I’m excited to announce that FreshEd, the weekly podcast I host, has a new website. You can check it out here: www.freshedpocast.com.

The site will archive all of the podcasts as well as provide exclusive content related to each show. In the latest episode, I speak with Raewyn Connell. On the website, I post a follow-up question I asked Raewyn over email. I asked her for advice for a young scholar like me. You can read her response here.

If you are interested in joining the show as a guest or contributor, please contact me here.

With Laos acting as chair and Cambodia as recent recipient of China’s largess ($600 million given on July 15, 2016), Asean is paralyzed from issuing a joint statement in reaction to the ruling by the International Tribunal at the Hegue that stated there was “no legal basis for China to claim historic rights” over the South China sea.

A diplomate was quoted as saying: “It’s very grave. Cambodia just opposes almost everything, even reference to respect for legal and diplomatic processes which already had been said in previous statements,”

I was amazed by the recent coup attempt in Turkey. Although it was poorly planned and implemented, it will likely have lasting consequences, especially for US-Turkey relations. The main issue is Fethullah Gulen, the former Imam who is in self-exile in Pennsylvania, USA. The President of Turkey,  Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, blames Gulen for the coup and wants him extradited to Turkey. The USA isn’t expected to oblige, thus straining already difficult relations. (Relations have been difficult because the Syrian Kurds, who are the strongest and US-favored ground opponents of ISIS, are anathema to Turkey because of possible irredentist connections with Turkish Kurds.)  Of course, it is unlikely Gulen was behind the failed coup; nevertheless, Erdoğan is capitalizing on the coup attempt by making it an excuse to consolidate power, particularly taking aim at Gulen and his followers.

And there are many followers of Gulen. One issue about Gulen that hasn’t made much news of late is his massive network of US charter schools.  Seriously. The movement associated with Gulen operates the second largest network of charter schools in the USA, only behind KIPP. The Gulen Movement, as it is know, runs charter schools around the country that receive US-tax payer money to operate. As charter schools go they have private boards and are not required to disclose financial or management reports. Taxpayers don’t know where their money goes or what decisions are being made inside Gulen charter schools. There are all sort of issues that arise from Gulen’s charter schools, but let’s push those aside for a moment.

The story gets a bit weirder and crosses additional borders. Today I read an article about Zaman International Schools in Cambodia. I’ve heard of the schools many times as some of the best in the country. Many government officials whom I know personally send their children to Zaman. In the aftermath of the failed coup attempt in Turkey, Erdoğan’s reach knows no limits. The Turkish Ambassador to Cambodia would now “like to see this Zaman group in Cambodia end all its activities in the near future” because of its ties to Gulen. Some backstory sheds light on the connection: Zaman International School was founded by Atilla Yusuf Guleker, a former journalist of the Turkish daily Zaman. Zaman was openly critical of Erdoğan and, in March of this year, taken over by military officials loyal to the President.

1. The failed coup in Turkey has shed light on the educational politics of Gulen both in the USA and in Cambodia. What other countries operate schools associated with the Gulen movement? Although these schools appear to teach national curricula, what are the underlying motives behind operating schools — ideological advancement? building sympathetic relationships? financial support of other Gulen movement activities?

From the Phnom Penh Post:

Cambodia and China have signed an agreement to establish exchange programs for students and professors between the under-construction University of Kratie and Guangxi University.

This is on top of the $10 million the Chinese government provided the University of Kratie for construction.

There’s word coming out of Cambodia’s ministry of education that a state-run loan program is set to launch to help poor students afford university. Most universities in Cambodia are private, for-profit (but, oddly enough, tax-exempt) companies (67 out of 110 institutions of higher education are private) that charge student fees, and most of the students who attend the 43 public universities pay fees as well. Only a small — and declining—percentage of students receive scholarships to attend university from the government. With limited government support to higher education, most universities require as many fee-paying students as possible simply to stay solvent. Since most families can’t afford education costs, however, access to loans becomes the only way to keep the higher education industry afloat.

But why would a family take out a loan to afford (higher) education? For staters, loans already occur either through private banks or through the black market in order for many families to afford the various costs to education at all levels. Second, there is a belief that obtaining a degree from a university will guarantee a job in the future. The child in the Phnom Penh Post article that reported this loan program stated, for instance, “I hope I can benefit from this program. I want to study at university to get a job afterwards.” This is a common refrain: Education equals employment.

But scratch the surface just slightly, and the belief that a degree will automatically turn into a job turns out to be a charade. Most jobs in the Cambodian economy do not need a university degree. What I fear will happen, therefore, is that this new loan program will create more private debt for poor households, perpetuate low-quality higher education (because the business model of the system will be propped up by a national loan program), and expand the false pretense that human capital theory is “best” way to understand the value of education.

