6 Community �artici�ation in
VILLAGE NETWORK
7.1 Summary of findings
Historian David Chandler, writing after the military clashes in Phnom Penh of July 1997, saw little reason for optimism about the future of Cambodia (1998a). Less than ten years later, Cambodia has been described as being at a ‘crossroad’ (World Bank 2004), with room for some optimism. The country is experiencing relative politi-cal stability and has embraced a market economy. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the Cambodian government has started institutional reforms and has adopted de-centralisation as one of its main strategies. Several studies presented in this thesis have revealed the substantial contribution by families and communities in the re-construction of schools and educational facilities during the 1980s and 1990s, to such an extent that Cambodia is considered a special case in Southeast Asia (Bray 1996, Bray 1999, Duggan 1996, Ayres 2000, Bray and Bunly 2005). The decentralisation of education has the potential to provide citizens with spaces of participation that could extend beyond the education sector and merge with other parts of social life. The state, while retaining some core functions in the administration of education, has an additional function as facilitator for the creation of democratic spaces of participa-tion. The case of Cambodia is interesting because, while the decentralisation reforms bring with them the idea of people participation in decision-making processes, Cam-bodian culture and social relationships are modelled on the hierarchical order of the past (Ovensen et al. 1996, Ayres 2000, Blunt and Turner 2005). The findings of this study are presented in the sections below.
7.1.1 Decentralisation of education
One of the three key questions of this study concerns the characteristics of the decen-tralisation reforms in Cambodia and in particular, in the education sector. Chapter Four described the characteristics of the political decentralisation that began with the election of Commune Councils in February 2002 by adopting Rondinelli et al’s (1983) definition presented in section 2.2. The Chapter also described the two main decentralisation programmes in the education sector. The first is the Clusters School approach which started in 1992 with the aim of sharing scarce resources by a small group of schools. The second is the PAP which started in 2002 and aims at improving planning and resource allocation to individual schools. In both cases, the main ratio-nale is to improve the allocation of scarce resources, while community participation is emphasised in terms of the financial and material contributions that communities can provide (as they have done before) to schools. Additional conclusions in terms of the spaces of participation available to community members are the following:
• The different decentralisations currently underway in Cambodia are character-istic of the ‘piecemeal approach’ described by Turner (2002). Though Commune
Conclusions 153
Councils have been elected ten years after the beginning of the Cluster School policy, the legislative process that preceded their election did not lead to the adop-tion of an Organic Law that would coordinate different approaches and reduce the fragmentation in the spaces of participation.
• The Cluster School approach and PAP are both national policies which use differ-ent funding mechanisms. In the case of clusters budget are prepared in the core school with the participation of community representatives; in the case of PAP, budgets are allocated to individual schools and bypass the cluster system. While PAP seems to be the policy that the government will pursue in the future, it is ar-gued here that it also misses the opportunities for strengthening social cohesion and trust through networking and exchange inbuilt in the cluster approach.
• Although Cluster Schools remain a national policy, one of the main weaknesses of the approach is that that the government lacks the human and financial resources to support its implementation and expansion. Therefore, as the evidence shows, clusters have been active mainly with external support from donors or projects.
• The reform in the education sector has so far been consistent with the principles of deconcentration where, as in Manor’s (1999) definition, responsibilities are dis-persed from higher level of government to lower level agencies while the govern-ment retains political authority and control. In other words, the reform has so far failed to realise a greater delegation of decision making and financial autonomy implicit in democratic decentralisation. The result is a limited promotion of com-munity participation in school based management and local governance.
As noted by Manor (1999), decentralisation alone is not ‘the’ solution to development problems, but rather ‘a’ solution. Therefore, if the objective of decentralisation is to promote democratic participation, it is important to understand which are the norms and values that characterise communities. One key conclusion of this thesis is that the promotion of participation in education through the creation of ‘institutional spaces’ of participation has not been successful because committees and councils designed by the reform have failed to gain a sufficient legitimacy at village and com-munity level.
7.1.2 T��e meaning of ‘community’
One pre-condition for the promotion of community participation in education, as shown in Chapter Two (see Govinda 1997, Manor 1999), is to take into account tradi-tional forms of social capital and define spaces where these can actively link with lo-cal institutions and contribute to improve the governance of public services. This has been the basis for the second key question of the study: the meaning of ‘community’
in the cultural and social context of Cambodia.
