (survei karakter), which assesses attitudes, habits and non-cognitive values; and DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-4

32  Ratih D. Adiputri (3) a learning environment survey (survei lingkungan belajar), which assesses the environmental quality of schools. Before proceeding, it is important to note that the ministry first introduced AKM in 2020 but has only recently changed it to AN, which was only implemented in September–October 2021. Thus, it cannot be evaluated yet due to the lack of data. The media still refers to this new policy as “AKM”, however. To avoid confusion, the abbreviation “AKM” will be used throughout, even when specifically referring to its new iteration as AN. Since the release of the PISA test results in early December 2019, hundreds of local news reports covered the structure of the AKM between then and June 2021, including describing how the PISA test was the impetus for its introduction. Worryingly, many reports misleadingly informed readers that the AKM “copied” the PISA model. The aim of a country’s education must go beyond achieving better results in global rankings, and thus changing a national assessment policy just to upgrade Indonesia’s PISA ranking is not correct. It is likely that this education policy is driven by global policies. Moreover, what is more worrying is that the AKM focuses only on literacy and numeracy in assessing students—even then, it does not survey all students but only selects some randomly to be surveyed (different conceptions of the term “assessment” will be discussed below). Consequently, how will students’ learning skills in school be assessed? This chapter begins by analyzing how global education policies (i.e., PISA) have become a “holy grail” for policymakers in Indonesia, and their “power” to change a country’s entire assessment system. If this was solely the case, then this chapter would be a study of how a global policy education is “borrowed” for use at a national level. However, after further studying newspaper reports, government regulations and policies, supplemented by interviews with policymakers at the national level, another direction has emerged. It is observed that the AKM reflects the dynamic interactions and different perceptions between actors and institutions on education policymaking (in this case the introduction of a new assessment model) and resulting practices. News reports highlight how Indonesia is “borrowing” good frameworks and benchmarks from global standards—even if this is not really a form of policy-borrowing. Perhaps titles featuring the “PISA test relevancy” are more newsworthy. Thus, the AKM’s formulation shows different perceptions of assessment terminology and the policymaking process, where sole power over all aspects of education lies with the Ministry of Education. All policymakers agree on the need to modernize Indonesia’s education system, but the process is driven only by Jakarta, thus emphasizing the persistent central-regional hierarchy. Based on the data, this chapter reveals that this is not actually a policy-borrowing issue. There is a domestic move to modernize the education assessment system according to global standards, but due to the lack of communication between institutions, the resulting chaotic policymaking process not only lacks an understanding

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  33 of the process itself but also laws and regulations, while revealing different understandings of concepts and traditions between actors from different domestic institutions. Coupled with sensationalist reporting, the AKM policy has confused the public. This situation also touches upon the centrality of education as well as the perception of tests and assessments in Indonesian society, thus showing the prevalence of client-patron relations and a loyalty to bureaucratic institutions in addition to a general obsession with rankings. Method and theory The data are obtained from 11 Indonesian government policy documents— notably from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of the National Development Planning (Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional, Bappenas) and Parliament (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR, specifically Commission X on education)—as well as reports on the national assessment system from the websites of national newspapers (Kompas, Media Indonesia and Republika; Table 2.1) published from December 2019 to June 2021 and interviews with policymakers from institutions or organizations related to education policy, including the National Education Standards Board (Badan Standard Pendidikan Nasional, BSNP1). See the Appendix for full details. All the materials pertaining to AKM and the PISA test were studied based on the theories of education policy—borrowing and transfer by Phillips and Ochs (2003), McDonald (2012), Steiner-Khamsi (2012, 2014), Steiner-Khamsi and Waldow (2012, 2018), Mundy et al. (2016) and Reimers (2020). These theories outline the stages involved, from “cross-national attraction, decision, implementation and internalization/indigenization” (Phillips & Ochs, 2003, p. 452) to “externalization, recontextualization, internalization” (SteinerKhamsi, 2014, p. 162). The importance for imported policy and ideas (i.e., the PISA test) is “contextually acknowledged, strategically planned, and implemented within a cultural frame of reference” (McDonald, 2012, p. 1817)

Table 2.1  Online data from three national newspapers from December 2019 to June 2021 (19 months): Kompas, Media Indonesia and Republika Search keywords

Kompas Media Indonesiaa Republika onlinea (www.kompasdata.id) (mediaindonesia.com) (www.republika.co.id)

asesmen nasional 152 (national assessment) tes PISA (PISA test) 25 asesmen kompetensi 62 minimum (AKM)

3410

31.600

131 267

983 1540

Note: Only Kompas reports could be precisely dated. a It is unverified.

34  Ratih D. Adiputri and to understand “local policy context” (Steiner-Khamsi, 2012, p. 4; 2014, pp.161–162; Steiner-Khamsi & Waldow, 2012, 2018). If these local values are ignored, it is hard to claim ownership of certain policies within the system. Methodically, I tested whether or not the process of policy-borrowing had been implemented in the policymaking process (i.e., was the PISA model the basis of the AKM?) and how the new policy was to be implemented smoothly. From a study of the data, it is clear that education is mainly considered to be under the Ministry of Education’s scope—consequently, other institutions are merely informed about and invited to formal meetings on education issues. This sole-main-actor model is likely to add challenges to the policymaking process and, coupled with a lack of communication, consultation and collaboration with other institutions, consequently creates confusion among the public, as seen from the news reports. For example, while the Ministry of Education denied that there was direct policy-borrowing (i.e., that PISA was not the model for the AKM), this was still the perception promoted by the news and media sources, and consequently the general public perceives that the AKM indeed follows the PISA model by focusing specifically on literacy and numeracy. This confusion was echoed by Bappenas and the DPR. Common questions posed included the following: How does the AKM differ from the old UN system? If the UN was regulated by law, what are the legal foundations of the AKM? Can the implementation of the UN be revised instead of adopting a new assessment system altogether? These questions clearly show a lack of communication between state institutions. Tellingly, the BSNP’s mandated involvement in policymaking still resulted in minimal input to the AKM, despite it being ostensibly the Ministry of Education’s partner. In late August 2021, the BSNP itself was abolished and replaced by the Board of Standardization, Curriculum and Educational Assessment (Badan Standar, Kurikulum dan Asesmen Pendidikan, BSKAP). The replacement was regarded as a degradation—even a “democratic regression” in education—by many domestic education experts because while the BSNP was an independent body mandated by Educational Law, BSKAP was part of the Ministry of Education’s bureaucracy and only subject to the internal minister’s regulations (Rozak, 2021). Despite this, all Indonesian education policy actors realize that the modernization of Indonesian education is necessary. Indeed, the idea of transitioning from tradition to modernity has been discussed since the 1960s, largely based on pursuing economic growth while emphasizing “the contradiction between modern political organization and traditional political culture, [accommodating] a modernizing society in the face of personal interests of political patrons and senior bureaucrats involved in factional and clique-based conflict” (King, 2008, p. 47, 51). The context of the policymaking process and society at large, while taking into account the relationship between clients and patrons (and ranking obsessions), will be discussed in the next section.

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  35 Context Before discussing the AKM policy and the role of global education (i.e., the PISA test), there are two important domestic contexts to consider in the policymaking process: (1) the actors or institutions as well as the legal order (tata urutan perundang-undangan) and (2) the societal situation, with its client-patron relationships and the obsession with rankings and hierarchies. The first context, as stated earlier, is the Ministry of Education’s position as the main power in education, mandated to enact policies and set education standards for every component. It has power over policies, curricula, students, school regulations, teachers as well as programs—which cover assessments, evaluations and standards from early childhood education and primary schools to vocational and higher levels, spanning also the formal, informal, non-formal, public and private sectors—as regulated by the Law of the National Education System (Law no. 20/2003, Articles 50 and 51). However, this law also requires that the evaluation and monitoring of educational standards be performed by an independent organization for education quality assurance and control. This requirement gave rise to the BSNP until its recent replacement by BSKAP. BSNP was occasionally mentioned in newspaper reports, but only in the context of individual op-eds on education, and not in actual government decisions on the national assessment policy despite the BSNP’s legally mandated role. Now that since the BSNP has been abolished, BSKAP has sparked controversy. Not only does it administer the AKM, but also the fact that it is not an independent body reveals legal uncertainties and regulatory inconsistencies. In this context, it is necessary to briefly discuss the Indonesian legal order—that is, the hierarchy of regulations which members of the public and policies themselves abide by. The list is as follows, in order of precedence:

• the 1945 Constitution; • decrees of the Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat, MPR (formerly the highest state institution);

• laws (enacted by the government and the DPR); • government regulations in lieu of laws (Peraturan Pemerintah Pengganti

Undang-undang, Perpu). These are issued if legal standing is needed in urgent situations, since lawmaking takes time; • government regulations (Peraturan Pemerintah), which further explain the contents of laws; • presidential decrees (Keputusan Presiden, Kepres), which are regulations issued by the president; and • regional regulations (Peraturan Daerah, Perda), which are regulations issued by the regional government, either at the provincial or district/city level. The DPR’s members are elected as public representatives, who play their roles in legislating laws. The abovementioned Commission X is the Ministry

36  Ratih D. Adiputri of Education’s partner in discussing all education issues, and meetings held in Parliament are usually accessible to the public. Moreover, all national planning and policymaking, as well as general rules which include those pertaining to education policy, are usually known or acknowledged by Bappenas, which acts in tandem as a partner of the State Secretary—among its tasks are preparing the middle- and long-term national development plans based on the president-elect’s program. Therefore, although education is mainly mandated under the Ministry of Education, these two institutions are legally involved in education decision-making. The BSNP is also involved in educational assessment and standardization, as per Education Law no. 20/2003. In President Joko Widodo’s second term (2019–2024), he appointed a young, successful entrepreneur, Nadiem Anwar Makarim, as the new minister of education. The youngest minister in Indonesia—he was 35 in October 2019—was already a successful businessperson and founder of the smartphone application Gojek, a transportation service provider and payment platform. He was tasked with improving the quality of education by focusing on Indonesia’s human resources (Voice of Indonesia, 2020), based on his youth and technological expertise. Despite having breakthrough ideas about improving education, all policymaking processes and institutions mentioned above were ignored when he pushed through his ministry’s idea—including the abolition of the UN in 2020, which coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic’s outbreak, thus making its elimination acceptable. Makarim stated that he wanted the national exams to be an evaluation instead, since the existing system created stressful situations for students and led to cheating at the school level by teachers to improve their schools’ rankings as well as many other controversies (see below). However, the introduction of AKM remained a vague process. This meant that the term “evaluation” was understood by the media to mean the “abolition” of assessments in all schools. The second context is Indonesian society itself, including client-patron relationships at work as well as an obsession with rankings and hierarchies, which led to the centrality of the former UN for the public. Since the 1950s, the importance of “personalized politics and patronage in Indonesia in increasing government intervention in economic affairs” has been central (King (2008, pp. 164–165 based in turn on the work of Geertz, Emmerson and Liddle). During Indonesia’s longest governmental regime (under Suharto), Robison argues that politics was “structured based on personal relationships between clients and patrons” and “the power and resources of the state are appropriated by state officials to further their personal and political advantage and that of their family, clique or political power base” (ibid). Thus, the Ministry of Education sees itself as the main driver among the elite in imposing certain ideas (i.e., the AKM). The new jargon of education policies, such as “Pelajar Pancasila” (pertaining to an improvement of human resources) and “Merdeka Belajar” (pertaining to independent learning, empowering teachers and schools as well as assessments), are instructive (see for example the Indonesian Education Roadmap, Commission X DPR RI). The Ministry simply

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  37 informs Parliament and the public (via the media) about their decisions, conducting minimal public consultation in advance. Considering that the bureaucracy is based on “a network of kinship, friendship, and ethnicity, emphasizing loyalty of officials to those by whom they were appointed” (ibid., p.165) and the young minister’s profile (i.e., a drive to foster his own ideas pertaining to the improvement of education), the new jargon’s origins and associated ideas are unclear, especially given that other policymakers and the BSNP were not consulted. It is worrying and ethically inappropriate if certain policies or the usage of technological applications are imposed nationwide (where the legal bases are not established) with no public discussion. All new policies, including but not limited to the AKM, have created confusion not only among the public but also other policymaking institutions. For example, while the Ministry of Education explicitly denied following PISA, all resulting reports still referred to this model (and other global surveys), and PISA was even mentioned in the Ministry’s own Indonesian Education Roadmap document. Turning to the AKM itself, a common question is whether or not it will be analogous to the old UN system. Since the education system began, Indonesian students have always had to write national standardized tests at the end of the school year, with those in Grades 6, 9 and 12 being particularly important (Adiputri, 2020, p. 225). The Education Law and Government Regulation no. 19/2005 (updated again in 2013 and 20152) on the Education National Standard called for the government to conduct national learning assessments of basic competencies as per Article 66. This eventually led to the UN system, which surveyed the quality of education programs, serving as a selection standard for students before they entered the next stages of school, thus determining one’s graduation status and serving as a basis for the improvement of and support for teachers and schools as per Article 68. Controversy arose in the last 15 years, once the UN became the foundation for assessments, school rankings and competition among both students and teachers. The problematic nature of the UN, which reveals the rationale behind the new minister’s decision to scrap it altogether, can be seen from the general fact that students who scored well were virtually guaranteed entry to good schools. Thus, stress developed due to a high-pressure environment: parents cheated by buying exam papers in advance, while teachers and schools provided the exam papers themselves or directly helped their students so that their school rankings were improved to avoid possible budget cuts (Adiputri, 2020; Qudsyi & Putri, 2016). Therefore, the decay in education must be tackled comprehensively, “not only from the assessment aspect, but also from proper standardizations, accountability, school facilities, teachers’ quality, social supports and budget” (Adiputri, 2020, p. 225). The controversy over the UN that had been running since 2015 finally resulted in its 2020 cancelation, also enabled by rising COVID-19 cases and the closing of Indonesian schools in the same year. Despite this, the AKM is still seen by the public as an analogous assessment, differing only in name and

38  Ratih D. Adiputri the subjects examined. News of programs meant to enable students to prepare for and score well in the AKM was heard, thus suggesting that: (1) either the public did not fully comprehend the differences between the AKM and UN, or (2) policymakers had not socialized or localized the tests yet. It is important to note that there was actually another new national test meant to examine student competency, which was carried out as part of the UN. AKSI (Asesmen Kompetensi Siswa Indonesia)3 ran in 2019 in seven cities, written by around six million students, yet this fact was nearly unknown. From the interviews, it was seen that AKSI was conducted on computers as a safeguard against the sort of manipulations seen in the UN. Another advantage was that data pertaining to specific material from students’ lessons (e.g., math, language) could be further analyzed—e.g., if it could be determined that students scored poorly on the comprehension of texts but excelled in vocabulary, their schools or the government itself could train teachers to better teach specific subjects or collaborate with other schools. Moreover, character surveys (such as the espousal of values of tolerance) were included. This innovation signifies that the UN policy could have evaluated both student learning and the education system itself, but it still needed to be revised and improved upon. Findings COVID-19 eventually pushed the government to modify the education system and eliminate national standardized tests altogether. However, the perceived adoption of a model based on a global assessment is a worrying indicator for the public, since it means that Indonesia does not trust its own assessment system. Moreover, any “borrowed” policies “should be contextually acknowledged, strategically planned, and implemented within a cultural frame of reference” (McDonald, 2012)—however, none of these concepts were practiced when the Ministry of Education introduced the AKM. But even if it does not borrow external policies, does the AKM’s implementation constitute a good public policy process? The AKM’s main difference is that it only tests students’ minimum competency in literacy and numeracy, thus diminishing many aspects of the learning experience by surveying specific areas only. From my interviews, the different tasks and roles of each institution gave them different understandings of and involvement in policymaking. Bappenas’s members were invited to an initial meeting with the Ministry of Education but were not asked to collaborate in the policymaking process. The DPR was also informed, but the members of Commission X were limited to merely relaying their constituents’ grievances upon the closure of schools and the AKM’s introduction—this inaction implied that the Ministry, under the guidance of its new minister, knew what was best for Indonesian education. Ministry representatives provided more information about the overall/general aspects of the AKM using the “Merdeka Belajar” jargon but did not explain if collaboration occurred or

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  39 if policy consultation or public outreach was conducted, focusing instead on how the AKM differed from the UN policy. The BSNP discussed how chaotic the implementation process of this Jakarta-driven policy was, highlighting that only a small circle of people surrounding the minister were involved and that there was a lack of diverse input. There was no urgency in changing over to a new assessment system, since similar results were achieved between the UN and AKSI. It is clear that the public policy process was not properly conducted even among national-level institutions. The Ministry was likely to disregard contending opinions incompatible with its plans, with rules and regulations created to justify those plans. Given the confusion surrounding the debate, it was surprising to find out that there were two different concepts of assessment at play. The Ministry of Education relies on the AKM as an overall evaluation of the system at a national level, as a sort of survey to map its quality. The adoption of a single policy resulted from a process of simplifying the many assessments conducted by and requested from many of its different units—arguably a good intention by the central government. Yet the Ministry did not plan to find out how students actually learned under the system, which exams or tests (and by extension the UN) would have shown. “The students’ learning result must be assessed by their own teachers, and not by the central government”, one interviewee from the Ministry of Education revealed. It was puzzling that the central government only emphasized assessing the education system but ignored student learning. Regardless, student learning must be assessed somehow—if not by the AKM, then by their teachers—yet this important detail was not generally known to public. In fact, teachers’ new responsibilities are now mandated by law, regulated further by the new Government Regulation no. 57/2021, Article 16(4), although its recency means that not many teachers and schools are yet aware of this. Part of the public confusion is due to these two different conceptions of assessment— i.e., of the system and of students. For the Ministry of Education, the AKM only maps and evaluates the system, but for the general public—including other policymakers—assessments mean something akin to the UN, which means also examining student learning. Another aspect of the UN was that it encompassed both concepts of assessments: the system evaluation and student learning. Perhaps there could have been ways of reducing its tensions or improving it—the overall policy direction was still good and it had the advantage of familiarity for teachers, schools and parents. Perhaps there were ways to improve its implementation, e.g., by eliminating cheating through localizing the curriculum at the regional level or using computer-based tests such as AKSI—although this particular possibility would have been difficult to implement since Bappenas’ Voluntary National Review (VNR) 2021 showed that only 40–55% of schools nationwide used computers. If an assessment like the AKM is to run as planned, then assessments of student learning must be conducted by their own teachers and be disseminated

40  Ratih D. Adiputri nationwide, since the public would otherwise have no idea about the two differing conceptions of assessments or evaluations of student learning. The AKM’s radically different concept is still unknown by many teachers and schools—hence the widespread assumption that the AKM has simply replaced the UN—only to now learn that the focus is solely on literacy and numeracy, and not all subjects. This means that teachers’ competencies must be improved so that student learning assessments can be conducted in a trustworthy manner at the school and local level. Ideally, national education standards must also cover information on the quality of student learning. Another point of note is that the language used conforms to the hierarchy seen in government documents. It does not focus on the rights and entitlements of students, teachers or the general public to a quality education but instead emphasizes the duty of the state to provide for prosperity and development. It is not yet clear who the “patrons and clients” of the AKM are, but for now, the public is only treated as the object of the policy. However, the public remains confused about the policy and still asks questions about the rankings of students and schools. The AKM policy is still regarded as yet another national assessment—thus confirming certain notions of power, interaction and competition. Significance In the dynamic of Indonesia’s education policy, power rests with the Ministry of Education, which covers all aspect of budgets, policies and standardization—thus running the risk of abuse, especially when other policymaking institutions do not understand its decisions or are excluded from involvement. It is also worrying that an ostensibly public policy process which determines the fate of future generations is so poorly organized. Other policymaking institutions do not have the same understanding of the AKM, and even less so for the media and the public. PISA is mentioned repeatedly but many do not ask what this new assessment actually assesses—thus overlooking the fact that it is for the government’s overall system evaluation, and not for assessing student learning. Who does the AKM serve? Data are already available from previous years, including from the VNR report and the 2018 PISA test results, about the low performance of Indonesian students in assessments. But achieving better international test results or government evaluations of the education system should not miss the fact that this focus is too narrow, because education should focus more on student learning and skill-improvement. Thus, it would have been more significant the Ministry improved the quality of teachers and schools first by using the existing data, instead of switching the assessment system completely, thus covering the literacy and numeracy skills that most students apparently lack. Moreover, education is a huge, long-term project beyond the scope of one institution alone. It must be a collaborative process across ministries and even with regional governments and civil society

