Comparison education system, concepts and so on between Sweden and Cambodia

Comparison education system, concepts and so on between Sweden and Cambodia

TOPIC:

Through close examination of this class material, critically evaluate the ideas, concepts, values, policies, 

and practices that shape access to, and outcomes of education in Sweden and Cambodia.

KLAHAN

Education could effect on country’s development by its outcomes that refer to human resources in general. Through every country’s educational policies, systems, concepts and practices. For example, in Korea, the Korean government focus on expanding amount of study first. After increasing it, they have got high ranking of PISA (Programme for International Students Assessment) from OECD. For example, in particular subject, English, many Koreans usually get high score mark from international English test such as TOEIC and TOEFL. But, hilariously, almost of them couldn’t speak English even though they got high score mark and know a lot of vocabularies. And, the other example of science and mathematics. There are a lot of skillful people in these area in Korea. But, there are no winner of Nobel prize. All of these happening is occurred by the wrong concept of Education. Currently, Korean government try to increase quality of education by benchmarking concepts and policies from the other country. 

There are a lot of differences between Korea and Sweden. Sweden was a pioneer in educational sector by advanced education system. And the government focuses on the improving creativity of students as a strong concept in their educational system. As we can see, it makes this country to get the fame as a nation of Nobel prize. Sweden has lots of winner of Nobel by inventions such as clock, dynamite, GSM (Global System for Mobile communications), and so on (Park, n.d.). Through the educational concepts towards students’ creativity, this country could lead the students to be a creative people. And those people could serve their country and bring economic and scientific developments as a pioneer in the world. 

      Sweden’s school system and concepts pursuit life-long learning policy. It has been formed by 8 structures. There are Preschool, Preschool class, Compulsory school, Upper secondary school, Adult education, Folk high schools, Higher vocational education and Universities and University colleges (Wikstrom, 2006). Sweden government implemented free education policy up to compulsory school. They provide all thing for schooling even notes and pens. And, Swedish people has a special and unique concept of teacher. It is that all teacher must teach students to be independent, critical, and creative. This concept is really different with the other countries. I would like evaluate this is the most advanced point for students in this education systems and concepts. Sweden teachers never focus on about the score mark. They just give only three kinds of score marks (Pass, Pass with distinction, Pass with special distinction) (“Sweden Education Policy”, 2015). Education is a public priority in Sweden (“Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Results from PISA 2015,” 2015). Sweden usually held on the high rank of PISA. However, nowadays, the trend of PISA rank is going down in all core subjects (reading, math, science). But, exactly, it is still high and competitive. For instance, many countries benchmarked Swedish education system such as Japan and Korea. 

However, there are also serious problem in this advanced education system. These are low result of language, mathematics, and science (decrease of PISA rank), huge gap of school preference, and students’ uninteresting for studying (Lindskog, 2011). To solve those problems, Sweden government is striving.

      In sequence, currently, Cambodia is rapidly developing in educational fields after overcoming the pain and tragedy of wars. In this period, government of Porpot destroyed about 90 percentages of teachers and schools (Park, 2015). After this period, in 1980s, government tried hard to develop and reorganize of education system and social infra structure. By this effort, government achieved some social-economic development and expansion of educational opportunity. But, it was hard to achieve highly by an insufficiency of human resources because of wars (Park, 2015). Currently, Cambodian government recognized the seriousness and importance of human resources for development of country. To achieve country’s development and to cultivate talented human resources, they set the missions. It is that developing and managing education, youth and sports. MoYES set the goal to develop student in entire parts (Patriotism, Morality, Responsibility for the Nation). They are implementing 2014-2018 Education strategic plan (MoEYS 2014a). The main purposes of this plan are 1) Serve the opportunity of Education, 2) Improvement of quality of education, 3) Enhancing the leadership and effectiveness of management in education field. From 2013 until 2015, Cambodia has pretty successful improvement about above purposes. There are increase of literacy, number of qualified teachers, budget for education, and so on. In 2014, There was about 6,000 million dollars of ODA (Official Development Assistance) from many countries in Educational sector only. Through this assistances and attentions, Cambodia’s education could be rapidly improving.

      Cambodian school system was formed by 5 structures (Pre-school, Primary, Lower secondary, Upper secondary, Higher education) (Khieng, Srinivasa, & Chhem, 2015). Cambodia government provide free schooling until grade 9 (Lower secondary school) and after finish this step, government do the test. And, government give certification for upper secondary schooling to people who pass the grade 9 national exam only. After that, they could keep study upper secondary and then, to get the high school certification, students must take the grade 12 national exam. However, in real situation, there is a huge problem that is low school attendance rate and graduation rate for low and upper secondary school. This is the most serious problem that Cambodia government solve.

In conclusion, there should be some problems in each situation even though country is developed or has advanced education system and concept. Thus, government and people should try hard to solve that problems and improve education system to fit for their own cultures and recognitions. However, I could think that Cambodia has more problems that Sweden in basic part such as school attendance rate and equality of education. Any country even developed should benchmark and practice and exchange their system, concept, policies and real data for improving towards ideal. In addition, as you read above part, “Life-long Learning”, Sweden’s education policy, shows the highest school attendance rate over the all ages. This is not only superiority of number. It means Sweden is one step ahead from the other countries.

References

Education in Cambodia (2017). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Cambodia

Education in Sweden. (2015, May 11). Retrieved December 27, 2017, from Sweden Sverige, https://sweden.se/society/education-in-sweden/

Khieng, S., Srinivasa, M., & Chhem, R. (2015). Cambodia Education 2015 Employment and Empowerment

Lindskog, I. (2011). Innovation and creativity in Swedish compulsory school.

Park, D. Global 해외에서 보낸 편지. Retrieved January 3, 2017, from Webzine:Kookmin university, https://webzine.kookmin.ac.kr/global.php?syear=2011&svolume=5&sMod=1

Park, H. (2015). 캄보디아와의 교육분야 개발협력 방안 연구: 교육기회 확대를 중심으로. 한국교육개발원.

PISA For Development Capacity Building Plan: Cambodia. (2016). . OECD.

Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) Results from PISA 2015. (2015). . OECD.

Sweden education policy. (2015, May 28). Retrieved December 28, 2016, from Korean Embassy in Sweden, http://swe.mofat.go.kr/webmodule/htsboard/template/read/hbdlegationread.jsp?typeID=15&boardid=2586&seqno=1144917&c=&t=&pagenum=1&tableName=TYPE_LEGATION&pc=&dc=&wc=&lu=&vu=&iu=&du

Wikstrom, C. (2006). Education and assessment in Sweden. Assessment in Education: Principles, Policy & Practice, 13(1), 113–128.