Rural areas in Cambodia have traditionally been separated from the centre by an economic, social and cultural gap. Political decision making processes in Cambodia are traditionally determined by the interests of the ruling elite and have therefore overshadowed opportunities for active participation. Nevertheless there are also clear signs of long-standing social capital associated with traditional associations in rural areas supporting schools as shown in this study. Therefore, the claim that Cambo-dian civil society is limited to NGOs, trade unions, etc. is misleading and perpetuates the idea that traditional associations lack the legitimacy to contribute to institutional change. The data presented in this study confirms that traditional associations under the umbrella of the pagoda were among the first institutions to re-activate after the end of the Khmer Rouge period, or as soon as the political situation allowed them to restart their community activities. In the case of School Associations described in this thesis, they represent ‘transient spaces’ of participation with their strengths in the high value attributed to education and the commitment to support schools.
Three social capital dimensions have been used to analyze them: bonding and bridg-ing social capital for the characteristics of the associations and institutional social capital for the link with schools and local government bodies:
•
Bonding social capital: the solidarity that underlines extended family networks and the importance attributed to Buddhism define the character and the activities of the traditional associations. Furthermore, leadership together with trust for re-spected community members such as achars and, in some case monks, is the driv-ing force behind community mobilization which results in the establishment of associations and ad hoc committees involved in specific community-based activi-ties. The capacity of these leaders in mobilizing local contributions and their link with religious norms support the process. Their authority is rarely questioned and they tend to keep their position for a long time. This accords with Aschmoneit et al’s (1996) conclusion that associations are managed by a benevolent elite through a paternalistic rather than empowering way since decision-making usually in-volves the close circle of elderly and committee members. Associations’ members, on the other hand, usually do not demand a greater involvement. The associated risk is a lower perception of the importance of transparency and accountability by committees’ members and limited general improvement of knowledge and skills in terms of participation and management. Additional limitations of this leader-ship style are that the increased capacity and skills of the committee members are not transferred downwards to members so that villagers continue to rely on decisions taken by others. In line with the conclusions by Aschmoneit et al. (1996) and O’Leary and Meas Nee (2001), the data presented in this study demonstrates that the internal organisation and management of the School Associations follows the values attributed to age, gender, knowledge, reputation, and religious piety.Association’s members have a close connection with their groups, suggesting the strength of bonding social capital is based on solidarity, respect for leadership, and trust.
Conclusions 155
•
Bridging social capital: the links between school associations and other tradi-tional community-based groups involved in social development are weak, sug-gesting a fragmentation of civil society at the local level. While pagodas repre-sent the centres of communal life and the spaces where groups and traditional leaders meet, the cooperation and exchange between them is limited. The School Associations explored in this thesis are characterised by the volunteerism that defines civil society especially in its beginning, but show a limited perception of the importance of networking for influencing policy decisions and assisting de-centralized authorities and service providers. In addition, low income levels limit the involvement of younger individuals already busy with work in the field and securing the livelihoods of their families.7.1.3 Community �artici�ation in sc��ools
The third key research question referred to the characteristics of community par-ticipation in schools. The concept of institutional social capital has been used as the conceptual backdrop to this question:
•
Institutional social capital: the conclusion derived from the present analysis is that the link between associations and schools is weak in the sense that the dia-logue is limited to the topic of financial and material contributions to support school improvement and/or children that are at risk of dropping out from school.This weak link is partly due to mistrust and tension related to the degree of trans-parency in the use of funds provided by the community. An additional element is parents’ reluctance to become involved in their children’s education which results in a low interaction with teachers. The links between School Associations and government institutions (e.g. Commune Councils) seem to be even weaker and, if they exist at all, are limited to reporting of associations’ activities. The reasons are that line agencies at provincial and district level responsible for education are under pressure to follow national guidelines and bound to upward accountability;
at the same time, a feeling of mistrust towards public institutions limits the asso-ciations’ willingness to start a more fruitful dialogue with schools. As some of the examples presented in this thesis demonstrate, there are examples of community involvement in education that go beyond material support. A promising space, in this respect, is represented by the elected Commune Councils, which through annual planning exercises and monthly meetings could provide opportunities for greater exchange and bring issues related to schooling and education within the general local governance environment.
To summarize, trust and religious norms characterize the bonding, and to some extent the bridging social capital, while vertical links with schools and institutions are still weak. An equitable and sustainable development process needs a balanced combination of all social capital dimensions. Strong horizontal links based on trust
are important and necessary as they have the potential to mobilise resources and organise collective action. They are however not sufficient. There is also the need to strengthen the vertical relationship between civil society groups and government institutions, which, in the case of Cambodia, is closely linked to rebuilding citizens’
trust in the state and recognizing, as remarked by Gyallay-Pap (2004), that these associations represent “indigenous forms of social capital that are not only a part of Cambodian civil society, but perhaps its largest and most solid part” (p. 36). The cases presented in this study suggest that, at the local level, the potential is present.