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  41 organizations. The most important task for now is to disseminate the information that the AKM is only a tool for evaluating the system—thus it is important that teachers, schools or perhaps local governments be prepared to conduct their own assessments of student learning, since the central government is apparently not interested in doing so. The AKM reflects the dynamics and different perceptions between actors and institutions in education policymaking, particularly revealing the lack of communication between institutions. Yet it is unlikely to achieve success in a local context that is more used to national exams and tests. If poor policymaking processes and a lack of communication and collaboration continue, the future of learning itself is at stake, thus affecting students: the future generation. To reiterate, the main issue here is not about policy-borrowing, but rather the lack of communication, different perceptions and conceptions of educational assessment policies and problems faced in the policymaking process between domestic actors. Misconceptions stem from sensationalist reporting about PISA’s supposed adoption, regardless of what education policymakers actually said. The idea of modernizing educational assessment exists, but the lack of communication between institutions, different understandings of the term “assessment” and the bureaucratic policymaking process (including for laws and regulations) have confused a public used to standardized national tests (i.e., the UN) which evaluate both the national education system and student learning. Even the understanding of the term “assessment” differs: (1) evaluating/ mapping the education system (the Ministry’s perspective) and (2) assessing student learning (the general perception). This distinction must be disseminated widely to clearly indicate the new role to be played by teachers. Meanwhile, public perceptions of national assessments have remained the same (if they have not become more confused) despite the AKM’s different goals. In general, the policymaking process needs to be addressed by implementing proper regulations, while internal actors within the Ministry of Education must acknowledge that good and open collaboration and communication among policymakers is needed, especially with regard to an education policy that affects around 50 million students, teachers and schools. A quality education is indeed essential for the country’s future, not only for show in paperwork and documents but also in implementation. Perhaps the best solution would have been to review the previous assessment system before introducing a new policy altogether, particularly when it is seemingly implemented for the sake of following global education standards. Notes 1 The BSNP was established based on Education Law no. 20/2003. It is an independent body regulated by Government Regulation no. 19/2005 and is mandated to serve until 2023, based on Government Regulation no. 57/2021, whose 13 members are appointed by minister of education. The latest BSNP consisted of education actors which account for the diversity of groups in Indonesian society, and partners with the Ministry of Education on standardization in

42  Ratih D. Adiputri education, particularly the curriculum and assessments. It is important to have an independent body in order to ensure that education works well for students and teachers. However, the BSNP was recently replaced by an internal board of the Ministry of Education (Badan Standar, Kurikulum & Asesmen Pendidikan, BSKAP) ahead of its mandated term, the implications of which are discussed below (Rozak, 2021). 2 This regulation was updated again in July 2021, becoming Government Regulation no. 57/2021 on the National Standard of Education. 3 See here for further details on AKSI: Asesmen Kompetensi Siswa Indonesia. Home https://aksi.puspendik.kemdikbud.go.id/survey2019/public/#, accessed on July 2021.

References Adiputri, R.D. (2020). Global education policy on assessment and its application in Indonesia (learning from the Finnish education system. International Journal of Information and Communication Technologies, 1(4), 223–32. Commission X, DPR RI [Indonesian Parliament]. (2020, November 17). “LIVE STRTEAMING – Panja Peta Jalan Pendidikan Komisi X DPR RI” [Hearing meetings with education experts on Road map to Education]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= YfVvWgRXaAI&feature=youtu.be Harususilo, Y.E. (2020, April 3). “Rendah di PISA 2018, Nadiem Makarim Siapkan 5 Strategi Ini” [Low PISA 2018 Scores, Nadiem Makarim Prepares These Five Strategies]. Kompas. https://www.kompas.com/edu/read/2020/04/03/164257471/rendah-­ di-pisa-2018-nadiem-makarim-siapkan-5-strategi-ini?page=all, accessed on 29 June 2021. King, V. (Ed.). (2008). The Sociology of Southeast Asia: Transformation in a Developing Region. NIAS Press. McDonald, L. (2012). Educational transfer to developing countries: Policy and skill facilitation. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 69, 1817–26. Ministry of Education. (2019). Pendidikan di Indonesia: Belajar dari hasil PISA 2018 [The 2018 report of Indonesian PISA test]. Pusat Penilaian Pendidikan, Badan Penelitian dan Pendidikan, Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan (part of the research material). Mundy, K., Green, A., Lingard, B., & Verger, A. (2016). Introduction: The globalization of education policy – Key approaches and debates. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), The Handbook of Global Education Policy (pp. 1–20). Wiley Blackwell. Phillips, D., & Ochs, K. (2003). Processes of policy borrowing in education: Some explanatory and analytical devices. Comparative Education, 39(4), 451–61. Qudsyi, H., & Putri, M.I. (2016). Self-efficacy and anxiety of national examination among high school students. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 217, 268–75. Reimers, F.M. (2020). Thinking multidimensionally about ambitious educational change. In F.M. Reimers (Ed.), Audacious Education Purposes: How Governments Transform the Goals of Education Systems (pp. 1–46) Switzerland: Springer. https:// doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41882-3. Rozak, A. (2021). Pembentukan BSKAP dan Resentralisasi Standar Pendidikan. Universitas Islam Negeri Syarif Hidayatullah. https://www.uinjkt.ac.id/pembentukanbskap-dan-resentralisasi-politik-standar-pendidikan/. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2012). Understanding policy borrowing and lending: Building comparative policy studies. In G. Steiner-Khamsi & F. Waldown (Eds.), The World

The Influence of Global Education in Indonesia  43 Yearbook of Education 2012: Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education (pp. 3–17). Routledge. Steiner-Khamsi, G. (2014). Cross-national policy borrowing: Understanding reception and translation. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 34(2), 153–67. Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Waldow, F. (2018). PISA for candalization, PISA for projection: The use of international large-scale assessment in education policy making – An introduction”. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 16(5), 557–65. Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Waldow, F. (Eds.). (2012). World Yearbook of Education 2012: Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education. Routledge. Voice of Indonesia (2020, July 1). Knowing Who Nadiem Makarim Really Is. https://voi. id/en/actual/8659/knowing-who-nadiem-makarim-really-is.

Appendix Materials (if not already listed in the References) Laws and regulations

1 Law no. 20/2003 on the National Education System (Undang-undang no. 20 tahun 2003 tentang Sistem Pendidikan Nasional); 2 Government Regulation no. 19/2005 on the National Education Standard (Peraturan Pemerintah no. 19 tahun 2005 tentang Standar Nasional Pendidikan); 3 Government Regulation no. 32/2013 on the Revision for National Education Standard (Peraturan Pemerintah no. 32 tahun 2013 tentang Perubahan Standar Nasional Pendidikan); 4 Government Regulation no. 57/2021 on the National Education Standard (Peraturan Pemerintah no. 57 tahun 2021 tentang Standar Nasional Pendidikan); and 5 Ministry (of Education) Regulation no. 22/2020 on the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Education and Culture 2020–2024 (Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan no. 22 tahun 2020 tentang Rencana Startegis Kementerian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan tahun 2020–2024). From the Ministry of Education

6 Indonesian Education Roadmap 2020–2035; 7 The 2018 report of Indonesian PISA test (Pendidikan di Indonesia: Belajar dari hasil PISA 2018). OECD and Center of Education Assessment, Ministry of Education and Culture (Pusat Penilaian Pendidikan, Badan Penelitian dan Pendidikan, Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan). 2019; 8 The Ministry’s Strategic Plan 2020–2024 (Peraturan Menteri Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan Republik Indonesia no. 22 tahun 2020 tentang Rencana Strategis Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan tahun 2020–2024); and 9 Minimum Competency Assessment (Asesmen Kompetensi Minimum), https://pusmenjar.kemdikbud.go.id/akm.

44  Ratih D. Adiputri From Bappenas

10 Indonesian Voluntary National Report on Sustainable Development Goals 2021. From the DPR

11 Committee Report on Education Roadmap 2021: Commission X, DPR RI (Laporan Panitia Kerja Peta Jalan Pendidikan Komisi X DPR RI). 9 February 2021 version. Interviewees

1 Two representatives from the Ministry of Education, specifically, the Unit of Research and Development (Badan Penelitian dan Pengembangan, Balitbang); 2 One representative (and team) from Bappenas; 3 One member of parliament (and team) from the DPR’s Commission X; and 4 One representative (a policymaker) from the BSNP. Interview questions

1 What was the process of policymaking like in general and in education specifically, and how were decisions reached/agreed upon with the AKM policy? 2 Who were the actors involved, which institutions were they from and how did they communicate each other? 3 How long did the process take/How long did it take for the AKM policy to be agreed upon? 4 What were the factors leading to the AKM/assessment policy? How did the PISA test influence the decision-making process? 5 Was the public informed during the process? Were parents, teachers and members of civil society organization consulted?

3

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority The Case of Karen Students in the KNU-Controlled Areas in Myanmar Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen

Introduction Access to higher education is an increasingly important and common lifetrajectory across the world (Chien et al., 2017; Hayward, 2020; Meyer et al., 2013). Yet, it remains highly unequal both within and between countries and while the positive influences of higher education on skills and life chances increase, so does the gap between those who have access to university and those who do not (Kotzmann, 2018). In many Global South contexts, higher education continues to be largely for the privileged few and further depends on factors such as rural/urban location, ethnicity, and refugee status (Chien et al., 2017; Wilson-Strydom, 2017). For refugees for instance, of which respectively 86 percent and 72 percent originate from and live in refugee camps in the Global South, access to higher education is a particular challenge (Dryden-Peterson & Giles, 2010). Thus, while young people who grow up in conflict and refugee settings in the Global South aspire to attend university, it remains a far-reaching dream for the vast majority (Clark-Kazak, 2012; Dryden-Peterson & Giles, 2012). This is the reality for many ethnic minorities in Myanmar, including the Karen. More than seven decades of ongoing civil war and conflicts of legitimacy between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the central Myanmar, government is taking its toll on the education system. The KNU education system only goes up to higher secondary level and is neither recognized nationally nor internationally. As a result, the only option for students in the KNU schools is to seek alternative certification in other areas to access university (South & Lall, 2016). Many do so via humanitarian and faith-based networks and alternative learning centers in migrant areas and refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar border (Cranitch & MacLaren, 2018; MacLaren, 2012; Oh et al., 2021; Purkey, 2012; Purkey & Irving, 2019; Zeus, 2011). However, this remains an option only for the few and access to higher education is a major challenge for young Karen people (Purkey, 2012). It is within this context that the chapter explores the theme of equity and justice. More specifically, it addresses how the education system DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-5

46  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen promotes the equal right to higher education based on merit (United Nations, 1948, p. Art.26) for Karen students. In so doing, it focuses on how competition and contested authority between the KNU and the precoup central Myanmar government affected inclusion and exclusion of the Karen students. Drawing on the experiences of the Karen students, the chapter seeks to close some of the knowledge gaps in relation to access to higher education in conflict-affected societies (Milton & Barakat, 2016). Further, it contributes to the wider literature on refugees’ and forced migrants’ access to higher education (Dryden-Peterson & Giles, 2012; Mountford-Zimdars & Harrison, 2017; Naidoo et al., 2018; Stevenson & Baker, 2018; Uangst et al., 2020). Method and theory The chapter follows the idea of the first author, and the qualitative primary data he collected online and in person in Thailand, within June– July 2020; as well as a secondary literature review of peer-review articles, gray papers, policy documents, and theory by both authors. Interviews were conducted online and in person with education providers1 (EPs) and key-informants2 (KI) to gain insights into the context of education in KNU-controlled areas. The main interview group includes eight Karen students from KNU-controlled areas, mostly from the remote Mutraw District, which has been experiencing extensive fighting between the KNU and Myanmar’s military Tatmadaw. Four of them are recent high school graduates who have joined an alternative certification program on the Thai-Myanmar border, and four are earlier graduates who successfully entered overseas higher education. The eight cases are exceptional since they represent the very few students from KNU-controlled areas who access alternative certification schools and further higher education (Purkey, 2012). Indeed, it was challenging to identify overseas Karen students who originally came from KNU-controlled areas. The sampling of recent graduates was also complicated due to COVID-19 restrictions that prevented travel to the KNU-controlled areas. However, the positionality of the first author as a recent Karen overseas university student and his personal contacts in education centers along the Thai-Myanmar border made it possible. The interviews covered questions around the Karen students’ experiences of education in KNU-controlled areas, knowledge on higher education, as well as challenges and opportunities in relation to access. To validate the authenticity of the participants’ responses and due to the sensitivity of the study, we have asked the participants to check transcriptions and approve publication on the condition that they remain anonymous. As this reflects, the chapter relies heavily on the insights from the students and together with the positionality of the first author, it helps us answer the call for youth research to write with rather than about young people (Huijsmans, 2016). However, the majority

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  47 are male students, and further studies are needed to cover important gender perspectives and dynamics. Common interview responses were thematically coded (Creswell, 2014) and hereafter explored based on the capabilities approach which guides the chapter (Deneulin, 2014; Robeyns, 2005; Wilson-Strydom, 2017). The capabilities approach, first introduced by Amartya Sen in the 1980s and further developed by Marta Nussbaum, is a broad normative approach to assess equality, well-being, and freedom, from the perspective of capabilities (Deneulin, 2014). Freedom, here, is gained from greater well-being and agency which depends on one’s capabilities to achieve different functionings that are perceived of value and constitutive of a meaningful life (Deneulin, 2014; Robeyns, 2005; Wilson-Strydom, 2017). In contrast to income-based and utilitarian perspectives, it moves beyond what people have, to understand that what they can do based on material and non-material circumstances (Deneulin, 2014; Robeyns, 2005). As such, it is important to explore not only what people achieve, but also which opportunities (or not) have been available for them to achieve it (Wilson-Strydom, 2017). From this perspective, the socio-economic, environmental, and cultural contexts that people are located in enable and constrain them in multiple ways. This stresses the importance of agency, which Sen (1985, quoted in Deneulin, 2014, p. 25) sees as the “pursuit of whatever goals or values he or she regards as important.” To understand agency, we further draw on the relational understanding from within youth studies (Huijsmans, 2016). Here, young people are not seen in a vacuum, free of societal structures, nor as passive victims. Rather, they are seen as constrained agents as the choices young people make are shaped by the wider social power structures and institutional context within which they exist (Deneulin, 2014; Huijsmans, 2016; Wilson-Strydom, 2017). Following the notions of constrained agency, we both emphasize how the socio-cultural, economic, and political system fail the young Karen students, and how they act to overcome the identified barriers. The core concepts of capabilities and functionings form an evaluative space in line with the normativity of the framework. An important part of understanding peoples’ capabilities is therefore to assess the wider social arrangements, institutions, and policies, and whether these contribute to well-being and for whom (Deneulin, 2014; Robeyns, 2017). Thus, it is often useful to draw on additional explanatory theories, and normative principles such as the human rights (Robeyns, 2017). Indeed, the rights perspective helps in the discussion of which capabilities, i.e. the objects of rights, are available to whom, and whether the context is enabling and just (Robeyns, 2005). This allows for a discussion of how people are secured or denied certain rights, e.g. the right to free primary education and equal right to higher education based on merit (Kotzmann, 2018; Robeyns, 2017; Tomaševski, 2001). Importantly, external circumstances such as conflict shape this. Following that, it is argued that the state-centric approaches

48  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen to human rights obligations are deficient in places where non-state armed groups displace the state authority (Murray, 2016; Pushparajah, 2016). Despite the difficulties of imposing human rights obligations, non-state armed groups are also responsible and accountable as they regulate the daily lives of people within their areas of control (Pushparajah, 2016). This is of key importance in the context of Myanmar. Context As theoretically outlined, the Karen students’ capabilities to enter higher education are largely shaped by the wider social power structures and institutional context within which they exist (Deneulin, 2014; Huijsmans, 2016; Wilson-Strydom, 2017). This section therefore outlines the institutional context as well as the power dynamics among the Myanmar government, the KNU and the students. More specifically, seven decades of the ongoing, armed conflict between the KNU and Tatmadaw continue to induce severe negative impacts on the learning conditions among the Karen students (Lall & South, 2013). One of the student interviewees explained this: Sometimes, we had to run. Some students even needed to hold guns. Sometimes, we had to stop school for months when the fighting became very intense. (Participant-D, personal communication, July 13, 2020) The war began just after independence in 1949 and officially ended with the National Ceasefire Agreement (NCA) in 2012 (South & Lall, 2016). However, the negotiations quickly stalled (Awng et al., 2019). Fighting resumed in 2020 and significantly intensified with the military coup on 1 February 2021 (KHRG, 2021; KPSN, 2021). While the armed conflict itself has devastating consequences for the education system, education also plays a more symbolic role. Indeed, it is a part of the larger effort of self-determination and protection of Karen culture and language (Oh et al., 2021; South & Lall, 2016) and links to the decades of marginalization of the ethnic groups in Myanmar (Aye & Sercombe, 2014; Cho et al., 2018; Lall & South, 2013). As such, the KNU fights for the recognition of its own education system under the Karen Education and Culture Department (KECD). The now stalled transition toward democracy saw some improvements. For instance, the new National Education Law (2015) stipulates that education should value, preserve, and develop: the language, literature, culture, art, traditions, and historical heritage of all the ethnic groups” and that “ethnic language can be used alongside Myanmar as a language of instruction at the basic education level. (unofficial translation; Pyidaungsu Hlittaw Law No. 38/2015: Law Amending the National Education Law, 2015)

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  49 However, several reports and key informants point out that education in the country continues to be largely centralized even after the recent reforms (KII-C, personal communication, July 9, 2020; Mears et al., 2015; South & Lall, 2016; Zobrist & McCormick, 2013). As an example, Barmar (i.e. the majority Burmese language) is still required to be the main language of instruction, in contrast to the KECD education system that uses Karen. Further, the 2015 National Education Law only recognizes the Ministry of Education (MoE) curricula as access giving to higher education in the country (Mears et al., 2015). Consequently, it continues to follow earlier trends of repression of minority languages and histories (Walton, 2013). This is expected to deepen with the current military coup in the country. Persistent issues also exist within the KECD. Particularly, the availability and quality of secondary and post-secondary schools are low (KII-A, personal communication, July 4, 2020; Lall & South, 2013; Syrota, 2015). In KNUcontrolled Mutraw District and the mixed-controlled Dooplaya District for instance, only respectively 50 out of 293 schools and 152 out of 495 are secondary schools (Décobert, 2016). At post-secondary level, very few programs exist in the KNU-controlled areas, with the exception of KECD’s New Generation Post-Ten School, Karen Teacher Training Colleges (KTTCs), and the newly established Junior College. In relation to quantity, students pointed out lack of resources and teaching staff as the main issue: We did not have enough teachers and teachers are very young and not experienced … and there were not enough school materials and resources. For instance, there were no computers and we did not even have a computer class. (Participant-A, personal communication, June 23, 2020) While the Karen Teacher Working Group (KTWG) affords stipends, teaching support and training through KTTCs and mobile centers (Jolliffe, 2016), issues persist. Further, since 2013, many teachers left Ethnic Armed Organization (EAO) education to work for MoE schools with higher salaries (Jolliffe, 2016; Jolliffe & Mears, 2016). Altogether, this can be attributed to lack of financial support and budgetary allocations within the KNU. The KECD, in fact, relies mainly on international financial support (KII-A, personal communication, July 4, 2020) which makes it fragile to changes in donor funding and interests. For instance, the Myanmar Education Consortium that served as a key donor for the KTWGs recently cuts off 80 percent of their financial support (Weng, 2020). This significantly compromises the education services available to Karen students. The KECD, however, is not the only service provider for Karen people. Due to Tamadaw’s advances in the 1990s and the NCA, KNU lost control over many areas that are now under mixed control (Jolliffe, 2016). The number of mixed schools, almost all of which have strong MoE “administrative presence,” has gone up from 379 to 743 in just a few years (Jolliffe, 2016,

