Make comparisons of what you have learned such as university governance, leadership and presidency, academic organization, administrative and professional functions, and budgets and budgeting systems in higher education with the actual practices of high..

QUESTION :

Make comparisons of what you have learned such as university governance, leadership and presidency, academic organization, administrativeand professional functions, and budgets and budgeting systems in higher education with the actual practices of higher education in Cambodia and then make recommendations of a possible solution to deal with the identified issues.

 

ANSWER :

             Higher education, theoretically, exists as an organization to expand people’s knowledge and skills, to show their thoughts clearly in speech and writing, to grab their ideal concepts and theories, and to improve their understanding of what they are interested in (Allen, 2007). Alvin Toffler, a futurologist, said that “In 21^st century, knowledge is the strongest power and, educational renovation will control everything.” Similarly, during last decades, there were lots of demands of higher education (Oppedisano, 2010). Those demands led to the quantitative expansion and development of higher education. It led to create new universities and new types of institutions (poly-techniques).

On the other hand, current universities are considering how to achieve qualitative development in contrast with the time that universities focused on quantitative development and expansion. Nowadays, there are fewer applicants than universities’ requirement. Except for some universities has fame, universities and institution in higher education are on the brink of disappearing now. Thus, higher education management is being highlighted as a critical factor of solutions.

GOVERNANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

             Governance in higher education is a social governance system in which stakeholders determine and implement policies through discussion and consultation as an independent part (“Governance in higher education,” 2016). There are some tasks of governance which are as follows (Balderston, 1995).

1)     To develop policy

2)     Financial support & control

3)     Human resource management

4)     Assessment

            To do those above things well, university governance must be autonomous (Lee, 2013). Except for the educational principles that is governing the entire education system, government must respect governance’s autonomy and diverse of university. Governance should do the management that adapts the needs of community, parents, and students rather than order from government to be a good university.

             In Cambodia context, governance hasn’t been doing its responsibilities well now because of lack of autonomy from government. Cambodia government is still the most powerful stakeholder in governance of higher education. In this administration system, it could mean that governance is just working thoughtlessly for government and just follow government’s policies and works without any management.

             Thus, to become a good governance, government must give enough autonomy to the governance. After that, governance could deeply think and consider about their policies themselves for making and implementing suitable policies on themselves. It means it can work as a policy maker. After that, governance could achieve expansion of attendance, sharing information, and deduction of conflicts.

 

LEADERSHIP IN UNIVERSITY

Leadership in a university is different with normal leadership as the ability “to enable the success of other people; inspiring others, being a role model, being self-aware and self-reflective as well as being decisive, visionary, planning ahead and handling the finances.

Leadership in a university is partly based on formal authority (Balderston, 1995). It is also kind of requirements of policy decision maker in a university. It is in charge of leading university well-enough. In the functions of university leadership, it makes to shorten the length of determine policies, to set the priority, to select supervisors, and bring strategic management and changes. In addition, higher education leaders need a combination of leadership and managements in order to deal with the challenges faced in any sector of university.

In context of RUPP, all members of university are working with this leadership. They do their responsibilities well such as a role of teacher, manager, administrator, consultant, assistant, policy maker and so on. Teachers are qualified and teaching students with passion. Administrator and policy makers are doing what they are in charge of like using budgets, exchanging and benchmarking educational system with the other developed countries, and making policies for students and university.

             In conclusion, in the higher education management, university’s ability of administration is becoming essential things because of rapid change of environment. The standard work of department of administration is supporting education field but, now it is going to change into the preparing university’s future plan and evaluate those things. To solve the difficulties and problems of university, university must enhance the leadership, concentrate on increase of qualities, improve transparency of budget (Watson, 2000).

 

 

References

             Allen, H. (2007, December 21). Why is Higher Education Important? Retrieved from Crosswalk, http://www.crosswalk.com/family/homeschool/why-is-higher-education-important-1367463.html

           Balderston, F. E. (1995). Managing Today’s University (Second Edition ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

           Black, S. A. (2015). Qualities of Effective Leadership in Higher Education. Open Journal of Leadership, 4, 54–66.

           Governance in higher education (2016). . In Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance_in_higher_education

           Lee, K. (2013, January 10). 거버넌스란 무엇인가? Retrieved January 24, 2017, from 이경호의 진로진학 & 교육행정, http://blog.naver.com/PostView.nhn?blogId=nlboman&logNo=175443547

             Watson, D. (2000). Managing Universities and Colleges: Guides to Good Practice. Open University Press, Philadelphia.