Universities Fail at Critical Thinking: Student Advocate

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh
Thursday, 15 July 2010

via Khmer NZ

Photo: AP
Cambodian students making their way out of school in Phnom Penh.

“The quality of education in these skills is still very limited.”

Cambodia’s higher education system has failed to address a lack of critical-thinking and problem-solving curricula among university students, a youth advocate told “Hello VOA” on Monday.

Instead, says Cheang Sokha, head of the Youth Resource Development Program, “student-centered” approaches exist on paper only within higher education.

“The quality of education in these skills is still very limited,” Cheang Sokha said.

“If we want to see a society’s fate, we look at how young people’s education is invested in,” he said. “Now look at the way our current education system invests in young people. How can we hope that our society will have a good fate?”

The Youth Resource Development Program hopes to improve that, he said, and has trained around 2,000 university students since 1999 to make them better thinkers and more attractive in the job market.

“Employers put more value on people with high critical-thinking and analytical problem-solving skills,” he said.

More than that, said one caller, Sun Thun, the education system has also failed to instill the proper sense of patriotism, democracy and respect for human rights.