50  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen p. 53). Further, the presence of MoE teachers has almost tripled from 1,574 in 2012–2013 to 4,718 in 2015–2016 in KECD schools. According to the latest reports, the KECD supports around 1,500 schools in both KNU-controlled and mixed-controlled areas. Of these, only 285 use the KECD curriculum, 553 use both the KECD and MoE curricular features and 666 use MoE curriculum (Décobert, 2016; Jolliffe, 2016). Consequently, the KNU and KECD increasingly experience competition in providing educational services, particularly in mixed-controlled areas. This creates various conflicts of legitimacy. For instance, local Karen leaders raised concerns over the expansion of MoE-supported institutions among others due to lack of recognition and consideration of the existing ethnic educational systems in the areas and the preferences of local communities for the education of their children (Jolliffe, 2016; Lenkova, 2015; South & Lall, 2016). Following that, the majority of the local Karen people perceive services provided by EAOs more legitimate than those provided under the MoE (Décobert, 2016; Jolliffe, 2016). This is further reflected by the concerns that parents and students express in relation to returning to government schools during the coup (Metro, 2021). However, the current education system makes it difficult for the Karen students who are taught under the KECD curricula to access higher education. This is for example seen in the difficulty to transfer from KECD to MoE schools (Jolliffe & Mears, 2016). As such, students need to seek alternative certification programs on the Thai-Myanmar border, which are few and highly competitive. Access to higher education therefore is dependent on the students’ mobility to leave Myanmar for extended periods. This is problematic in a context where KNU leaders not always are supportive of students leaving the KNU-controlled areas. Indeed, the four university students noted the difficulties to get permission, help with transportation and recommendation letters: My principal did not want me to come to Thailand and blocked me. It was very challenging for me. Maybe the leaders were worried that we would not come back to work and volunteer there. (Participant-H, personal communication, July 17, 2020) Building on this, the students expressed their dissatisfaction and explained how various KNU authorities exercise control over their movement after high school. For instance, in order to leave, some explained that they needed informal commitments, which stated their return to work for the KNU- or KNU-related organizations. In line with that, one student noted: Some of the local leaders are very narrow-minded. They do not want us to go outside and get higher education although they always said education is important …. They said to us that having high school education is enough to teach at Karen schools and work for the KNU. I think

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  51 they are afraid that when we went out and become highly educated, they may lose their power. Maybe this is why they try to control us and exercise their power a lot. (Participant-D, personal communication, July 17, 2020) This quote reflects how the Karen students play an important role in the conflict as the KNU seeks to reinforce their legitimacy and control. In fact, while some leaders do support the students’ capabilities, the KNU leadership in many ways prevents them from reaching higher education. As this contextual overview shows, the Karen students are often the losers in the fight for authority between the KNU and Tatmadaw, particularly in relation to the lack of recognition of their high school attainments and KNU’s authority. Findings The challenging context within which the Karen students seek to access higher education puts into question whether the education policy and practice is just, enabling and further in accordance with the equal human right to higher education based on merit (Kotzmann, 2018; Robeyns, 2005, 2017; Tomaševski, 2001). While the fulfillment of human rights normally is analyzed in relation to nation states, it is also necessary to draw into consideration ethnic authorities in the Myanmar context as they regulate the daily lives of people within their areas of control (Pushparajah, 2016). As such, the following will discuss the human rights’ responsibilities both in relation the central Myanmar government and the KNU. The increasing presence of the central Myanmar government in the KNU areas, as well as their control over the national level education system means that they are accountable to Karen students. Thus, they hold important power for instance in relation to the national education policy and budget allocations for different regions and are responsible for the general lack of affordable quality and safe education across the country. This is particularly true in those ethnic states such as the Karen which receive disproportionate little funding for education (Walton, 2013). As a result, large differences were reported not only in the highest completed level of education, but also in the proportion of having completed no level of education between States and Regions. For instance, “the highest proportion of highly educated was recorded in Yangon (15.9 percent),” whereas the lowest proportion of highly educated was recorded in Karen State (3.6 percent) (Department of Population et al., 2017, p. 16). In line with that, the report also shows that the highest level of people above 25 years who did not complete any education was recorded in Karen and Shan State. Here respectively 35.6 percent and 49.8 percent did not complete any education compared to the lowest levels in Yangon and Nay Pyi Taw, where the numbers are respectively 5.9 percent and 8.1 percent (Department of Population et al., 2017, p. 57).

52  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen Another violation pertains to the principles of acceptability and adaptability, for instance the elimination of legal and administrative barriers, particularly in relation to minorities’ rights (Tomaševski, 2001, p. 12). Here, the central Myanmar government violates ethnic minority students’ rights when they prevent the KECD Karen students from entering higher education, even when they hold high school certificates that should be merit giving. The interviewed EPs and key informants pinpointed the importance to strengthen the quality of education and self-recognition through the formation of an Ethnic Education Recognition and Quality Assurance Committee. Yet, the issue of recognition is complicated and put even further into question by the new political situation in Myanmar. In this context, it is even less likely that KECD education will be recognized anytime in the near future. This makes it even more important to ensure access to alternative certification programs on the Thai-Myanmar border for the students in the KNU-controlled areas to have access to higher education. While the KECD generally has been applauded for its efforts in providing education given both the lack of funding from the KNU and the armed conflict (Lall & South, 2013), its ability as the education department of the KNU to fulfill the (equal) human right to (higher) education (based on merit) needs further discussion. This is both due to their current role as the main service provider in some areas, and their future aim to expand this role in a federal Myanmar union. For instance, one of the student interviewees stressed: The KNU definitely has the responsibility to fulfill rights to education and the needs for the people there because we don’t have access to the central government in our areas. If the KNU does not do or fulfil our needs, who is going to fulfil them? (Participant-A, personal communication, June 23, 2020) Another mentioning how the issue moves beyond the conflict: I think that even though it [i.e political instability] stops, if the local leaders don’t change the system, nothing would be changed so I still have to come to the refugee camp in Thailand. (Participant-D, personal communication, July 13, 2020) As outlined, education under the KNU via KECD is significantly underfunded. This is only likely to deepen with the recent surge of fighting with the Tatmadaw. As a result, the KECD education system struggles to live up to fulfilling the rights in relation to the fiscal allocations and availability of schools, as well as the enforcement of minimal standards such as quality and safety (Tomaševski, 2001, p. 12). While this is arguably affected by external factors, outside the control of KNU, they do play an important role in relation to supporting and providing information for alternative options for

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  53 KECD students. For instance, to fulfill their human rights responsibilities in relation to higher education, they need to support students’ free movement. Therefore, their current restrictions and control over the students are in stark contrast to the idea of self-determination (of parents) to select schools (Tomaševski, 2001, p. 12) and further the right to freedom of movement (United Nations, 1948, p. Art. 16). The restrictions also pertain to lack of information, as noted in a KII: It is difficult for people in the KNU-controlled areas to either have the motivation or get access to overseas higher education because they don’t even know what the overseas system look like and so they don’t even know how to prepare themselves to be ready for education system outside of Kawtholei [i.e. the KNU]. (KII-A, personal communication, July 4, 2020) Indeed, all the interviewed students who are now at overseas universities reported that they did not receive any information and guidance about higher education from the education administration in the KNU-controlled areas. As mentioned: I feel like the organization [KNU/KECD] does not want to give me information about further education. If you want to continue your education and pursue higher education, you cannot rely on the organization information flow. (Participant-C, personal communication, June 24, 2020) Concurrently, the remoteness of the KNU-controlled areas and the very limited opportunities and information flow, including limited internet access, make it difficult for the students to seek information on their own. Here again, KNU’s responsibility is brought into question as they hold an important role in developing bridging programs such General Educational Development (GED) training programs, or at least, providing information on the pathway to higher education. As such, for KECD to support its students, it is crucial that they support them and pave their ways to access recognized higher education. This requires that the KECD education system considers GED programs as a formal track and embeds them within its current education system, as it does with its teacher colleges and post-ten programs provided by both KECD and other educational service providers in the areas. Access to overseas higher education for the Karen students who are trapped in between competing authorities also depends on regional and international actors’ as well as universities’ recognition. Recognition therefore moves beyond the central Myanmar government’s responsibilities and exemplifies the human rights responsibilities of other actors in ensuring the right to higher education based on merit. This highlights the issue of recognition of ethnic minority education not only in Myanmar

54  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen but also at a regional and global level. Particularly, it highlights the importance to recognize the roles of non-state actors such as the KECD and other ethnic education systems, in filling rights to education, especially in conflict settings. In fact, UNESCO (2009) states that national governments, international agencies and other implementing partners need to identify certification needs and ensure recognition for it to be easier for students to reach university, in this case, outside Myanmar. Here, the ASEAN and its Special Senior Officials Meetings on Education (SOMED) play a key role. For instance, while they have already highlighted the importance of ensuring higher student mobility within the ASEAN through regional quality assurance, qualifications frameworks and credit transfers, this needs to take into special consideration the issue of ethnic minority education recognition. While a regional framework for this continues to be lacking, it is worth noting that some universities in Thailand have accepted students from migrant schools on the Thai-Myanmar border. However, in some cases, the students are still required by the universities to take the GED exam and provide a GED certificate even after they have finished the required degree courses for them to graduate. Thus, they are still not accepted and experience discrimination within the education system despite their merits. Significance Despite the eight student interviewees having either accessed higher education or being on their way via alternative education centers, it is important to understand which opportunities (or not) were available for them to achieve this (Wilson-Strydom, 2017). Altogether, the conflict and current education policy and practice within both the KECD and MoE as well as internationally, greatly compromise the Karen students’ opportunities. The student interviewees are frustrated by the current situation, and they all agree that lack of recognition of their high school certificates and learning attainments is the main barrier they encounter. As one of the student interviewees expressed “there is no recognition. It is not fair for us and I feel like we also finished high school, but we cannot enter university.” (Participant-E, personal communication, July 4, 2020). For the recent high school graduates, they further stress the lack of opportunities and information as well as restricted mobility as significant barriers. The practices of the KNU leaders have created a strong sense of responsibility among the students to go back and contribute to communities through working with the KNU-related organizations after they finish their GED training program in Thailand. Further, all the interviewed students stress the issue of poor quality education, while many of the KIIs and EPs highlight the issue of political instability. While refugees and migrants face many struggles in access to higher education globally and in the case of Myanmar people in Thailand (Clark-Kazak,

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  55

Figure 3.1  Pathways to overseas higher education

2012; Dryden-Peterson & Giles, 2012; Purkey & Irving, 2019; Zeus, 2011), students in conflict settings are in some ways even further constrained. Consequently, the lack of recognition, poor quality and the KNU control means that higher education usually is reserved for a small group of the elites (KIIB, personal communication, July 14, 2020). It is further complicated by the confusing education system on the Thai-Myanmar border where many of the opportunities such as Post-Ten programs, college programs and teacher training programs do not grant access to higher education (see Figure 3.1). As a result, the four current university students spent between four and six and a half years between completing high school and entering university. Years could have been used to advance their future career. One student interviewee, for instance, attended three different post-ten level education programs before identifying the fourth that gave access: I could not use any of the certification provided by the KECD including my high school certificate and post-ten certification, and the certificate from Teacher Preparation Center. After high school in the KNU-­ controlled areas, I attended two different post-ten programs, but I could not use these certifications and it took me three years. (Participant-C, personal communication, June 24, 2020) To cope with the constraining context, the students engaged in various strategies and saw no other options as reflected: “We cannot go to university in Myanmar. What should we do? Get married? We all want to come to

56  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen Thailand for further higher education.” (Participant-B, personal communication, July 13, 2020) To enable this, the four university students had to resist the control of the KNU. As one explained: For me, I knew that I would not have a chance to continue my education if I went back so I tried to avoid them [KNU] and I decided not to go back …. At first, I felt a lot of pressure, but the only way for me is to avoid them if I wanted to further my education. So, I decided not to go back. (Participant-B, personal communication, July 13, 2020) To overcome the poor quality of the KECD education, they also explained the importance of improving their skills before they could enter the alternative certification programs. For instance, one interviewed university student mentioned: For me, I always knew that I could not just rely on the school in the areas, and I had to do my own self-study. I would regularly practice my English because I wanted to speak English and I believed that English was essential skills for me. My friends and I would do self-study all the time and we would ask our friends from Thailand to copy MP3 English audio practices. That’s how we tried to improve ourselves and cope with the low quality of education. (Participant-C, personal communication, June 24, 2020) Others further received tutoring: My mom hired a tutor for me during the summer break when I was in high school. I would say that I was lucky. For those who cannot do selfstudy, buy books, or have a tutor, they cannot do anything. I am luckier than other students are as my family was very supportive for me with my education …. My father also has many networks and friends on the Thai-Myanmar border. That’s one of the reasons it was easier for me. (Participant-B, personal communication, July 13, 2020) As this quote further reflects, the importance of family support and connections cannot be underestimated. This was also supported by another student noting that though his family was not the main reason for him to reach university, the fact that many of his family members are members of the KNU did give him a better chance. For students without such connections, they explained how they rely on other social relations, especially visiting teachers or friends as found in other studies (MacLaren, 2012). This exemplifies how the students exercise agency, despite the constrained context. Others also did this by building up close relations with teachers to cope with the lack of information channels.

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  57 However, it also shows how the students have to go through unnecessary lengths to access higher education, which severely constrains the opportunity, freedom, and capability of young Karen people broadly to access higher education. Consequently, few reach higher education highly influenced by family status, support, and contacts. Altogether, this severely affects the well-being of young Karen students, particularly those who are forced to give up higher education. As such, one of the students noted the struggle of many of her friends: Most of my friends who were studying together with me (at high school), they all now work for them and organizations like KECD. Almost all of them, they would tell me “I am so happy for you and I also want to go for university. I also want to study at university like you.” I can see from their eyes and from their expressions that they themselves are not happy with the situations they are in because they are not allowed to go further. (Participant-B, personal communication, July 13, 2020) Further, it hampers the human capital within the KNU and thus the success of a potential future federal governance system in Myanmar, which they aim for. Following that, despite its external challenges, the KNU holds large responsibilities in improving access to quality education and alternative tracks toward higher education, particularly in the new context of the coup. This is also what is expected from them among the interviewed Karen students. Yet, the international condemnation of the coup also opens new opportunities for international actors to work toward the recognition of the ethnic minority education systems with alternative EPs in Myanmar and across the border areas. This is crucial, in order to release, rather than further embed, the Karen students from the contested authority between the KNU and the Myanmar government. On a concluding note, this chapter shows the importance of understanding not only Myanmar refugee access to higher education, but also the many ethnic minority students whose future is trapped in the ongoing conflicts of authority. This is not only true for the Karen, but also Myanmar’s many other ethnic groups which again highlights the importance of international and regional recognition of ethnic education systems. Notes 1 These included three actors: (1) the Karen Education and Cultural Department (KECD); (2) the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and (3) the Minmahaw Higher Education Program (MHEP). 2 These included three actors: (1) A researcher working on politics, ethnic conflicts and ethnic education systems in Myanmar including the Karen. (2) Founding Director of the Salween Institute of Public Policy with extensive experiences in education sectors both under the mainstream systems and ethnic education system. (3) A senior member of the National Network for Education Reform (MNER) and leading education reform activist in Myanmar.

58  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen References Awng, G.S., Khine, M.A., Aung, N.T., & Antaliková, R. (2019). The Deadlocking Factors in Myanmar’s Peace Process. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Myanmar Office. Aye, K.K., & Sercombe, P. (2014). Language, education and nation-building in Myanmar. In P. Sercombe & R. Tupas (Eds.), Language, Education and Nation-Building: Assimilation and Shift in Southeast Asia (pp. 148–164). Palgrave Macmillan. Chien, C.L., Montjouridès, P., & van der Pol, H. (2017). Global trends of access to and equity in postsecondary education. In A. Mountford-Zimdars & N. Harrison (Eds.), Access to Higher Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges. Routledge. Cho, V., Simpson, A., Farrelly, N., & Holliday, I. (2018). Ethnicity and identity. In Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar. Routledge. Clark-Kazak, C.R. (2012). The politics of formal schooling in refugee contexts: Education, class, and decision making among Congolese in Uganda. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 27(2), 57–64. Cranitch, M., & MacLaren, D. (2018). Building intellectual capacity for Burma: The story of Australian catholic University’s tertiary education program with Burmese refugee and migrant students. In E. Sengupta & P. Blessinger (Eds.), Innovations in Higher Education Teaching and Learning: Strategies, Policies, and Directions for Refugee Education (Vol. 13). Emerald Insight. Creswell, J. (2014). Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches. SAGE. Décobert, A. (2016). School Committees and Community Engagement in Education in Karen State. USAID, Karen Education Department & World Education. Deneulin, S. (2014). Wellbeing, Justice and Development Ethics. Routledge. Dryden-Peterson, S., & Giles, W. (2012). Introduction: Higher education for refugees. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 27(2), 3–9. Hayward, F.M. (2020). Transforming Higher Education Asia and Africa: Strategic Planning and Policy. State Univeristy of New York Press. Huijsmans, R. (2016). Generationing development: An introduction. In R. Huijsmans (Ed.), Generationing Development (pp. 1–31). Palgrave Macmillan UK. https:// doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55623-3_1 Jolliffe, K. (2016). Ceasefires, Governance and Development: The Karen National Union in Times of Change. The Asia Foundation. Jolliffe, K., & Mears, E.S. (2016). Towards Universal Education (p. 134). The Asia Foundation. KHRG. (2021). An End to Peace Efforts: Recent Fighting in Doo Tha Htoo District between the KNLA and the Tatmadaw Following the 2021 Myanmar Military Coup (March and April 2021). Karen Human Rights Group. https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb. int/files/resources/21-2-nb1_wb.pdf KII-A. (2020, July 4). Key Informant Interview [Personal communication]. KII-B. (2020, July 14). Key Informant Interview [Personal communication]. KII-C. (2020, July 9). Key Informant Interview [Personal communication]. Kotzmann, J. (2018). The Human Rights-Based Approach to Higher Education. Oxford University Press. KPSN. (2021). Situation Update of IDPs in Mutraw (Papun) and Kler Lwee Htoo (Nyaunglebin) Districts, 29.01.2021. Karen Peace Support Network. https://www.karenpeace.org/

Access to Higher Education in Areas of Contested Authority  59 wp-content/uploads/2021/02/04022021_KPSN_Briefing_FINAL-Situation-updateof-IDPs-in-Mutraw-Papun-and-Kler-Lwee-Htu-Nyaunglebin.pdf Lall, M., & South, A. (2013). Comparing models of non-state ethnic education in Myanmar: The Mon and Karen national education regimes. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 44(2), 281–321. Lenkova, P. (2015). Conflict Sensitivity in Education Provision in Karen State. Thabyay Education Foundation. MacLaren, D. (2012). Tertiary education for refugees: A case study from the ThaiBurma border. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 27(2), 103–110. Mears, E.S., Rasmussen, P.E., Oo, L.M.T.T., & Lian, Z. (2015). Analysis of Education Services in Contested Regions of Myanmar. Myanmar Education Consortium. Metro, R. (2021, June 24). The emerging alternatives to ‘military slave education.’ Frontier. Meyer, H.D., John, E.P.S., Chankseliani, M., & Uribe, L. (Eds.). (2013). Fairness in Access to Higher Education in a Global Perspective: Reconciling Excellence, Efficiency, and Justice. Brill Sense. Milton, S., & Barakat, S. (2016). Higher education as the catalyst of recovery in conflict-affected societies. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 14(3), 403–421. https:// doi.org/10.1080/14767724.2015.1127749 Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (Union Parliament) (2015). Pyidaungsu Hlittaw Law No. 38/2015: Law Amending the National Education Law. Mountford-Zimdars, A., & Harrison, N. (2017). Access to Higher Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges. Routledge. Murray, D. (2016). Human Rights Obligations of Non-State Armed Groups. Hart Publishing. Naidoo, L., Wilkinson, J., Adoniou, M., & Langat, K. (2018). Refugee Background Students Transitioning Into Higher Education. Springer. Oh, S.-A., Walker, M., & Thako, H. (2021). Karen education and boundary-making at the Thai-Burmese borderland. Journal of Borderlands Studies, 36(4), 637–652. https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2019.1685401 Participant-A. (2020, June 23). University Student Interview [Personal communication]. Participant-B. (2020, July 13). University Student Interview [Personal communication]. Participant-C. (2020, June 24). University Student Interview [Personal communication]. Participant-D. (2020, July 13). University Student Interview [Personal communication]. Participant-E. (2020, July 4). Recent High School Graduate Interview [Personal communication]. Participant-H. (2020, July 17). Recent High School Graduate Interview [Personal communication]. Purkey, M. (2012). Paths to a future for youth in protracted refugee situations: A view from the Thai-Burmese border. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, 27(2), 97–102. Purkey, M., & Irving, M. (2019). The importance of access and accreditation: Learning from the Thailand–Myanmar border. Forced Migration Review, 60, 59–71. Pushparajah, N. (2016). Human Rights Obligations of Armed Non-State Actors in NonInternational Armed Conflicts. Wolf Legal Publishers. Robeyns, I. (2005). The capability approach: A theoretical survey. Journal of Human Development, 6(1), 93–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/146498805200034266 Robeyns, I. (2017). Wellbeing, Freedom and Social Justice: The Capability Approach Re-Examined. Open Book Publishers. https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0130 South, A., & Lall, M. (2016). Schooling and Conflict: Ethnic Education and Mother TongueBased Teaching in Myanmar. USAID & Asia Foundation.