When details of this program are announced by the ministry, I’m interested in learning how the loans will be structured and administered. Are these government-backed loans? Meaning, will the public be on the hook for the loans when students default? Because students will default — just look at America’s experience with for-profit colleges.

More broadly, I wonder if we are seeing the expansion of an education bubble in Cambodia through the transfer of payment for education from international donors and organizations to Cambodian families. There’s only one way this ends: the bubble bursts.

This is what the Minister of Education said:

“For primary school teachers, the monthly salary will increase to at least $200, and high school teachers will increase to at least $250. University teachers will see increases up to $300 in this year, all of which represent the minimum wages,” Mr. Naron said.

The University of Hong Kong’s President and Vice-Chancellor Professor, Peter Mathieson, recently spoke to the Court about the University’s future. Among addressing the various controversy of last year —such as the call to create “international” experiences in Mainland China for all undergraduate students by 2019 and selection of new pro-vice-chancellors— he also had an interesting take on the role of league tables in the university’s future directions. On the one hand, he pointed out the weaknesses of league tables, but on the other clearly situated HKU among its Western counterparts, such as Stanford and Yale. He dislikes rankings, but nevertheless will use them to guide future directions because they are “here to stay.” The below quote is an interesting insight into the power of league tables within university decision making:

So how are we doing? I recently presented to the Senior Management Team and subsequently to Council some analysis of the major international league tables over the last 11 years. I won’t reiterate now my views on rankings, which are well-known and on the public record, except to say that I stand by my assertion that we will never set institutional strategy to meet the criteria of any particular league table. However, rankings are here to stay and we all know that they are widely used as a short cut: by prospective students, parents, governments and media. They are a surrogate for a university’s international reputation.

The first point to make is that Hong Kong U’s position now is quite similar to its position in the first rankings which were published 11 years ago jointly by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THE) and the Quacquerelli-Symonds (QS). We were ranked number 39 in 2004, compared to 30 and 44 in the most recent 2015 rankings from the QS and THE respectively. In the 11 intervening years, there has been quite a lot of fluctuation, some of it undoubtedly explained by the frequent methodological changes which provide one reason why rankings are so controversial and open to various interpretations. Hong Kong U’s peak position was eight years ago in 2007 when HKU was ranked number 18 in the world. Stanford that year was number 19, so you can make up your own mind about whether that high point flattered HKU or not. The very next year, 2008, HKU dropped 8 places to number 26 (Stanford rose slightly to 17). In 2010, the two rankings agencies split and used slightly different methodologies but since then both of them show a definite slow downward trend for HKU, starting in 2011 in the QS and in 2010 in the Times Higher. There are various possible contributors to this: student-staff ratios influence the rankings and the 334 transition adversely affected these because the increased number of students was not accompanied by a commensurate increase in staffing. The fact that Chinese U and Hong Kong UST showed similar trends in this time period supports this as a contributor. Hong Kong U also had the possible impact on its reputation of the 818 incident in 2011. The fact that HKUST jumped above HKU in one of the rankings this year (the QS) has caused a lot of comment: in fact QS themselves said that this was largely explicable by a change in methodology, where an adjustment was made for the presence or absence of a medical school because having a medical school was deemed to give an unfair advantage via an effect on citations and other prestige indicators. Accordingly, HKU dropped by 2 places and CUHK by 5 places (it is noteworthy that Yale also dropped by 5 places), with HKUST rising by 12 places: sudden changes like this in rankings usually reflect methodological changes because reputations don’t usually change overnight. It is worth noting that in the other major league table, the Times Higher, between 2014 and 2015, HKU actually did the best of the three local universities, dropping by 1 place compared to a drop of 8 places for HKUST and 9 places for CUHK.

The New York Times has published an interesting set of graphics depicting China’s foreign investment worldwide. With the massive investments, China is remaking the rule-based world order that the US is most interested in protecting. The accompanying article by the Times is worth a read to see first hand what Chinese investment means for various countries. What is missing in the article is any mention of China’s influence on education in these various countries.

Radio Free Asia reports the salaries for Lao’s 150,000 civil servants will remain unchanged for next year. With the rising cost of living, stagnate wages cannot provide the same quality of life year after year.

“Three meals per day cost 50,000 kip (U.S. $6.14) each, so in total they cost 1.5 million kip (U.S. $184) per month, not including other expenses, while my salary is only 1.2 million kip (U.S. $147),” he said.

As an example of the rising cost of living, he said a bowl of noodle soup now costs 25,000 kip (U.S. $3) compared to 20,000 kip (U.S. $2.45) last year.

This makes civil servants’ lives more difficult because their current salaries are not enough to meet their daily expenses, he said.

“To resolve the money problems, I need to earn additional income by raising ducks and chickens in the house and growing vegetables for family consumption,” the government worker said.

Some civil servants must borrow money from individuals and pay 10-percent interest to make ends meet, he said.