60  Saw Than Min Htun and Sofie Mortensen Stevenson, J., & Baker, S. (2018). Refugees in Higher Education: Debate, Discourse and Practice. Emerald Publishing Limited. Syrota, A. (2015). MTT (Mobile Teacher Trainer) Focus Group Discussion, October (MTT, Interviewer). Tomaševski, K. (2001). Human Rights Obligations: Making Education Available, Accessible, Acceptable and Adaptable (No. 3; Human Rights Education Primers). Raoul Wallenberg Institute & Sida. Uangst, L., Ergin, H., Khajarian, A., DeLaquil, T., & de Wit, H. (Eds.). (2020). Refugees and Higher Education: Trans-National Perspectives on Access, Equity, and Internationalization. Brill Sense. UNESCO. (2009). Certification Counts: Recognizing the Learning Attainments of Displaced and Refugee Students. UNESCO IIEP. United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www. un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights Walton, M. (2013). The “wages of Burman-ness:” Ethnicity and Burman privilege in contemporary Myanmar. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(1), 1–27. Weng, L. (2020, January 30) Myanmar’s Karen Education Group sounds alarm over sharp cut to funding. The Irrawaddy. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/burma/ myanmars-karen-education-group-sounds-alarm-sharp-cut-funding.html Wilson-Strydom, M. (2017). Widening access with success: Using the capabilities approach to confront injustices. In A. Mountford-Zimdars & N. Harrison (Eds.), Access to Higher Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Contemporary Challenges. Routledge. Zeus, B. (2011). Exploring barriers to higher education in protracted refugee situations: The case of Burmese refugees in Thailand. Journal of Refugee Studies, 24(2), 256–276. Zobrist, B., & McCormick, P. (2013). A Preliminary Assessment of Decentralization in Education: Experiences in Mon State and Yangon Region. The Asia Foundation.

4

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms in Language for Social and Educational Changes A Case of English as Medium of Instruction in Indonesia Anis Sundusiyah

Introduction In a multilingual, multiethnic and highly populated country such as Indonesia, foreign languages can be simultaneously seen as a resource and a problem. Such attitudes have both informed policy views (Ruiz, 1984) and become sources of tension, perpetuated by various stakeholders’ respective interests. This is evident in the use of English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in Indonesia’s international public schools, a policy which was adopted from 2005 to 2013. In general, English is partially and incrementally used to teach nonlanguage courses to non-native English-speaking learners using the EMI approach (Baker, 2003). Indonesia’s EMI policy was coupled with an international education initiative: the International-Standard Schools Project (IS-Schools). Together, they were part of an emerging trend of internationalization in school systems, particularly in Asia. A preliminary study indicated a wide range of argumentative framings and rebuttals proposed by those supporting and opposing the EMI policy (Sundusiyah, 2014). National policymakers justified policy goals on the grounds of human, social and cultural capital development for national, regional and global political participation in the academic and economic sectors. EMI was tied to individual and national economic productivity, literacy for global competitiveness and political identity. However, many critiqued its technical issues, such as local teachers’ English-language competence and the supply of textbooks (Haryana, 2007; Mariati, 2007), educational norms (Sakhiyya, 2011) as well as power relations in EMI policy practices (Darmaningtyas, 2010). Informed by these previous studies, this chapter discusses tensions in Indonesia’s language policies, as reflected in the case of EMI in IS-Schools. Its purpose is to examine how differing framings of the EMI policy were contested by various stakeholders, guided by the following research question: how was the EMI policy framed by various stakeholders in debates?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-6

62  Anis Sundusiyah The findings confirm and reveal the dominance of normative (e.g., beliefs, values, norms) and political (e.g., power relations, identities) framings. These framings were cross-analyzed with the literature, specifically the politics of education, language policies as well as educational and social change theories. Specifically, policy tensions were analyzed by considering the underlying paradigms (i.e., worldviews and theoretical approaches) embedded in the arguments of the EMI policy’s supporters and opponents. This policy marked a significant shift in Indonesia’s language policy orientation, away from post-independence nationalism and sociopolitical cohesion toward a pursuit of global competitiveness and political alliances. Supranational networks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Economic Community (Hew, 2005) and the World Bank (Gropello et al., 2011) contributed indirectly by sending a message on the significance of English proficiency for cultural-political integration and economic advantages. Although the policy was terminated in 2013, the findings and significance of this study remain relevant to current contemporary discourse in language policy and planning, particularly in the context of school internationalization and language practices. Indonesia’s context is similar to schools in other non-native English-speaking countries (Dearden, 2014), thus contributing to a broader understanding of the sociopolitical and normative nuances involved as well as the implications of the use of the English language. Method and theory Data collection

This study combines multiple sampling techniques—i.e., criterion, snowball and maximum variation (see Table 4.1)—and interviewed 21 participants over 10 months—i.e., 4 government officials, 9 IS-School teachers and 8 scholars (see Table 4.2). The participants experienced the EMI policy differently through their distinctive positionalities in the policy environment, which led to differing views on its priorities, goals, implementation and consequences. An interpretive document review was conducted to explore how stakeholders made meaning of an event, activity or message in reports or legislation. Documents were collected and sorted based on four criteria: (1) source validity, (2) significance, (3) content relevance and (4) publication year. The review process included arguments and theme identification, categorization as well as synthesis. The main document reviewed was the 200-page-plus Constitutional Court Decision No. 5/PUU-X/2012 (Constitutional Court, 2012), which was central in uncovering the discourse in debates on the EMI policy in IS-Schools. It listed petitions and rebuttals by various stakeholders with different affiliations and capacities—i.e., parents, teachers, school principals, government

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  63 Table 4.1  Sampling techniques and number of interviewees Sampling techniques Criterion sampling

Snowball sampling

Officials who were actively involved in the EMI policy formulation at the national or provincial level. (1) Teachers who applied the EMI policy in their classes (six participants) and (2) teachers of languages other than English (three participants). Language and/or education scholars who were professionally involved in some parts of the EMI policy formulation process and who publicly showed diverse experiences, perspectives and stances on the EMI policy. To look for key informants or sources based on referrals or recommendations of well-situated people or interviewees.

Interviewees 3 9

Government officials (national and provincial level) Teachers

2

Scholars (international)

2

Scholars (international and domestic) Government (national level) Scholars (domestic)

1

4 A heterogenous form of sampling to enlist and identify more scholars whose names were mentioned or involved in the legislation passage of the Constitutional Court’s decision to terminate the IS-Schools. Total interviewees: 21 participants (4 government officials, 9 teachers, 8 scholars) Maximumvariation sampling

officers and scholars/activists. Additionally, there were other policy-related artifacts with supporting claims and examples, including school archives, teachers’ personal files and documented pictures (see Table 4.3). Data analysis

A critical-value frame analysis (Hulst & Yanow, 2016; Rein & Schon, 1996) is applied here. Elsewhere, it has been used to explore conflicting norms embraced by two or more communities and identify the language or stories used to frame the issues discussed (Schmidt, 2000; Swaffield, 1998). Such an analysis examines not only the values and messages involved (what), but also frame-makers’ identities and positionalities (who), the ways in which messages are framed (how), meta-communicative framings of policy processes (e.g., communicative instruments, cues and evidence) and how framing is intertwined (e.g., cross-comparative frames, counter arguments, rebuttals) (Hulst & Yanow, 2016). Here, the critical-value frame analysis aims to identify and explore the framed

64  Anis Sundusiyah Table 4.2  Interviewee profiles No

Pseudonym

Role

Background and involvement with the EMI policy

1

Thomas

Govt 1

2

Patrick

Govt 2

3

George

Govt 3

4

James

Govt 4

5

Anthony

Teacher 1

6

Deborah

Teacher 2

7

Evelyn

Teacher 3

8

Stanford

Teacher 4

9

Wilma

Teacher 5

10

Paul

Teacher 6

11

Hannah

Teacher 7

12

Agnes

Teacher 8

13

Olivia

Teacher 9

14

Charles

Scholar 1

15

Daniel

Scholar 2

16 17

Imelda Nancy

Scholar 3 Scholar 4

MONE official: involved in developing and supervising IS-School provisions, worked closely with local governments/offices. MONE official: involved in developing and supervising IS-School provisions. MONE official: represented MONE at the ASEAN Education office, involved in developing international education for vocational schools, closely worked with schoolteachers and delegates to ASEAN education networks and projects. Local government official: experienced in educational and development policies at the local level, closely worked with local school leaders, former principal of an IS-School (which was part of the early IS-School cohort). Olympus schoolteacher (English language): EMI coordinator, heavily involved in schoolwide EMI policy decisions. Olympus schoolteacher (Biology): employed English in her classes, involved in schoolwide EMI policy developments, heavily involved in IS-School internal and external activities. Olympus schoolteacher (Chemistry): employed English in her classes. Olympus schoolteacher (Physics): employed English in his classes, involved in some IS-School internal and external activities (especially science competitions). Olympus schoolteacher (Economy): employed English in her classes, involved in schoolwide EMI policy decisions. Olympus schoolteacher (Geography): employed English in his classes. Olympus schoolteacher (Bahasa Indonesia): not affected by EMI policies. Olympus schoolteacher (Javanese language): not affected by EMI policies. Olympus schoolteacher (Japanese language): not affected by EMI policies. Linguist, professor of Bahasa Indonesian (retired but still teaching), researcher on linguistics and Indonesian language discourse in Indonesia. Educational activist, founder of a non-governmental organization (NGO) on education and social justice, works closely with local schools and teachers on various educational training and issues. Professors of EFL, educational researchers and advocates, trainers on education and language topics, work closely with schools and teachers on English language training, researched IS-Schools. (Continued)

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  65 Table 4.2  (Continued) No

Pseudonym

Role

Background and involvement with the EMI policy

18

Theodore

Scholar 5

19

Bruce

Scholar 6

20

Harrison

Scholar 7

21

Maxwell

Scholar 8

Professor of education and culture, educational researcher and advocate, writer and trainer on education and cultural studies. United States-based language policy researcher and advocate, director of an NGO on language policy; familiar with growing trends in international schools and international languages worldwide. Professor and researcher specializing in the English language and sociology of language, taught English in various countries, conducted language-related training and consultation, has several publications on international language(s) in many parts of the world, closely worked with several Indonesian researchers on IS-School practices. OECD researcher working on global competence tests, familiar with growing trends of international schools and international languages worldwide.

messages, underlying views as well as the frame-makers’ identities and positionalities. While the process was non-sequential and marked by several iterations, the general course of analysis is as follows, based on Hulst and Yanow (2016), Rein and Schon (1996) as well as Schmidt (2006): (1) identifying issues in the debates, participants’ backgrounds, core values and supporting arguments/examples/evidence (if any); (2) synthesizing categories into conceptual frames and (3) cross-analyzing frames, contexts and literature. Table 4.3  List of documents reviewed Document descriptions National policy documents Law No. 20 of 2003 on the National Education System Decree No. 78 of 2009 on the Management of InternationalStandard Schools Decision Number 5/PUU-X/2012 (Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia) Schoolwide documents Policy-specific documents Textbook collections School web-based information Photos of student activities Pictures of policy-relevant school sites

Type Legislation

Archive Teaching materials Website Archive Archive

66  Anis Sundusiyah Analytical concepts

The EMI policy debates were understood by examining paradigms or worldviews underlying the various related disagreements. Kuhn’s definition of a paradigm is used here—i.e., the way a professional or academic community considers a field of study, pinpoints appropriate problems and proposes relevant concepts as well as methods (Paulston, 1976, 1977). Meanwhile, their worldviews in the debates were interpreted by referring to the notions of equilibrium and conflict paradigms (as well as their respective sub-theories) as per Christina Paulston’s (1992) discussion of theoretical frameworks of language policy. Generally, the equilibrium (or functional) paradigm emphasizes the needs of incremental and smooth policy changes while promoting harmony among societal components. Meanwhile, the conflict paradigm highlights inherent instabilities and struggles within society to foster equity and justice. Each paradigm makes assumptions about the needs, priorities and characteristics relevant to education and social changes. These classifications are not meant to label individual scholars, as Christina Paulston (1992) emphasizes, but rather, to identify the worldviews and theoretical approaches embodied in scholarly work. Each will be discussed in turn below. The equilibrium paradigm

This worldview sees educational policy changes as an effort to maintain society in a state of equilibrium by ensuring harmonious relationships between its social components, where policy changes are expected to be smooth and cumulative (Paulston, 1976, 1977). Society is viewed as a functional selfregulating apparatus capable of maintaining social stability and harmony. Existing or rising sociopolitical and economic struggles are considered dysfunctional elements, rather than being inherent or embedded in society. This paradigm encompasses several overlapping approaches: (1) evolutionary and neo-evolutionary, (2) structural-functionalist (S/F) and (3) system analysis, as described in detail below. Evolutionary and neo-evolutionary approaches, which are progressive in nature, draw heavily on Darwin’s theory of evolution to emphasize society’s adaptability toward stages of socioeconomic and cultural development to explain and predict sequential social-educational changes, i.e., from early or primitive phases to more advanced phases of sociocultural categorization and specialization (Paulston, 1976, p. 7). Educational systems have to focus their needs and orientations in order to adapt to society’s evolutionary development. Education is seen as an integrative structure which functions to maintain stability while also progressing from simpler to more complex modern forms in response to changes and trends in other structures. The S/F approach touches upon the maintenance of harmony among societal components in order to open a path toward smooth and cumulative policy changes. It focuses on mechanisms to balance out and

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  67 create harmony in order to avoid conflict. Both evolutionary and S/F theorists believe in an adaptive change mechanism, where incremental adjustments fix any system imbalances or conflicts. Conflicts are considered external forces or influences, while intra-system conflicts are considered indicators of internal systemic breakdowns (which are ultimately self-regulating). Finally, a systems analysis initially drew from the fields of biology, cybernetics, applied mathematics as well as information and communication theory to provide explanations of complex phenomena in terms of isolable, reductive elements (Paulston, 1977). It has since been extended to organized entities in the social sciences (e.g., social groups, personalities or technological devices) and referred to as “dynamical system theory”, consisting of mathematical descriptions of system properties to generate differential equations (Bertalanffy, 1972). The conflict paradigm

This worldview accentuates issues in economic conflicts, ideological values and cultural struggles, as well as those arising from unfair governance, repressive institutions and an imperfect human nature. It recognizes and emphasizes “the inherent instability of [a] social system and conflicts over values, resources and power that follow as a natural consequence” (Paulston, 1976, p. 7), including: (1) group conflict theory, (2) cultural revitalization theory and (3) anarchistic-utopian theories. Group conflict theory represents analytical perspectives that highlight economic conflict and power exploitation, including unequal educational and social opportunities, structural inequities, the persistence of poverty and income disparities (Paulston, 1976, 1977). A successful policy or reform is seen in efforts which address the political and economic hegemony of majority ruling groups through revolutionary change. Assessments and remedies of inequity become the preconditions or requirements for equitable educational change. Cultural revitalization theory focuses on cultural change, revival and social movements. It often consists of a recurring phenomenon: the “deliberate organized conscious efforts by members of a society to construct a more satisfying culture” (Wallace, quoted in Paulston, 1976, p. 30) of varying sizes, taking place from local to national levels. This implies a sizable potential for both cultural conflicts and social changes, since it intends to construct new sets of systems, norms and conduct. Anarchistic and utopian theories share goals of radical social transformation and emphasize cultural revitalization for individual renewal (Paulston, 1976, 1977). They are concerned with problems of institutional conflict and human constraints and their remedies. Typically, a utopian approach starts with a valuecritical analysis of socio-educational reality (ibid.), which tends to be highly idealistic, persuasive and hard to disapprove of, given that it provokes a passionate and stimulating discussion on what learning and schooling should be like.

68  Anis Sundusiyah Context International-standard schools

Indonesia’s education system operates on a massive scale, with over 63.5 million students enrolled and 2.6 million teachers employed in more than 250,000 primary and secondary schools. It is the fourth-largest education system in the world after those of China, India and the United States (Indriyanto, 2017). Following educational decentralization initiatives, Law No. 20 of 2003 on the National Education System (Republic of Indonesia, 2003) introduced IS-Schools, defined by the Ministry of National Education (MONE) as schools which: fulfills all the National Standards for Education and which is further enriched by taking into consideration the education standards of one member nation of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and/or another advanced nation which has particular strengths in education such that it achieves competitive advantage in the international forum. (MONE, 2007b, p. 7) Local governments nominated and helped transform hundreds of highranking public schools accordingly. Schools with national-standard certification could also nominate themselves for assessment as IS-Schools. The project was soon followed up with the introduction of several educational policy documents (MONE, 2007a, 2007b, 2009, 2011a, 2011b), including one which initiated EMI in IS-Schools. In 2011, there were more than 1,300 IS-Schools nationwide, consisting of more than 200 elementary schools, 356 junior high schools, 359 senior high schools and 351 vocational high schools (Constitutional Court, 2012). Indonesia’s EMI policy

This language initiative was embedded in IS-Schools to promote them as being “foreign-like”, bilingual international schools. EMI policy documents suggested the use of English or other foreign languages for instructional purposes (e.g., French, Japanese, Arabic or Mandarin), particularly for English, Math and Science courses, which were considered having “competitive value” in international forums (MONE, 2007a, pp. 8, 11; 2009, Article 6). Other courses—e.g., religion, civics and the Indonesian language (Bahasa Indonesia)—still had to be taught in Indonesian. It also encouraged teachers to try teaching math and science courses in both the English and Indonesian languages—even if they were not fully conducted in English, they would still condition students to English-medium learning. Other teachers, such as those teaching social science, could also join this “experiment”, depending on their own English proficiency and

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  69 class resources. IS-Schools allocated significant budgets to provide Englishlanguage teaching materials, including textbooks, homework, examinations and other evaluation tools such as teachers’ language training (MONE, 2009, Article 15). If necessary, schools could hire native English-speaking expatriates, provided that they totaled no more than 30 percent of the teacher pool and were literate in Indonesian (ibid., Article 7). IS-Schools could strategize the EMI’s implementation in several ways. Depending on school capacity and teacher availability, IS-Schools either implemented EMI in all classes or only in selected ones (i.e., the “international class”) (ibid., Article 12). Schools could also choose to implement parallel classes (additional math and science courses taught in English) or integrated classes (the most popular option) (MONE, 2011b, pp. 53–4). Languages of Indonesia

Bahasa Indonesia is the official and national language, used in state administration and public spaces while providing a basis for interethnic social cohesion. It is usually the language of choice among city-dwellers. However, a large proportion of Indonesians learn Bahasa Indonesia in schools but only speak it as a second language, with their local vernacular continuing to be their first language. Altogether, Indonesia is home to more than 350 ethnolinguistic groups, speaking more than 700 living local languages (Lewis et al., 2014; Mahsun, 2012). Its citizens speak roughly one-tenth of the world’s languages (Steinhauer, 1994), some of which have large numbers of speakers—e.g., Javanese (75 million), Sundanese (27 million) and Madurese (14 million). This multilingual and multiethnic nature has implications for the choice of language to be spoken and taught in schools. To pave the way for stronger forms of multilingual education, local languages are considered part of the curricula—that is, the languages are spoken orally or taught as subjects (Mahsun, 2012), depending on a teacher’s availability and students’ ethnic homogeneity. Local languages also play a transitional function, where teachers often utilize local language instruction to help students keep up with school subjects, before eventually shifting to full Bahasa Indonesia instruction (Kosonen & Young, 2009). The archipelago’s trading history allowed for the spread of many foreign languages across its main islands, e.g., Portuguese, Arabic, Hokkien, Dutch, English, Russian and French. The Dutch language, for example, was promoted by the United East India Company (VOC) to support its trade and maintain a civil administration, whereby the natives were expected to learn Dutch—later, it was also useful for converting souls through missionary churches (deWaard, 2000). However, the Dutch language was not widely used by the majority population due to the lack of educational structures and language-learning access for commoners (ibid.), besides being also associated with the colonization movement. Apart from the national language,

70  Anis Sundusiyah in the post-independence period, Russian and English became popular since the country started to expand diplomatic efforts and sent officials to the Soviet Union and the United States for their education and training (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997). Since the Indonesian central government was becoming more involved with the United States in several key sectors, including its military, secondary schools were mandated to employ more English-language coursework following the launch of the 1968 National Curriculum (Retmono, 1992). Other foreign languages, such as French and German, were offered as academic concentrations for students in high schools if there were sufficient demand and available resources. Islamic K–12 schools and universities, meanwhile, used both English- and Arabic-language instruction. Since the 1990s, elementary schools have offered English as an additional subject, mostly starting in Grade 4 and, depending on teachers’ availability, an introduction to English is even provided in kindergarten. The demand for English-language education has been further enhanced by the growth of technology usage and the proliferation of global information exchange. English has therefore become a major pull factor, resulting in more instructional hours and rigorous inclusion in schools and universities (ibid.). Studies and debates

Students in IS-Schools were all Indonesian citizens, who could be broadly divided into two groups: (1) those who studied English as a foreign language (EFL) in their formal schools, starting from Grade 7 at the latest and (2) those who did not speak English either in or outside school. Regardless, there was a great deal of familiarity with the English language both inside and outside of schools, even if the language was not normally used in public spaces. Regardless, most IS-School teachers (except for the English-language teachers) were not formally trained to teach their courses in English. This lack of training was a red flag in the EMI discourse from its launch (Sundusiyah, 2010). There is a plethora of EMI policy research by domestic scholars. Many have studied its technicalities—e.g., school infrastructure, human resources and effectiveness—during the EMI policy’s early years (Mariati, 2007). Others acknowledged technical complexities but shied away from issues of cultural struggles and unequal access (Agustina, 2012; Handayani, 2012; Sumintono et al., 2012; Wijayanti, 2012). Studies by international scholars addressed EMI’s technical practices by looking at its challenges and politics (Coleman, 2011a, 2011b) as well as in terms of cultural identity (Zentz, 2012). While many praised the intended goals of language advancement and global competitiveness, they were alarmed by the poorly prepared and limited resources in many IS-Schools during the first years of their implementation.

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  71 Both IS-Schools and the EMI policy stirred up contentious debate, ranging from concerns about language requirements, expensive tuition fees, national identity and the development of “education castes” in public schools (Darmaningtyas, 2010), among others. In 2011, a group of parents, teachers and educational activists and advocates proposed a judicial appeal for the Constitutional Court to review Article 50(3) of Law No. 20 (Republic of Indonesia, 2003), which mandated the establishment of IS-Schools. Following a series of judicial hearings in 2012, the Court ruled against the IS-Schools project, which also officially ended the EMI policy (Constitutional Court, 2012). International influences

The EMI policy was part of a worldwide English bilingual education trend within formal schooling across many non-English speaking countries. There has been a rapid, massive shift away from English being simply taught as a second or foreign language to being experimented with as the medium of instruction itself in selected academic subjects (Graddol, 2006). A survey of 55 countries by the British Council confirmed a fast-moving expansion of EMI in state-funded schools, backed and funded by national governments themselves (Dearden, 2014). Indonesia’s EMI policy in IS-Schools also embodied a language planning approach for political networks, as partly indicated by the presence of multinational and transnational organizations in the education reform process. These external organizations sent downward messages on the significance of the English language for socioeconomic and academic development. In the IS-School legislation, the OECD was mentioned repeatedly as a benchmark—IS-Schools were to adopt and adapt the educational best practices from its member countries, with their perceived advanced educational systems and standards. The ASEAN Economic Community, supported by the Southeast Asia Ministry of Education Organization (SEAMEO), promoted the use of English as working language within the region and beyond for cultural-political integration and economic instrumental purposes (Acharya, 2012; ASEAN, 2009; Hew, 2005; SEAMEO/CRICED, 2015). The World Bank also reported an employment skills gap in Indonesia and suggested the need for an increased capacity in English-language learning and mastery for the professional sectors (Gropello et al., 2011). The inevitable presence and indirect roles of these organizations illustrate a convergence of language policies across nations or states. Many national educational systems converge upon a common set of structures and practices, usually by borrowing them from countries which are deemed economically and politically advanced (Spring, 2009). These acts signal that domestic public mass education plans have been affected by the knowledge-economy approach of supranational networks.

72  Anis Sundusiyah Findings A total of 13 conceptual frames are identified below and grouped into three broad categories: (1) EMI practices, (2) attitudes toward English and (3) the establishment of IS-Schools (Table 4.4). Stakeholders who supported the EMI policy framed it as part of a move toward the internationalization of schools for global competitiveness, moving ahead from simply national standards toward international ones. Language choices stemmed from perceived economic values and the appeal of English for academic mobility, employment and promotion as well as its symbolic role as a tool for sociopolitical cohesion among ASEAN’s citizens. Meanwhile, those who opposed the policy framed EMI as an unlawful and detrimental practice that burdened teachers and harmed youth nationalism, heritage languages and consequently national identity. Both IS-Schools and the EMI policy were thought to perpetuate inequality and socioeconomic divisiveness, while promoting the commercialization of education and the neoliberal ethos. Equilibrium paradigm views

Supporters who argued for the policy’s intended goals included government officers and most teachers. Government participants in this study even included top-ranking national officers who were heavily involved in the policy’s formulation and evaluation. The teachers were in a unique position, since they acknowledged the policy’s pitfalls and struggled with language training as well as classroom trials, yet did not show any significant resistance to the policy (Sundusiyah, 2019). All in all, their arguments correlated with at least four characteristics of the equilibrium paradigm. First, policy supporters saw IS-Schools and EMI as a “meaningful education” (Paulston, 1978; Paulston, 1992) to achieve global competitiveness and connections, as well as facilitating individual mobility Table 4.4  EMI policy framings Policy framings Categories

In support of the policy

Against the policy

EMI practices

N/A

Attitudes toward English Establishment of IS-Schools

Utilitarian value and sociopolitical role

Teacher shortages, insufficient logistics, linguistic exclusivism, and constitutional violation Detrimental for national identity and speeding up local language losses Expensive tuition fees, penetration of inequality, and neoliberal ethos in education

Global competitiveness and increase in quality from national- to international-standard

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  73 at the international level. This “meaningful education” was thought of as a balancing mechanism to enhance social equilibrium, thus mirroring the S/F view of social change (Paulston, 1976), suggesting that the provision of a particular language, combined with merit and one’s intelligence quotient, will lead to scholastic skills being gained for social and economic success. Second, the proponents evaluated the schools’ progress in comparison with other “advanced” structures or countries. They linked the stages of schools and individual developments in response to worldwide school internationalization trends. The views of Anthony (pseudonyms are used for all interview subjects), an EMI teacher, are given below. Transcripts are lightly edited for clarity. We have met the national standard of education now, that might be enough for now, but if we want to compete globally, to go global, then we should start introducing our students to English as international language for academic [purposes]. … so that we could prepare our students to be able to compete at a global level. Respondents such as Anthony believed that EMI was a doable way of adapting to the perceived demand for English-language competence in order to ensure academic competitiveness. EMI practices were seen as a form of compensatory training or an “opportunity equalizer” (Paulston, 1977, p. 377) for children from communities with limited English-speaking proficiency, thus serving as a balancing mechanism to enhance their ability to compete on a playing field—corresponding with the evolutionary approach. Third, government officials argued that the EMI’s intended goals would be achieved through incremental adjustment and cumulative changes. Challenges were expected and should be navigated by making steady and stable changes, and also by maintaining harmonious relationships among stakeholders. For Thomas, a government official: Policy is a learning process, … To achieve an equilibrium state, indeed, we have to go through all the hassles in the first place. … Implementing a policy requires a lengthy, incremental learning process. From this perspective, schools and members of society are essentially a functional self-regulating apparatus, capable of maintaining stability and harmony, which was in turn expected to help realize policy goals. Fourth, the two groups of policy proponents showed a tendency to avoid conflict in order to create harmony. The schools appropriated the language policy flexibly so that it did not burden teachers. In turn, the teachers agreed to use English in teaching, doing so in ways that met their language capacities. On a macro, national level, some scholars observed that the government did not sanction IS-Schools whose practices were reported to be discriminatory or exclusive in nature.

74  Anis Sundusiyah Advocates of the equilibrium paradigm tended to reorient education toward increased capacity in political and economic growth. Relative success was achieved by incrementally developing established practices through cumulative changes in schools, despite so-called internal systemic breakdowns (Paulston, 1976) or challenges and resistance from the community. Conflict paradigm views

Critiques from policy opponents—i.e., domestic and international scholars who worked closely with schoolteachers—were very strong, both politically and normatively. They evaluated the EMI policy by examining its poor logistical and infrastructure (i.e., technical) execution and the negative unintended consequences for existing inequalities and national identity (i.e., normative and political). Their main concerns were policy consequences and remedies for greater equity and justice, in order to complement the absence of these variables in the equilibrium paradigm. Their arguments and rationales tended to subscribe to the conflict paradigm, as described below. First, most scholars brought up the issue of power in the policy’s sociopolitical aspects. They believed that it would give rise to so-called linguistic exclusivism, or class divisions in the schooling system—in which English-­ language proficiency was a determining factor (Tollefson & Tsui, 2004). Proficient students could enroll in the international or EMI classes—provided that they could afford the high fees—while students with no or low English proficiency would automatically be enrolled in regular classes, all within the same school building. These language requirements and the high tuition fees could lead to socioeconomic divisions among students (and had admittedly done so). EMI and IS-School practices seemingly maintained the status quo and interests of socio-politically dominant groups, instead of empowering less privileged ones. As Harrison, an international scholar, noted, the IS-Schools: rapidly became the most selective elite [public] schools in their districts … taking the IS-School scheme in a diametrically opposed direction to the rest of the state education system, which was supposed to be moving away from charging fees. Consequently, those who benefited from [the policy] tended to be the children of the local elite and/or those who could make large financial contributions to the schools. Second, concerns over resource distribution were very salient. The huge funding allocated by MONE was thought to widen existing gaps between public schools. To critics, this meant that the government gave a higher

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  75 priority and support to already well-equipped and self-sufficient schools, while lower ranking schools with minimal infrastructure were given the least attention. According to Daniel, a domestic scholar: One of the critiques I raised with the government was about the quality disparity and injustice between IS-Schools and non-IS-Schools. ISSchools received huge subsidies and grants, while the regular schools did not have such privilege. In fact, those who went to IS-Schools were students from middle- and high-income families. Third, many critics highlighted conflicts over political and cultural values, thus raising issues of ideological clashes (e.g., nationalism vs neoliberalism) and cultural struggles (e.g., speeding up losses of local languages). The new status of English as the second official language of instruction in IS-Schools was framed as a constitutional violation of National Law 24/2009, which pertained to the National Flag, Language, Emblem and Anthem, and was inconsistent with the spirit of the 1928 Youth Pledge to uphold one motherland, one nation and one language—the Indonesian motherland, nation and language (Constitutional Court, 2012, p.89). In this view, overemphasizing the use of English could potentially erode one’s sense of nationalism and identity as well as present a threat to the Indonesian language’s popularity. The increasing spread of English through the EMI policy was thought to affect youth language learning choices, hence possibly leading to the eventual decrease in local language speakers. The tone of the argument can be surmised from the excerpt below. … the language of communication of [IS-Schools] which is generally the English language, sooner or later, will eliminate local languages and our national language, which will end up in eroding local and national personality and character of the Indonesian people. … the existence of the Indonesian Language as our national language is becoming more threatened by the mainstream language of the world. The helplessness of local languages and the “stuttering” of the national language becomes the signifier of the inability of a nation to maintain its identity. Ironically, one of the factors contributing to the elimination of the local and national languages in fact lies in the most strategic field: the education world. (Constitutional Court, 2012, p.40) Many considered the EMI policy as a form of language commercialization or commodification (Heller, 2003; Tan & Rubdy, 2008). The economic considerations of EMI were linked to language knowledge capitalism, where linguistic competence becomes a salable commodity. Education in IS-Schools came with a comparatively high price tag and turned into a private good—a

76  Anis Sundusiyah characteristic of neoliberal education, which contradicted Indonesia’s educational values. Another response frames the IS-Schools as: … forms of education liberalization. The soul and spirit of it are the commercialization of education by bringing the parties implementing education as the market actors. (Constitutional Court, 2012, p.174) For advocates of the conflict paradigm, the relative success of a policy is determined when practices do not disrupt social and political factors (e.g., identity and learning access) that affect the success or failure of one’s education. In this sense, the EMI policy was a failed project because its educational practices consequently led to injustice and power disparities, thus perpetuating existing inequalities in the social system. Significance In the equilibrium worldview, the choices and decisions on educational language policy often had nothing to do with nationalism and ethnicity. It was purely instrumental, weighing how a certain language(s) could facilitate effective communication and economic transactions. Their rationales were tied to the perceived and imagined roles of English in today’s academic, economic and sociopolitical domains. These exemplified an S/F and evolutionary approach, wherein English-language intervention was considered a meaningful way to lead to students’ future socioeconomic success. For George, a government official, “[e]ducation is inseparable from economy, it cannot be an sich, for the sake of learning only, it must be related to [the] economy”. This school internationalization project stemmed from school-based management models which gradually transformed them into internationally accredited institutions. From this perspective, the EMI policy resembled a form of linguistic instrumentalism (Wee, 2003) at the school level, aiming for individual socioeconomic mobility, national global competitiveness and sociopolitical networks. Meanwhile, arguments by advocates of the conflict paradigm tended to see language education as a symbolic tool for nation- and identity-building (Wodak, 2006). The choice of English in IS-Schools was seen as detrimental to youth nationalism and a threat to the national language itself. Because language and identity are inextricably linked, they were concerned about linguistic exclusivism and social divisions that the EMI policy allegedly and hypothetically caused. Theodore, a domestic scholar, explained that: … I think we have to stick with [language education for] developing the nationalism spirit as a means to strengthen the nation’s character…. We did not reject internationalization or globalization, but we

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  77 needed to strengthen our identity as a nation with economic and cultural wealth. That’s what we primarily bring to the world. While they acknowledged the utility of English proficiency, they were troubled by the policy’s adverse consequences for nationalism, disparities and inequalities, among others—concerns which were always raised in their critiques. In the end, the equilibrium advocates lost the day. The Constitutional Court ruled against the EMI policy and the establishment of IS-Schools on the basis of schools’ socialization functions. The court decision essentially suggested that EMI policy practices could potentially trigger unfavorable consequences, such as discrimination in terms of access and a diminished national identity. While the intended EMI policy goals of global participation and competitiveness were necessary for national growth, its implementation was considered insensitive and ill-timed, considering the existing sociopolitical and economic gaps among individual students and school networks. These dynamics reveal three differing views on the socialization functions of language in/for education. To borrow Labaree’s (1997) terms, they are: (1) social efficiency, (2) social mobility and (3) democratic functions. Social efficiency focuses on the role of education in preparing a competent workforce to run a country’s economy (ibid.). This socialization function of language was reflected in the way that policymakers and supporters justified the relationship among English-language competence, job market access and human capital (Schultz, 1961). They believed that the language policy in IS-Schools could instill economic competitiveness through linguistically skilled human resources: a common approach in economics of language (Grin, 2006). They framed the EMI policy as a resource for improving individual working performance, and by extension Indonesia’s socioeconomic growth and political clout. Social mobility aims to prepare individuals to compete for social positions and economic wealth (Labaree, 1997). The choice of English had much to do with its appeal and power in the academic and economic sectors. Mastering English was believed to facilitate one’s academic credentials and economic productivity, hence enabling social status attainment. Enrollment in IS-Schools, along with the EMI policy, was thought to enable social mobility. The government, teachers and school leaders continuously maintained the policy over the years, regardless of the challenges, by believing in the possibility of this intended outcome. Stakeholders who disapproved of the EMI policy showed more concern for language’s democratic function, i.e., to create patriotic citizens (ibid.). They were alarmed about how favoring English over Indonesian could be detrimental to national heritage and identity, hence moving away from democratic equality. They raised some facts and hypothetical assumptions about the impact of the policy and the English language’s possible erosion of students’ nationalism and its detrimental impact on local language preservation

78  Anis Sundusiyah efforts. Issues of power inequalities were also among the national democratic elements thought to be disregarded in this project. Conclusion Given Indonesia’s multilingual nature and seemingly unequal economic growth distribution, the EMI policy was seen in different and even conflicting ways by influential multi-sectoral stakeholders. The aforementioned perspectives and values of language in/for education were not necessarily in conflict with each other. Rather, each perspective showed a different primary emphasis regarding the socialization function of language as well as language education in schools. Much like other public policies, educational language policy discourse represents discursive enactments of rules, norms or values and power relations. The interactions could either promote a smooth, accumulated change toward intended EMI policy goals or generate tensions between individuals and institutional contexts. Indonesia’s EMI policy lurch reflects at least one key problem that governments and educational institutions face in their efforts to address languagefor-development issues, i.e., the lack of integration of normative, political and technical foundations in policy formulation and implementation. Future language management and planning initiatives must employ an equityminded principle (Oakes et al., 1998) which acknowledges and strategizes the technical, normative and political elements of policies. Otherwise, massive investments in foreign language acquisition would have impacts on a country’s educational planning and budget. References Acharya, A. (2012). The Making of Southeast Asia: International Relation of a Region. Cornel University Press. Agustina, E.T. (2012). Pemikiran rekruitmen guru RSBI: Sentralisasi versus desentralisasi (Recruitment policy of IS-School teachers) [Symposium session]. National Symposium on Educational Research and Innovation, Jakarta. ASEAN. (2009). Roadmap for an ASEAN Community 2009-2015. ASEAN Secretariat. http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/trade_policy/east_asia/dl/ASEANblueprint.pdf Baker, C. (2003). Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (27th vol.). Multilingual Matters, Ltd. Bertalanffy, L.V. (1972). The history and status of general systems theory. The Academy of Management Journal, 15(4), 407–26. Coleman, H. (2011a). Allocating resources for English: The case of Indonesia’s English medium international standard schools. In H. Coleman (Ed.), Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. British Council. http://www. teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/Z413%20EDB%20Section09.pdf ———. (Ed.). (2011b). Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language. British Council. http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/ Z413%20EDB%20Section09.pdf

Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  79 Constitutional Court. (2012). Constitutional Court of the Republic of Indonesia, Decision Number 5/PUU-X/2012. http://www.mahkamahkonstitusi.go.id/public/content/ persidangan/putusan/decision_1251_20130820040214_putusan_sidang_5%20 PUU%202012-sisdiknas%20-%20telah%20baca%208%20Januari%202013%20 (ENG).pdf Darmaningtyas. (2010, August 16). Mendesak, Revisi UU Sisdiknas (Revision of the Law on the Education System Urgently Needed). Kompas. http://edukasi.kompas. com/read/2010/08/16/12043080/Mendesak.Revisi.UU.Sisdiknas Dearden, J. (2014). English as a Medium of Instruction: A Growing Global Phenomenon. British Council. https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/e484_emi_-_ cover_option_3_final_web.pdf deWaard, M. (2000). Language Policies in Dutch Indonesia (Pitt Working Papers in Linguistics). Department of Linguistics, University of Pittsburgh. Graddol, D. (2006). English Next. British Council. www.britishcouncil.org/learningresearch-english-next.pdf Grin, F. (2006). Economic considerations in language policy. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Blackwell. Gropello, E.d, Kruse, A., & Tandon, P. (2011). Skills for the Labor Market in Indonesia: Trends in Demand, Gaps, and Supply. World Bank. http://site.ebrary.com.pitt.idm. oclc.org/lib/pitt/detail.action?docID=10460980 Handayani, M. (2012). Evaluasi Mutu Pelayanan di Sekolah Standar Nasional (SSN) dan Rintisan Sekolah Berstandar Internasional (RSBI): Studi di SMA dan SMK Kota Surakarta (Evaluation of Service Quality in National-Standard and InternationalStandard Schools: A study of regular and vocational high schools in Surakarta City) [Symposium session]. National Symposium on Educational Research and Innovation, Jakarta. Haryana, K. (2007). Sekolah Bertaraf Internasional (International standard school). Jurnal Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan, 13(67), 152–75. Heller, M. (2003). Globalization, the new economy, and the commodification of language and identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7(4), 473–92. Hew, D. (2005). Roadmap to an ASEAN Economic Community. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Hulst, M.V., & Yanow, D. (2016). From policy “frames” to “framing”: Theorizing a more dynamic, political approach.. American Review of Public Administration, 46(1), 92–112. Indriyanto, B. (2017). The education system of Indonesia: Features and policies. In E.A. Pascua-Valenzuela, Y. Wang, Y. Shen, D. Wang, E. Baak, & K. Ming (Eds.), Guidebook to Education Systems and Reforms in Southeast Asia and China (pp. 54–89). SEAMEO. Kaplan, R.B., & Baldauf, R.B. (1997). Language Planning from Practice to Theory. Multilingual Matters, Ltd. Kosonen, K., & Young, C. (Eds.). (2009). Mother Tongue as Bridge Language of Instruction in Southeast Asia. SEAMEO/World Bank. Labaree, D. (1997). Public goods, private goods: The American struggle over educational goals. American Educational Research Journal, 34(1), 39–81. Lewis, M.P., Simons, G.F., & Fennig, C.D. (2014). Ethnologue: Languages of the World (17th ed.). SIL International. Mahsun. (2012). The Management of Language Diversity in Indonesia: Issues and Policies[Forum session]. Asia-Europe Language Diversity Forum, Jakarta.

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Equilibrium and Conflict Paradigms  81 Steinhauer, H. (1994). The Indonesian language situation and linguistics: Prospects and possibilities. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 150(4), 755–84. Sumintono, B., Said, H., & Mislan, N. (2012). Constraints and improvement: A case study of the Indonesia’s international standard school in improving its capacity building. Journal of Education and Learning, 6(1), 22–31. Sundusiyah, A. (2010). A Policy Brief: Addressing Inadequacy of Bilingual Teachers in International-Standard Public Schools (Unpublished paper). Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh. ———. (2014). Teachers’ Perspectives on Bilingual-Related Policy and Practice in International Public Schools in Semarang City (Unpublished paper). Department of Administrative and Policy Studies, School of Education, University of Pittsburgh. ———. (2019). Language Policy Rationales, Appropriation and Debates: A Case of English as Medium of Instruction in Indonesia’s International Schools [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh]. Swaffield, S. (1998). Contextual meanings in policy discourse: A case study of language use concerning resource policy in the New Zealand high country. Policy Sciences, 31, 199–224. Tan, P.K., & Rubdy, R. (2008). Language as Commodity: Global Structures, Local Marketplaces. Continuum. Tollefson, J.W., & Tsui, A. (2004). Medium of Instruction Policies: Which Agenda? Whose Agenda? Lawrence Erlbaum. Wee, L. (2003). Linguistic instrumentalism in Singapore. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 24(3), 211–24. Wijayanti, A. (2012). Model kebijakan pendidikan berbasis IPMS dalam pengelolaan RSBI di era otonomi daerah (Interactive, Participative, Management and Sustainable [IPMS]: An education policy model for IS-Schools in local autonomy era) [Symposium session]. National Symposium on Educational Research and Innovation, Jakarta. Wodak, R. (2006). Linguistic analyses in language policies. In T. Ricento (Ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method (pp. 170–93). Blackwell. Zentz, L. (2012). Global Language Identities and Ideologies in an Indonesian University Context [Doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona].

Part II

Privatization and Marketization

5

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung

Introduction: Vietnam’s (privatized) higher education In the twentieth century, Vietnam’s modern higher education system was established and followed different models in different periods: French, American, Chinese, and Soviet (Tran, 1998). After the Doi Moi (Renovation) reforms in 1986, the Vietnamese equivalent of the Soviet Perestroika, most key aspects of its higher education system were reformed rather radically, including in terms of its governance, funding and curriculum (Harman et al., 2010; Nguyễn & Tran, 2019). The private higher education (PHE) sector was legalized during this transformative context, evolving into a sector comprising 65 universities and enrolling roughly 265,000 students today (Ministry of Education and Training, 2020), yet it has remained a relatively under-researched subject. Of the six edited books on the subject (Harman et al., 2010; Nguyễn & Tran, 2019; Phan & Doan, 2020; Sloper & Le, 1995; Tran & Marginson, 2018; Tran et al., 2014),1 only two include chapters on PHE. Journal articles are likewise scant (see, e.g., Goyette, 2012; Pham & Fry, 2002). Where they do appear, private universities are essentially described as reactive actors, passively shaped by changes in policy orientations specifically, and the political economy in general. Other findings, such as those by Chau (2020), Chau et al. (2020a), Chau et al. (2020b) and Pham (2020) present a different perspective, one in which key PHE actors with clear and sophisticated agency are highlighted. These findings remind us that private universities are also agents, which have intentional and strategic influences on the higher education system. This chapter contributes to the current analyses of Vietnamese PHE. More specifically, light is shed on the actors involved in its formation and development, which have arguably changed over time—currently, business corporations have emerged among these key actors. To illustrate this intriguing phenomenon, the concept of “corporatization” is introduced to indicate two closely related tendencies: (1) private universities adopting corporate models; and (2) corporations gaining decisive roles in private university ownership and governance.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-8

86  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung Next, the key post-Doi Moi dynamics in higher education, especially decentralization and marketization, are discussed, followed by the methods of data collection and analysis. The main actors involved in different stages of PHE development are outlined before explaining corporatization, including its positive impacts and adverse consequences. Finally, this chapter elucidates how the emergence and development of PHE reflect broader changes in Vietnam’s political economy, again focusing on decentralization and marketization in particular. Key post-Doi Moi dynamics Decentralization, centralization and recentralization

Decentralization, broadly defined as “the transfer of decision-making authority, responsibility, and tasks from higher to lower organizational levels or between organizations” (Hanson, 2006, p. 10), is a common global trend in many social and political fields, including (higher) education. It has been accentuated by neoliberalism, new public management reforms and globalization, where international organizations actively promote best learning practices and engage in policy-borrowing. Decentralization is often assumed to bring about positive outcomes, such as increased efficiency and democratization, while also decreasing corruption. While these advantages are mostly theoretically grounded, not all of them are empirically proven and some are even counterintuitive (see, e.g., Green, 2002, chap. 6). After all, decentralization, as with most public policies in general, is not apolitical—it is promoted by particular actors with specific economic and political agendas. Decentralization is essentially a process, manifesting itself most forcefully in fiscal terms and power—the latter is sometimes further divided into administration and politics (see, e.g., Malesky & Hutchinson, 2016). Bray (2007) proposes another categorization. Accordingly, territorial decentralization occurs when central governments empower their provincial authorities to create master plans for higher education. In contrast, functional decentralization occurs when independent accreditation organizations themselves are encouraged by the state to participate in higher education quality assurance. Decentralization can take the forms of deconcentration, delegation and devolution, depending on how new actors are empowered, whether such transfers of power are institutionalized, and the extent to which these take place. Painter (2008) incorporates Bray’s categorization into the fiscal and power aspects of decentralization to suggest a dual-decentralization model (see Figure 5.1). This model challenges the common assumption that decentralization inherently increases non-state actor participation. This logic does not necessarily hold true in transition economies, where the division between the public and private sectors are markedly murky. In Bray’s model, the state can both delegate tasks and engage in cellularization (i.e., it transfers power to actors outside the core bureaucracy). However, these empowered actors

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  87

Figure 5.1  Bray’s dual-decentralization model in a transition economy Source: Painter (2008, p. 80).

are not independent; instead, they remain connected rather closely with the public sector in many respects and can be considered the state’s extended arms. Using China’s higher education as a case study, Painter and Mok (2008) have pointed out many adverse outcomes of cellularization, such as increasing inequality and decreasing accountability. Decentralization normally transforms the state’s role away from directing and managing to supervising instead. However, supervision procedures and evaluation criteria—i.e., the state’s new regulatory tools—are in many cases so excessively detailed that universities are left with only scant autonomy. Neave (2012) calls this an evaluative state, and a stark example of recentralization (Hawkins, 2000; Mok, 2004). However, Bray (2007) warns that while states almost always initiate decentralization, non-state actors could prevail in the recentralization process. The state may act passively and ineffectively in its new supervisory role, indirectly allowing powerful actors to dominate weaker ones and eventually manipulate the rule-setting process. The market and private actors

Decentralization usually occurs in parallel with marketization—the more deeply the state withdraws control, the further the market advances and plays an important role in higher education governance. While the market is essentially “a method of social coordination by mutual adjustment among participants rather than a central coordinator” (Lindblom, 2002, p. 23), it is nonetheless far from perfect (as seen in cases of market failures). Thus, state coordination is indispensable, especially in social fields such as (higher) education. Consequently, the state operates in tandem with the market in higher education governance, although the dynamics between both actors vary substantially from country to country. This situation is called the quasimarket—i.e., where the market operates with state coordination. In higher education, marketization manifests itself through different aspects, including PHE’s legalization and expansion. Generally, private universities do not receive the state appropriations and thus preserve more institutional autonomy than their public counterparts. Such autonomy allows private universities to implement new administrative practices and introduce novel academic programs, which will be later adopted by public universities.2 With the growth of the private sector, public universities are pressed to compete for student enrolment, talented faculty and occasionally research funding, all of which indirectly increase their academic quality and

88  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung operational efficiency. Undeniably, PHE has played an integral role in global higher education: on average, one among every three students is enrolled in a private institution (Levy, 2018a). In some countries such as South Korea, Japan and the Philippines, the private sector outnumbers the public sector in terms of its number of institutions and student enrolment. Globally, only approximately ten countries still lack PHE (Levy, 2018b). But PHE is by no means a homogeneous sector, being commonly categorized into nonprofit and for-profit institutions. Many in the former category are founded and controlled by different religious denominations and civil society organizations, while those in the latter essentially operate as business corporations. The nonprofits are almost always the first institutions to be licensed when PHE is legalized. While for-profits are usually legally allowed later, their initial growth is often extraordinary, as illustrated in the United States (US) (Kinser & Levy, 2007). Furthermore, both forms comprise different types of institutions with different patterns of ownership and governance (Chau et al., 2020a). As a result of globalization, the higher education market has expanded globally. This inclusion of higher education in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), established in 1995 by the World Trade Organization (WTO), signifies its intensified commercialization and servitization (Verger, 2010). Although participation in GATS and its 12 service sectors is optional, 45 WTO members have committed to the inclusion of higher education in their respective GATS agreements. In other words, these countries perceive higher education as a service, and sooner or later, they must lift most legal barriers against foreign investment in this sector. It can be assumed that in this regard, PHE, especially its for-profit form, will be more active than the public sector given its autonomy and profit-orientation. Corporatization

The interplay among decentralization, marketization, globalization and commercialization creates ample avenues for business corporations to intervene in the higher education system; in fact, these corporations are sometimes encouraged to do so. As mentioned above, this chapter adopts the concept of corporatization to focus on key actors in Vietnamese PHE. In this sector, especially in Southeast and East Asia, the term “corporatization” is often used interchangeably with “incorporation”—thus indicating the process by which public universities are granted more institutional autonomy, often under neoliberal agendas (Shin, 2018). However, corporatization is not yet a well-defined concept, thus suggesting the growth of corporate universities in many countries (see Blass, 2005; Walton, 2005) or the rapid expansion of forprofit shareholder-owned universities in the US (Kinser, 2007; Ruch, 2001). Here, corporatization signifies two interrelated trends: (1) the adaptation of corporate business models for use in private universities; and (2) the process by which corporations gain control over private universities.

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  89 Decentralization and marketization

Decentralization and recentralization are sophisticated and interwoven processes, which have been operating since the formation of contemporary Vietnam (Vu, 2010). Before the Doi Moi, Vietnam operated along the lines of the command economy model typical in most communist states—the central planning principle was similarly applied in higher education. Accordingly, all universities were publicly run and governed directly by different central ministries—their academic and administrative staff were essentially state cadres, each university was assigned an enrolment quota (which in turn determined the amount of funding received) and finally, students were fully subsidized and guaranteed job placements upon graduation (Tran, 1995). However, the command economy soon proved substantially inefficient, and thus, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) was pressed to launch the Doi Moi, where political decentralization, market-formation and economic privatization were key policy orientations. More than three decades since, Vietnam has become a relatively decentralized state, particularly in its fiscal aspects, although supervision and coordination mechanisms remain ineffective (Vu-Thanh, 2016). Decentralization also affected higher education, but this process was partial and fragmented. For instance, while the central government approved a system of universities founded and funded by the provincial authorities, its hands-off policies in governance and funding caused many challenges for these provincial universities (Dang & Nguyen, 2016). In a similar vein, although the state has repeatedly enacted policies aiming to grant more autonomy to public universities, the reality is that their ultimate aims are to relieve more of the state’s fiscal burdens (Võ & Laking, 2020). Running in parallel with decentralization was market-formation in higher education, initiated after the Conference of Rectors of Universities and Professional Schools in 1987 (Chau et al., 2020b). This conference passed a resolution calling for the institutionalization of tuition fees and the diversification of the types of institutions and their academic programs (St George, 2003). In 2006, higher education was further marketized when Vietnam joined the WTO and also included higher education as part of its GATS commitments. Oliver and Nguyen (2010) have cautioned how the Vietnamese state should consolidate its current regulatory frameworks and quality assurance mechanisms to prepare its higher education sector for integration into the global market. The private higher education sector today

The decentralization and marketization mentioned above created essential institutional conditions enabling the emergence of the private sector (Chau et al., 2020b). However, the term “private” was not immediately accepted, given that Vietnam was still a communist state, and it was thus

90  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung replaced by a more politically correct equivalent: “non-state”. Accordingly, the non-state sector, upon its official legalization in the early 1990s, existed in two forms: (1) people-founded institutions, established through the legal sponsorship of social or professional associations; and (2) semi-public institutions, which were essentially public institutions but funded almost entirely by non-state finance. In the mid-2000s, the state legalized another type of non-state institution: these were fully private ones, founded and funded by individuals and corporations with profit-making motives. In 2006, all people-founded universities were mandated to transition to fully private status. Although the mandate was controversial and has not yet been thoroughly explained, the abrupt forced transfer injected new actors into the non-state sector, which would henceforth be officially called PHE. Within the complex context of decentralization, marketization and the recent excessive privatization in higher education, this chapter aims to explore two research questions: (1) the key actors at play in Vietnamese PHE; and (2) how they emerged as such. Data collection and analysis Data collection

Given the fundamentally exploratory nature of both questions, this inquiry adopts a qualitative approach. More specifically, the data were collected and triangulated through documentary analyses and interviews. To understand which actors are legally allowed in the PHE sector, legal documents regulating the governance structures and ownership patterns of the non-state sector were chiefly retrieved from Vietnam’s largest online, open-access legal library, Thu vien Phap luat.3 The documents included: (1) Laws, passed by the National Assembly; (2) Resolutions, introduced by the government; (3) the (Deputy) Prime Minister’s Executive Orders; and (4) Circulars enacted primarily by the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET). The second type of documents, principally stored at the National Archives III, includes university establishment applications, policy drafts and discussions which were internally circulated among state agencies. However, their main drawback is that they are not up-to-date—while they cover most of the pre-2005 period (i.e., the people-founded institutions), only some cover the 2006-onward period (i.e., the fully private institutions). Therefore, two other types of documents were studied: (1) public news articles reporting on the mergers and acquisitions of non-state universities; and (2) documents pertaining to the legal status of non-state universities, sourced from another online portal, Dang ky Kinh doanh.4 By law, legal entities engaged in business in Vietnam must register with the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Following this, the relevant information—including their type of their business, establishment date, legal representatives and primary business activities—is

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  91 recorded and published on the aforementioned portal. The most useful information from this source is the legal status of a university—e.g., whether it is registered as a business corporation, and if so, whether it is a joint-stock corporation or limited liability company. The data were then triangulated and supplemented with interviews and personal communication with policymakers in different state agencies and senior administrators of private universities. The policymakers confirmed or denied information recorded in the documents, added further unrecorded information and elaborated on any points that were not well explained. Likewise, institutional leaders provided useful information on the establishment and development of their universities. Many of these interviewees had prior professional contact with both authors—one of whom is an education lawyer, whose professional experience in legal consultations for different private universities were themselves insightful sources of data. Data analyses

The theoretical framework here comes from Clark’s (1983) triangle of coordination model, which proposes how the interplay of three forces—i.e., academic oligarchy, state authority and the market—determines how the higher education system is governed. For instance, in the state-control model, the state restricts academic autonomy and market forces while playing a highly interventionist role in higher education. Similarly, in the academic self-rule and market-oriented models, the academic oligarchy and market are the predominant forces at work in the higher education system, respectively. However, these three models are ideal types—most systems are combinations of all three in practice. In the 1990s, European scholars such as Vught (1989) proposed a binary framework of higher education governance: academic self-rule versus state-control. However, the recent emergence and powerful growth of the higher education market is undeniable worldwide, even in Europe. Using Clark’s model as the analytical framework, the data were analyzed by paying attention to changes in the dynamics among academic oligarchy, state authority and the market. Scholars of Vietnam’s political economy have extensively studied the interplay between the state and market in the post-Doi Moi period (see, e.g., Fforde & De Vylder, 1996). In transition economies such as Vietnam, which transitioned from a centrally planned command economy to a socialist-­ oriented market economy, the presence of the market should not be assumed, unlike countries with long histories of market economies. In contrast, the Vietnamese market is a post-Doi Moi product, legalized and gradually developed under the CPV’s close supervision. It has been well documented how the state persistently intervenes into the domestic market development (see, e.g., Gainsborough, 2003, 2009).

92  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung New actors in Vietnamese private higher education People-founded universities

When the state began to legalize the non-state higher education sector in the early 1990s, actors affiliated with the public sector became deeply involved in the related establishments. As per legal documents, the first step toward establishing non-state universities was forming a founding team, pending MOET’s approval. Archival documents reveal that these founding teams included provincial leaders and high-ranking officials from the state bureaucracy or CPV agencies. Another group commonly seen in those teams included retired leaders of public universities. When the Charter for PeopleFounded Universities was being drafted in the late 1990s, some policymakers proposed that these universities be academically affiliated with major public universities, as recorded in archived policy discussions. Although this proposal was eventually dropped, subsequent interviews confirmed that the state strongly preferred to license people-founded universities, where prominent professors agreed to play leadership roles. Public actor influence did not diminish when people-founded universities were licensed, but rather, they remained sustained during institutional operations. These institutions did not differ substantially from their public counterparts when it came to state control. Their boards of directors, although elected internally, were to be approved by MOET as stipulated by law. Likewise, the university president, once selected by the board, could not start his or her term until MOET’s official approval. Such deep interventions urged most people-founded universities to maintain voluntary and constant reporting mechanisms to MOET, as revealed by the documents collected. In many matters, these universities even asked for MOET’s guidance and directives. According to the interviews conducted, state intervention could be extensive—there was a case where MOET dissolved a university board and then set up a new board that consisted of several MOET-appointed members, including the chairman. Public actors were also driven by different motivations. By and large, many retired state officials and academics seemed motivated by their respective educational visions, although they also expected some monetary returns. Many institutional founders confirmed that their disappointment with the backwardness and conservatism of public higher education urged them to devote their retirement years, extensive political capital and educational experiences toward developing a non-state sector that was (in theory) more progressive and receptive to innovation. At the same time, the state mistrusted private actors and instead encouraged former officials from the bureaucracy to establish and/or take up leadership roles at non-state universities. However, conflicts of interest were considerable when public actors got involved. As recorded in archival documents, many people-founded universities with senior leaders from the central and provincial governments in

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  93 their founding teams or management boards were granted large plots of land allocations, sometimes in central locations, with generous rent reductions and even exemptions. During their foundational years, public sites and facilities were leased to such universities, often at nominal or preferential rates, for use as temporary campuses. They were also given access to stimulus packages that were not originally designed for the education sector. It was thus not uncommon to find that the state cadres responsible for land allocations, public facility leases and investment promotion policies were (former) subordinates of members of these universities’ leaders and founding team members. Furthermore, according to the Xa Hoi Hoa (Social Mobilization), policy orientations first announced in 1997, if academic and administrative staff at public universities worked part-time at private universities, then the incomes paid by the latter would be tax-exempt. This indirectly encouraged staff to work more hours and more effectively at private universities, at the cost of sacrificing time and effort at their main workplaces. In addition, when the public universities’ leaders left for private institutions, they often brought along experienced staff and well-crafted academic programs with them. In short, the participation of public actors in people-founded universities caused the loss of public assets, indirectly weakening their public counterparts. Investors only played peripheral roles in the development of peoplefounded universities because these institutions could easily mobilize the necessary resources (e.g., land, facilities, academic programs) at low costs, as explained above. Hence, the demand for capital investment was not pressing. In addition to investors with substantial financial capacity being generally scant during the Doi Moi period, another reason that discouraged investment was that it was unclear whether or not these universities could legally distribute revenue. For instance, the first legal document pertaining to people-founded universities adopted many business terms (e.g., investors, capital contributions, shares) yet stressed that they were not operating on a profit-oriented basis. In practice, internal records revealed how several universities mobilized capital investments from many people, primarily for campus construction, but treated investors as moneylenders and paid them interest on the loans, rather than giving them shares or involving them in institutional governance. Thus, the ambiguities in revenue distribution—and, more broadly, ownership—together with the universities’ abilities to mobilize public resources were an Achilles’ heel. Ironically, disputes began in the early 2000s, when they had already accumulated a large amount of property in the form of permanent campuses and stable revenue. Many founding members, by then too old to remain in leadership roles, expected to gain shares in those properties which they could actually sell off. But ambiguous regulations regarding revenue distribution made it almost impossible to realize such expectations. Consequently, internal conflicts broke out, sometimes severely so, quickly alerting policymakers to the need for clearer regulations on property rights

94  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung at people-founded universities, as recorded in many discussions on the drafting of non-state university policies during this period. In 2005–06, the state eventually issued a series of regulations mandating that all people-founded universities were to switch to fully private status, thus signifying the corporatization of Vietnamese PHE. Corporatization

In essence, private universities, as regulated by the Private University Charter enacted in 2005 (further consolidated in 2009 and 2011), operate as jointstock corporations. At people-founded universities, the boards of directors comprise both capital investors and investors who contribute intellectual capital, are self-perpetuating and hold the ultimate decision-making authority. In contrast, at private universities, the ultimate decision-making power rests entirely in the hands of shareholders, responsible for electing the board of directors during the annual general meeting of shareholders. In short, whoever holds the most shares in private universities has the greatest decisionmaking power. In general, the provisions on meetings and voting during general meetings of shareholders were borrowed almost entirely from the Law on Enterprise, which policymakers often referred to during the drafting of private university regulations. Regardless, the joint-stock model—more specifically, its openness toward mobilizing additional investment and transferring ownership rights through the issuance and sales of shares—helped capital investors, especially corporations, participate in Vietnamese PHE.5 Here, corporatization occurs through three main forms. First, many private universities, as exemplified by two universities in Ho Chi Minh City (referred to as “H” and “V”) were among the first, and by now most successful, non-state universities in term of enrolments, and have managed to become subject to the Law on Enterprise. This shift occurs when the shareholders of private universities establish a joint-stock corporation, and through various accounting techniques (e.g., internal share transfers) make it the owner of the university. Second, educational corporations may buy the majority of shares before comprehensively restructuring ill-performing private universities, following which the original university investors and founders are often marginalized or dismissed altogether from the boards of directors. Corporation “N”, which now owns five private universities and dozens of K–12 schools, exemplifies this second form of corporatization. Third, multi-industry corporations such as Corporation “T”, with primary business operations in construction and infrastructure development, either establish new or acquire existing private universities, which are considered purely as investment projects. Regarding the third form, what drives such investment in a sector in which these corporations have no prior expertise? Informants suggested different anecdotal explanations, but these lack empirical justification. Among them are that some corporations consider higher education simply

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  95 as a lucrative sector, while others expect the universities to provide both human resources and technological innovations to their advantage. In addition, because current policies give preferential treatment to real estate and infrastructure development projects that also include education institutions, many corporations venture into university projects primarily to get their main projects approved more easily and quickly. Regardless, in all three forms of corporatization, the private university itself does not have corporate legal status. Rather, it is an investment project under corporations legally registered as businesses. Corporatization also occurs among universities with foreign investment, but in a slightly different form. Accordingly to 2018’s Higher Education Law, it is not compulsory for Vietnamese investors to establish enterprises which will, in turn, invest in the establishment of private universities.6 For foreign investors, however, this is the only legal option. After Vietnam joined the WTO, a wave of foreign investment, largely from Southeast Asia (especially Singapore), quickly infused Vietnam’s higher education. However, many investors bypassed MOET’s quality assurance regulations and offered programs franchised by foreign partners—most notably for-profit private colleges from Singapore and Australia. Such opportunistic investments frustrated MOET, resulting in a pervasive inspection campaign specifically targeting international colleges in 2012. Most of these colleges were either heavily fined or had their operations completely suspended—two of the most serious cases, widely circulated by mass media, were the Melior Business School and Raffles International College. Currently, there are only three universities with foreign investment operating, all of which are legally established by foreign-invested enterprises (which are specifically one-member limited liability companies). Corporations

The emergence of corporations as dominant actors seems to be a doubleedged sword. With private universities adopting both corporate operating models and securing corporate legal status, individual investors find that their property rights are now more protected and are thus more eager to invest in these universities. However, corporate investors are more prominent, aided by the fact that MOET’s criteria for quality have become so excessive that even well-financed individual investors find compliance difficult. For instance, while universities (public and private alike) are required to secure at least five hectares of land for campus construction, the local authorities normally trust and allocate land more easily to corporations rather than individual investors. Another advantage of corporatization is that once a corporation is the majority shareholder or sole owner, decision-making power in private universities would be more centralized—consequently, internal disputes would be less likely while development strategies would be implemented more thoroughly. This runs in sharp contrast with dispersed

96  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung (and even vague) decision-making power among many groups in the peoplefounded model. In short, the involvement of corporations helped revive and stabilize many private universities. However, such universities have some intrinsic shortcomings. While the concentration of decision-making power has helped these universities avoid many internal conflicts, it likewise allows corporations to appoint only likeminded people to leadership positions—especially in the board of directors and the board of rectors—thus essentially marginalizing academic voices. In a similar vein, business corporations familiar with cost-benefit analyses tend to promote this principle in university management. For instance, marketable programs are offered as hastily as they are discontinued once costs exceed revenue. At the sectoral level, private universities are now traded rather rapidly largely based on cost-benefit calculations, with little consideration of long-term educational visions. Although decisions to offer or terminate programs and even sell the university may benefit the corporations, they often come at the expense of students through the abrupt reshuffling of ownership and leadership positions, which normally derail institutional development strategies in turn. To be clear, not all such private universities are managed according to identical corporate principles. In fact, some corporations tend preserve a solid and spacious buffer between them and their universities for academics to be comfortably engaged. This is the case of University “T”—despite being owned by a large financial corporation, there is no significant intervention into leadership selection. Both major leadership organizations—the board of directors and the board of rectors—remain substantially comprised academics. However, what is worth highlighting is that such buffers are not legally institutionalized, i.e., they are dependent entirely on a corporation’s goodwill. In other words, the ultimate decision-making authority still rests completely in these corporations’ hands. Conclusion: Decentralization versus corporatization This chapter points out the actors who dominate Vietnamese PHE and how they have changed over time. Originally, high-ranking officials from the state bureaucracy and CPV agencies as well as leaders of public universities played dominant roles in the non-state (i.e., people-founded) universities. Thus, state influence was substantial, not only in the establishment but also the operations of such institutions. Although their involvement was driven by different motivations, they did invite and somehow facilitate the engagement of other actors, especially academics, while indirectly marginalizing private investors. The emergence and development of the PHE sector indicates that decentralization has been at work. As explained by Chau et al. (2020b), stateled, radical institutional reforms during the Doi Moi period, especially the empowerment of non-state principles (e.g., the market), created enabling conditions for the emergence of PHE. However, as argued here, the state did

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  97 not immediately withdraw its influence, which was tactically maintained in the people-founded model, dominated as it was by state-connected actors. In essence, this process reflects Painter’s (2008) conception of cellularization in his dual-decentralization model. As was the case in China (Painter & Mok, 2008), Vietnam’s cellularization of non-state higher education also came at a cost. Although strong state connections helped key actors easily mobilize essential resources, it also caused conflicts of interest, possible losses of public assets and ambiguous ownership rights. These actors changed radically once the state not only legalized the private university model but also made it the only model within the nonstate sector. Accordingly, private investors, especially business corporations, quickly stepped in and marginalized existing actors to dominate PHE. This marginalization was substantially aided by corporatization—i.e., the process by which private universities are modeled after the corporate model. More specifically, the joint-stock corporation model (which essentially adopts the stock-based power sharing principle) allows well-resourced investors to participate in and dominate universities, thus making ownership transfers much easier. While corporatization helps attract more investment in and stabilizes PHE, its centralized management might cause many quality concerns, especially with power concentrated in business corporations. In essence, the predominance of corporations in Vietnamese PHE—i.e., the second form of corporatization—suggests that a form of recentralization has already begun. However, as Bray (2007) warns, it is not state-initiated but rather initiated and controlled by non-state actors, specifically corporations. The Vietnamese state failed to develop effective oversight mechanisms and thus indirectly made recentralization by non-state actors possible. Such corporatization clearly reflects the market economy’s influence in contemporary Vietnam. In short, corporatization has been enabled by many interrelated factors, of which the radical public administration reforms in the 2000s to increase the financial autonomy of public service delivery units, the equitization of state-owned enterprises and enhanced public-private competition were powerful driving forces. In addition, as some informants have suggested, the legal institutionalization of the market economy—one of the prerequisites for WTO accession—may have been another enabling condition. However, there remain many unanswered questions regarding corporatization, thus making future in-depth studies necessary. Notes 1 Excluding thematic volumes, such as Nguyen and Shah’s (2019) volume on quality assurance. 2 See D.C. Levy, A World of Private Higher Education (forthcoming). 3 The website can be accessed at https://thuvienphapluat.vn/. 4 The website can be accessed at https://dangkykinhdoanh.gov.vn/. 5 Interestingly, private universities are not legally registered as joint-stock corporations. Their legal registration is still subject to the Education Law, in which

98  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung important provisions on capital contributions and property disputes are not specified. For instance, while committed capital incurs legal liabilities in joint-stock corporations, this was not the case for private universities. If their shareholders committed a particular amount but eventually failed to contribute said capital in due course, they could not be sued nor fined. Such infringements were to be only discussed and decided upon internally, largely through negotiations and on the basis of goodwill. 6 Alternatively, these investors can directly establish a private university despite there being more challenges.

References Blass, E. (2005). The rise and rise of the corporate university. Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(1), 58–74. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590510576217 Bray, M. (2007). Control of education: Issues and tensions in centralization and decentralization. In R.F. Arnove & C.A. Torres (Eds.), Comparative Education: The Dialectic of the Global and the Local (3rd ed., pp. 175–196). Rowman & Littlefield. Chau, Q. (2020). Fighting the stigma of ‘second-tier’ status: The emergence of ‘semielite’ private higher education in Vietnam. In L.H. Phan & B.N. Doan (Eds.), Higher Education in Market-Oriented Socialist Vietnam (pp. 145–168). Springer International. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-46912-2_8 Chau, Q., Dang, B.L., & Nguyen, X.A. (2020a). Patterns of ownership and management in Vietnam’s private higher education: An exploratory study. Higher Education Policy. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-020-00199-6 Chau, Q., Nguyen, C.H., & Nguyen, T.-T. (2020b). The emergence of private higher education in a communist state: The case of Vietnam. Studies in Higher Education, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2020.1817890 Clark, B.R. (1983). The Higher Education System: Academic Organization in Cross-National Perspective. University of California Press. Dang, B.-L., & Nguyen, H.-V. (Eds.). (2016). Trường cộng đồng bậc Đại học ở Việt Nam: Hiện tại và Tương lai [Community University in Vietnam: Current realities and Prospects]. Vietnam National University Hanoi. Fforde, A., & De Vylder, S. (1996). From Plan to Market: The Economic Transition in Vietnam. Westview Press. Gainsborough, M. (2003). Changing Political Economy of Vietnam: The Case of Ho Chi Minh City. Routledge Curzon. ———. (2009). Privatisation as state advance: Private indirect government in Vietnam. New Political Economy, 14(2), 257–274. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563460902826013 Goyette, K.A. (2012). Stratification and the emergence of the postsecondary private education sector in Vietnam. Comparative Education Review, 56(2), 197–222. Green, A. (2002). Education, Globalization and the Nation State. Palgrave. Hanson, E.M. (2006). Strategies of educational decentralization: Key questions and core issues. In C. Bjork (Ed.), Educational Decentralization: Educational Decentralization: Asian Experiences and Conceptual Contributions (Vol. 8, pp. 9–26). Springer Netherlands. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4358-1 Harman, G., Hayden, M., & Nghi, P.T. (2010). Reforming Higher Education in Vietnam: Challenges and Priorities. Springer. Hawkins, J.N. (2000). Centralization, decentralization, recentralization – Educational reform in China. Journal of Educational Administration, 38(5), 442–455. https://doi. org/10.1108/09578230010378340

The Corporatization of Vietnam’s Private Universities  99 Kinser, K. (2007). Dimensions of corporate ownership of for-profit higher education. Review of Higher Education, 30(3), 217–245. Kinser, K., & Levy, D.C. (2007). For-profit higher education: U.S. tendencies, international echoes. In J. Forest & P.G. Altbach (Eds.), The International Handbook of Higher Education (pp. 107–119). Springer Publishers. Levy, D.C. (2018a). Global private higher education: An empirical profile of its size and geographical shape. Higher Education, 76(4), 701–715. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10734-018-0233-6 ———. (2018b). The vanishing public monopoly. International Higher Education, 94, 24–25. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.2018.0.10550 Lindblom, C.E. (2002). The Market System: What It Is, How It Works, and What To Make Of It. Yale University Press. Malesky, E.J., & Hutchinson, F.E. (2016). Varieties of disappointment: Why has decentralization not delivered on its promises in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian Economies, 33(2), 125–138. https://doi.org/10.1355/ae33-2e Ministry of Education and Training. (2020). Số liệu thống kê giáo dục đại học năm học 2018—2019 [Higher Education Statistics 2018–2019]. https://moet.gov.vn/thongke/Pages/thong-ko-giao-duc-dai-hoc.aspx?ItemID=6636 Mok, K.-H. (2004). Centralization and Decentralization: Educational Reforms and Changing Governance in Chinese Societies. Springer Netherlands. Neave, G.R. (2012). The Evaluative State, Institutional Autonomy and Higher Education in Western Europe: The Prince and His Pleasure. Palgrave Macmillan. Nguyen, C.H., & Shah, M. (Eds.). (2019). Quality Assurance in Vietnamese Higher Education: Policy and Practice in the 21st Century. Springer International Publishing. Nguyễn, N.T., & Tran, L.T. (2019). Reforming Vietnamese Higher Education: Global Forces and Local Demands. Springer. Oliver, D.E., & Nguyen, K.D. (2010). Global competition as a two-edged sword: Vietnam higher education policy. In L.M. Portnoi, V.D. Rust, & S.S. Bagley (Eds.), Higher Education, Policy, and the Global Competition Phenomenon (pp. 127–142). Palgrave Macmillan US. Painter, M. (2008). From command economy to hollow state? Decentralisation in Vietnam and China. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 67(1), 79–88. https:// doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00570.x Painter, M., & Mok, K.H. (2008). Reasserting the public in public service delivery: The de-privatization and de-marketization of education in China. Policy and Society, 27(2), 137–150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polsoc.2008.09.003 Pham, L.H., & Fry, G.W. (2002). The emergence of private higher education in Viet Nam: Challenges and opportunities. Educational Research for Policy and Practice, 1, 127–141. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021130320485 Pham, L.T. (2020). The emergence of mergers and acquisitions in the private higher education sector in Vietnam. In L.H. Phan & B.N. Doan (Eds.), Higher Education in Market-Oriented Socialist Vietnam (pp. 169–185). Springer International Publishing. Phan, L.H., & Doan, B.N. (Eds.). (2020). Higher Education in Market-Oriented Socialist Vietnam: New Players, Discourses, and Practices. Springer International Publishing. Ruch, R.S. (2001). Higher Ed., Inc.: The Rise of the For-Profit University. Johns Hopkins University Press. Shin, J.C. (Ed.). (2018). Higher Education Governance in East Asia: Transformations under Neoliberalism. Springer Singapore.

100  Quang Chau and Nguyen Kim Dung Sloper, D., & Le, T.C. (1995). The organization and management of higher education in Vietnam: An overview. In D. Sloper, & T.C. Le (Eds.), Higher Education in Vietnam: Change and Response (pp. 74–94). Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. St George, E. (2003). Government Policy and Changes to Higher Education in Vietnam, 1986-1998: Education in Transition for Development? [Doctoral Dissertation]. Australian National University. Tran, H.Q. (Ed.). (1995). 50 năm phát triển sự nghiệp giáo dục và đào tạo (1945–1995) [Fifty Years of Development of Education and Training (1945–1995)]. Education Publishing House. Tran, L.T., & Marginson, S. (Eds.). (2018). Internationalisation in Vietnamese Higher Education (Vol. 51). Springer International Publishing. Tran, L.T., Marginson, S., Do, H.M., Do, Q.T.N., Le, T.T.T., Nguyen, N.T., Vu, T.T.P., Pham, T.N., Nguyen, H.T.L., & Ho, T.T.H. (Eds.). (2014). Higher Education in Vietnam: Flexibility, Mobility and Practicality in the Global Knowledge Economy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. Tran, P.-H. (1998). Vietnamese Higher Education at the Intersection of French and Soviet Influences [Doctoral Dissertation]. State University of New York (Buffalo). Verger, A. (2010). WTO/GATS and the Global Politics of Higher Education. Routledge. Võ, M.T.H., & Laking, R. (2020). An institutional study of autonomisation of public universities in Vietnam. Higher Education, 79(6), 1079–1097. https://doi. org/10.1007/s10734-019-00457-6 Vu, T. (2010). Paths to Development in Asia: South Korea, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia. Cambridge University Press. Vught, V. (Ed.). (1989). Governmental Strategies and Innovation in Higher Education. Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Vu-Thanh, T.-A. (2016). Vietnam: Decentralization amidst fragmentation. Southeast Asian Economies, 33(2), 188–208. https://doi.org/10.1355/ae33-2e Walton, J. (2005). Would the real corporate university please stand up? Journal of European Industrial Training, 29(1), 7–20. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090590510576181

6

Counting the Costs of Free Education Shared Household and Government Costs in Cambodian Lower Secondary Education Alexander Towne

Introduction In post-conflict societies, the reconstruction of education poses significant challenges to any governing body, particularly with regard to financing. However, if implemented correctly, education policies have the potential to underpin a society’s recovery and help build government legitimacy (Barakat et al., 2013). Cambodia, as a post-conflict society, is no exception to this, and since the devastation inflicted upon the country under the Khmer Rouge (1975–79), the nation has had to rebuild its education system from nothing (Sitha et al., 2016). The government, with its limited resources, has been presented with many challenges over how and what to fund, and its policy choices have historically resulted in a substantial financial burden on households that wished for their children to receive a basic education (Bray & Bunly, 2005). There have been two major studies examining the balance between household and government education costs in Cambodia. The first focused on the primary level (Bray, 1999) and the second at the primary and lower secondary level (LSL; Bray & Bunly, 2005). These studies have provided snap shots into the development and capabilities of the post-conflict state, and the progress it has made toward the provision of accessible basic education. Due to the fact, it has been 16 years since such a study has been conducted, and the government, in 2007, explicitly guaranteed the right of every citizen to nine years of free basic education (grades 1–9), it is now time for another counting of the costs to education in Cambodia. This chapter will explore the balance of costs bore by households and the government in Cambodian lower secondary education, highlighting any differences in the rural and urban household experience and the key power dynamics that affect the outcome. This responds to both a gap in the research at the LSL and the government’s identification of the urban-rural divide as a priority area for research (Royal Government of Cambodia [RGC], 2019), and it will provide insights into how well the state has been able to work with key actors to ensure the necessary infrastructure and safeguards are in place for citizens to realize their right to free basic education. DOI: 10.4324/9781003397144-9

102  Alexander Towne Method and theory Research approach

This research takes a positivist approach, assuming an objective reality in which statistical analysis can uncover empirical truths within society (Shanks & Parr, 2003). It is formed from a secondary data analysis and a literature search and analysis. The findings are interpreted using the Abidjan Principles (AP), which is a rights-based normative education framework. Its purpose is to guarantee and strengthen the framework through which education is provided and help states fulfill their obligations toward the right to ‘free’ education in the face of increasing numbers of private actors (ActionAid, 2020). The April 2019 report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education recommended the implementation of AP in full (ActionAid, 2019). When this is considered in the context of Cambodia’s close historical ties to the UN, its constitutional commitments to the right to education, and the hybrid nature of the education system (discussed in more depth in the ‘Context’ section), it makes the application of the AP ineluctable. Literature search

The literature search was conducted via key word searches on the following academic databases: UCL Explore, Google Scholar, and Research Gate for articles, journals, books, gray literature, and reports. The initial findings were then followed up with a citation analysis. This research also used the Google search engine to find local non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and government departments who have published relevant research. The literature search was primarily conducted in English. However, for some government reports, a translator was used to identify data categories. The key search terms included, but were not limited to, the following: Cambodia Education Costs, Direct and Indirect Costs of Schooling, Right to Education, Abidjan Principles, Cambodian Education Reform, Education Funding, Corruption, Household Burden, Regular Private Tuition, and Cambodian lower secondary school (LSS) costs. Literature analysis

This study used a research matrix to analyze the literature findings against the Abidjan Evaluation Principles (AEP) (Table 6.1) and the educational cost categories (see Table 6.2 in the ‘Context’ section). The government expenditure on education was determined from the literature search and analysis and will be examined in two categories: recurrent and capital. Recurrent expenditure refers to the ongoing costs of the government, for example, teachers’ salaries, and capital expenditure refers to money used to buy, maintain, or improve fixed assets, such as school

Counting the Costs of Free Education  103 Table 6.1  The Abidjan evaluation principles 1

State obligation to fulfill the rights to free quality public primary and secondary education for all States to guarantee adequate financial resources to fulfill obligations on the right to free quality public education States to impose public service obligations of non-discrimination and transparency on private actors Existence of private provision of quality must not systematically undermine the provision of quality state education Regulation of Public-Private Partnerships

2 3 4 5

Source: ActionAid (2020).

buildings. To determine the state expenditure at the household level, the following formula was used:

LSS   Allocated  Budget     No . of  LSS   Households

Due to a lack of direct data, a number of proxies had to be used to determine this value. The formula can be seen below.

A = 

(b1  ×  c1) (b 2  ×  c 2 )

where A equals the household level government expenditure, b1 refers to the allocated government budget, and c1 is the percentage of the total annual budget required by LSS to fulfill the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports’ (MoEYS) Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2014–18. b2 refers to the number of Cambodian households (see CEIC Data, 2020) and c2 is the percentage of households with someone enrolled in LSS. This was determined from the 2017 Cambodian socio-economic survey (CSES). The same equation is used for both capital and recurrent expenditure. However, while recurrent expenditure only uses data from 2017, a mean over five years was Table 6.2  Educational cost categories Household costs

Opportunity costs Government funds

• • • • • • • • • •

Direct school fees Text books Supplementary tutoring Transport Pocket money Contributions to school capital expenditure Other expenses Foregone labor hours Recurrent expenditure Capital expenditure

104  Alexander Towne used for capital. This is to account for fluctuations in capital expenditure, because buildings are long-term investments and disbursements are not consistent every year (Bray & Bunly, 2005). Data

This study used the CSES 2017 to estimate the household expenditure on education. The survey sampled 840 households in 384 villages and was conducted between January and December 2017. The sample was designed to be nationally representative and provides information on households ranging from education to victimization. The results of the survey have been used to monitor the progress of the National Strategic Development Plan and the UN 2030 agenda. Data analysis

The analysis was conducted on Stata and sought to highlight any differences in the urban and rural experience. It estimates the household expenditure on education in the last 12 months, which used data only from those students who were enrolled in public LSS at the time of the survey (n = 627). This was analyzed at the household level to account for shared or multiplied costs by those households with more than one child enrolled in LSS (Yamada, 2006). As the analysis focuses on expenditure, it primarily used continuous data. Therefore, phase one began by looking at the data’s distribution. If the data had a normal distribution, a t-test was used to evaluate the statistical significance of the model. If the data was heavily skewed, it was first reduced down to a 2×2 contingency table, and chi-squared was used to identify whether there are any statistical differences in urban and rural settings between those who pay something for the variable in question and those that do not. If a statistical difference was found, the difference was then further explored using Mann-Whitney U. In order to account for the transport and pocket money costs that parents would likely have paid regardless of whether their child was in education, similar to Bray and Bunly (2005), 30% was taken off the raw data. This research looked for statistical significance at p < 0.05. Limitations

There are three main limitations to consider. Firstly, it is important to note that statistical significance does not mean the findings have real-world relevance, it merely denotes they are not random. The research is based on the assumption that the data is nationally representative and that statistically significant results can be extrapolated to the wider population. The large sample size gives greater statistical power (1–β). Secondly, there are limitations to the reporting of educational costs. Previous research indicates that respondents may report different costs

Counting the Costs of Free Education  105 depending on the perceived purpose of the question. That is to say, they will seek to maximize financial or social gains with their response. For example, if they believe presenting themselves as high spenders will result in increased taxes, they will under-report expenditure (Bray & Bunly, 2005). Respondents may also hold a different concept of educational costs to either the CSES and/or this research. This could lead them to either repeat or omit costs that this study is interested in, causing information bias in the findings. This research assumes that these errors are random and do not bias the findings. In terms of the state’s reported spending, it is also worth considering that while this study sought to be informed from as wide a range of sources as possible, budget transparency in Cambodia is poor and different government departments may finance different elements of LSS. As a result, these costs may be unintentionally omitted from the analysis and cause additional information bias in the findings. Finally, Cambodia’s poor budget transparency presents other key limitations to this study. Because the budgetary allocations to LSS are not made publicly available by MoEYS, it was necessary to assume that government expenditure is split evenly between urban and rural households. Although this may be reasonable for recurrent expenditure, as a large part of that budget is for paying wages (UNESCO, 2015a), it is unlikely to be the case for capital expenditure; due to the rural school’s facilities deficit (see MoEYS, 2018). It was also necessary to use the ESP 2014–18 as a proxy to determine the percentage of the total MoEYS budget that was allocated to LSS. The assumption here is that ESP targets have real-world significance and the goals are reflected in the budget process. As there is no end of ESP review, this is not possible to determine at this moment. Context Education context

The Cambodian system has a 6-3-3 structure, which is nominally free to use, and students typically attend 4–5 hours of government school classes in the morning and between 1 and 4 hours of extra private tuition in the afternoon (Brehm et al., 2012). Private tuition in Cambodia, or ɾiən kuə, while taking a multitude of formats, most commonly comes in the form of ‘regular private tuition’ (RPT; Brehm, 2017, p. 487), wherein students undertake extra fee-based classes with the same teacher they have during public school and broadly continue with the state curriculum (Bray et al, 2018). Although there is some evidence for a decline in this practice (Brehm & Silova, 2014), its prevalence within society has led some to label Cambodian schooling as a public-private hybrid system (Brehm et al., 2012), with the state constituting the public and RPT the private. This conceptualization of the Cambodian basic education system is used in this research because although RPT is officially prohibited by the government (Marshall & Fukao, 2019), some

106  Alexander Towne participation estimates are as high as 71% (Dawson, 2009). In fact, since the 1990s, RPT has been recognized by some as the leading cause of educational inequalities in Cambodia (Brehm & Aktas, 2020), and there is evidence to suggest enrolment in extra classes is more influential on test scores than socio-economic status (Marshall & Fukao, 2019). Therefore, engaging in RPT has become a necessity for any student that wishes to successfully transition through lower secondary school (LSS; Brehm & Silova, 2014). As a result, and in spite of the fact, it often takes place in informal environments that are beyond the regulation of the state (Brehm & Aktas, 2020), RPT has become an inextricable part of the Cambodian basic education system. This highlights a key power dynamic between households and teachers. The government is another key power holder within Cambodian education, and its decisions have significant impacts on both households and teachers. As stated, it has had difficulties in funding its program of basic education. Both the 1999 and 2005 studies indicated that households not only contributed significantly more toward the cost of schooling than the government (Figure 6.1), but also that the amount was unusually large compared to many other Asian countries. Furthermore, the 2005 study shows that lower secondary education is not only more expensive than primary school, but also that the government pays a smaller proportion of the costs. This can be partially explained by the increased need for parents to pay for private tuition at the LSL, which in addition to pocket money, was found to be the most significant household cost. There are also equity concerns in the Cambodian system between the rural and urban spheres, with rural students likely to have fewer hours tuition, larger classes, and poorer facilities than their urban counterparts (MoEYS, 2018). Nevertheless, the

Figure 6.1  The historic balance of government and household education costs

Counting the Costs of Free Education  107 studies indicated that the state has made progress in its ability to pay for social services, such as education. This can be seen through the 21 percentage point increase in the government share of the primary education costs between 1997/98 and 2004. As such, the three main actors that compete for power within Cambodian education are teachers, households, and the government. There are of course competing interests within these categories, such as the conflicting remits of MoEYS and the Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) or the vying for resources between urban and rural communities. It should also be noted that there are significant actors on the periphery of the Cambodian education system, which use it to gain influence or support in other areas, such as wealthy Cambodians who finance the building of schools. These will be discussed in greater depth later in the chapter. What constitutes an educational cost?

In order to increase this study’s explanatory power and create continuity in the research, where possible, Bray and Bunly’s (2005) framework was retained. Nevertheless, due to both the data used and developments in Cambodia policy and practice, it was necessary to incorporate some changes. In terms of household expense categories, Bray and Bunly’s (2005) study was criticized for the inclusion of transport and pocket money (Sopheak, 2007). However, the wider rights-based literature suggests these types of costs should be included in parents informal cost-benefit analysis calculations, made when considering whether to send their children to school (Motala, 2009; Williams et al, 2015). In fact, there is narrative evidence to suggest that the lack of a bicycle can stop students from studying all together (Edwards et al, 2014). Therefore, this study includes both these categories, and, as stated, in recognition of the transport and pocket money costs that parents would likely have paid regardless of whether their child was in education, 30% was taken off the raw data. The CSES does not directly account for money spent on tests and examinations; therefore, this study did not include it as a category. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean students do not pay these expenses and they are likely a factor in the ‘Other Expenses’ category. This is also true of the Uniforms and Equipment category, which was not included in this study. It should also be noted that while opportunity costs featured in Bray and Bunly’s analysis, they did not factor in the estimation of the balance of costs. Therefore, they do not in this study, and due to the scope of this chapter will not be discussed. The government funds category were also adapted. In recognition of changes in policy and the data available, as stated, the subheadings have been reduced to ‘recurrent’ and ‘capital’ expenditure. As a result of all these considerations and limitations, educational costs are conceptualized as outlined in Table 6.2.

108  Alexander Towne Findings Due to the scope of this chapter, only the variables that have shown meaningful change since Bray and Bunly’s (2005) study will be discussed in depth. School fees

The results show that urban households pay more in school fees than rural ones (p < 0.001). Nevertheless, with both the median and mode being 0 in all categories, the amount paid was negligible. This is unsurprising and is in line with Cambodian policy and research. Since the 1990s, the Cambodian government has taken steps to remove the direct costs of schooling (Brehm et al, 2012). A conspicuous example of this is the abolition of the start of year school fees in 2000, which was complimented by an extensive information campaign on government policy and commitments (ODI, 2011). There are two possible explanations for the continued existence of school fees. First, due to the low levels of regulation and school visits by the state (Hossain, 2017), it is possible that the fees still being paid are a reflection of widespread corruption and schools’ need to generate additional revenue to operate. The second possibility, as highlighted in the limitations, is that respondent’s interpretation of what constitutes school fees varies, and the results reflect a miscommunication. Textbooks

The results show that urban households tend to spend more on textbooks than rural ones (p < 0.001) (t = 6.4616; df = 625). The mode expenditure is the same in all categories (30,000 KHR), which is expected and can be considered a reflection of the state’s publishing monopoly stabilizing prices (Kelsall et al, 2016). As many families purchase their textbooks from the market (MoEYS, 2016), we would anticipate seeing a small variation between the mode and the mean cost, to reflect demand and price negotiation. However, this is not the case. While the observed mean in the rural is quite close to the mode at 34,293 KHR, the urban respondents are significantly higher at 53,031 KHR, which indicates a small number of households pay a large amount for their textbooks. This could possibly be explained by the greater opportunities for price gouging and corruption present within the urban environment. More broadly, the results are surprising because the ESP 2014–18 MidTerm review (2016) reported that MoEYS had achieved 100% of its target in developing and distributing its new set of grade 7–9 textbooks for the 2017 academic year. Consequently, we would have expected to see a higher proportion of respondents reporting no spending on textbooks. A possible reason for the results is that respondents were asked to report spending within the last 12 months. The reported spending could either be parents’ inclusion of textbook expenses from the previous academic year or a reflection of an asymmetry of information between parents and the government. Meaning that parents simply didn’t know at the beginning of the

Counting the Costs of Free Education  109 academic year they would not need to purchase books; so they did. The latter conclusion is reinforced by the government’s admission that there have been distribution issues, both in terms of textbooks reaching the schools and being given to the students once they have arrived, which has left many families still buying textbooks from the market (MoEYS, 2016). Supplementary tutoring

The data for private tutoring expenditure did not have a normal distribution and the results of the chi-squared test were not statistically significant (p < 0.55) (chi-squared = 0.3591: df = 1). Therefore, the respondents who reported paying nothing in direct school fees were excluded from the analysis. Of those respondents that did report paying something for private tuition (n = 371), urban ones spent more (594,503 KHR vs 431,586 KHR) (p < 0.001) (t = 3.5674; df = 369). Due to the pervasiveness of RPT in Cambodia, we might have expected to see a higher proportion of respondents reporting at least some expenditure in this category. There are two plausible explanations for this not being so. Firstly, some studies have indicated that the prevalence of RPT is beginning to decline in the country (Brehm & Silova, 2014), and this could be a reflection of a continued trend. Secondly, this could also be a manifestation of the government restrictions on private tutoring and the household’s unwillingness to report illegal expenditure. In terms of the results for those households which did report spending something on private tutoring, there are also some interesting considerations. The higher reported mean expenditure in urban households, in conjunction with a lower mode (400,000 KHR vs 480,000 KHR), indicates that people in urban settings generally pay less for private tutoring, with a minority of expensive tutors driving up the mean. There are both economic and social reasons for this, which while separate, do interrelate. In terms of economics, teachers are notoriously underpaid, with some studies showing that up to two-third of a teacher’s base salary can be accounted for from private tutoring (Brehm & Silova, 2014). This has contributed to the widespread practice of what Dawson (2009) has dubbed the ‘tricks of the teacher’, wherein teachers hold back the curriculum in state schooling to create the necessity for RPT. The prevalence of private tuition is also greater in urban settings (Brehm & Silova, 2014), which can be attributed to the fact urban teachers are less likely to be able to engage in agricultural work, and therefore tutoring may be the best option to supplement their salaries (Brehm, 2016a). This may have resulted in a greater choice within the tuition market, increasing both the variation within prices and the opportunities for teachers and parents to engage in exploitative transactions. This idea is further reinforced when considering the greater social opportunity cost associated with tutoring in rural settings. As rural communities are closer and parents interact more with their children’s teachers (Brehm, 2016a), it may have resulted in a stabilizing of fairer prices.

110  Alexander Towne Transport

No statistically significant results were found. Pocket money

The results show that urban households expend more money in pocket money than rural ones (p < 0.01). Pocket money usually constitutes the largest household education expense. The results are consistent with this, reporting a median of 409,500 KHR and 327,600 KHR in urban and rural settings, respectively. However, the mode equaling 0 in all categories is surprising, particularly as this type of expense is only said to increase as students’ transition to higher grades (Bray & Bunly, 2005). It is plausible this can be explained by the household interpretation of education costs. Households may not view the money given to LSS students not only as pocket money, but rather as carefully itemized expenses. As a result, the costs may be reflected in other categories. However, previous studies suggest that parents give children daily pocket money and have little idea about how it is spent (Dawson, 2009). Therefore, this is unlikely to be the case. Donations to school capital expenditure

The results show that urban households give more in school capital expenditure donations than rural ones (p < 0.001). Nevertheless, with both the median and mode being 0 in all categories, the amount paid was negligible. This was expected because it is common for politicians or wealthy Cambodians to cover the costs of school capital improvements. This practice has been widespread since 1994, when the then co-Prime Ministers Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh reformed the honorary title of Oknha. Since this time Cambodians could receive this title, and in turn political favor, if they invested over $100,000 into the development of schools, pagodas, or roads (Verver & Dahles, 2015). The prevalence of this practice is such that as of 2010, 3,458 schools were named after Hun Sen or his wife (Strangio, 2014). Other

The results show that urban residents pay more than rural ones on other school supplies, paying 85,242 KHR and 70,713 KHR, respectively (p < 0.05) (t = 2.3451; df = 625). Total household costs

The results in Table 6.3 show that for total household expenditure on education, urban households pay more than rural ones (p