Cambodia and Vietnam development since the 1970s

by **AE86** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:30 pm

It happens in all fields honestly, the more educated many people are, the dumber they become.

i.e. One new high "qualified" tech came to work for us and the first day a customer asked him for some service/part (can't remember which) and specified his car was a "Twin Cam model" the tech looked back at him and asked "Twin what?"

I thought he was joking, but it turns out he had no clue on what a camshaft was.

by **Hanno** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:29 pm

Ah, but then Khmer business owners don't pay taxes or garbage disposal, milk the staff and get the utilities for free. It all makes sense.

by **ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:25 pm

Playboy wrote:
Hanno wrote:
ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.
Some of the MBA degrees I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.....
Several years ago I inherited a Sales Manager in a new job I had started, early 30s, experienced and a local MBA as well.

Over the course of the first month of him working for me I had to explain to difference between Revenue and Profit to him half a dozen times, he just could not understand what I was talking about.

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I was at a meeting about 6 months back with several members of two different government ministries and they kept using the Khmer words for income and profit interchangeably. I interrupted twice for clarification to ask which one they were referring to. Blank looks all round.
One plank (the guy with good English) helpfully translated for me, with a condescending smile, thinking I couldn't understand - 'this word is profit and this word is income - both mean same'.
This was a meeting of senior folk, many of them 3rd level educated.
I never went back to any more meetings.

by **Playboy** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:58 am

Hanno wrote:
ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.
Some of the MBA degrees I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.....

Several years ago I inherited a Sales Manager in a new job I had started, early 30s, experienced and a local MBA as well.

Over the course of the first month of him working for me I had to explain to difference between Revenue and Profit to him half a dozen times, he just could not understand what I was talking about.

Sent from my SM-G928C using Tapatalk

by **ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:52 am

YaTingPom wrote:
Hanno wrote:
ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.
Some of the MBA degrees I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.....
I agree about some of the courses here but not having any further education myself (left Skool at 15yo) I can't really comment. However although some courses are questionable it at least gets brains working.
There's more overseas universities opening up in Cambodia so hopefully it'll make a difference.

My wife is in her third year of a banking and finance management BA and whilst she seems to enjoy the curriculum her friends don't - they just like the social aide of things. In fact I asked her why she seems to do all the work and she replied that's because her friends don't understand. When pushed about what happens exam time she just said they'd fail and do another year.

Things are changing with regards to attitudes towards education here but very slowly. The only reason my wife started her course was because of her grandma who encouraged her to start (and financed it before popped up), she lost 10 kids to the KR, as she is still from that era before the genocide.

My wife wants to do an MA. Fine by me!

I'd ask the question, 'why?'
After the course what will she do? I know one girl almost finished a similar degree with Vanda and she knows little about accountancy, bookkeeping or financial reporting.
Many of these courses are complete fluff and do not prepare students well for future work.
You wouldn't believe a some of the things which happen in the classroom. Significant marks are given for attendance, coursework (like translating a chapter of a textbook to Khmer), and doing presentations (copied from online). So if you attend and participate you will pass. Also much of he syllabus is created by the teacher and is his/her opinion. Even if the teacher is wrong, the student needs to follow his opinion during the exam time. Creative thought is not encouraged - just repeat parrot fashion the random facts and you'll be grand.
Cheating is still pandemic.
RUPP has a partnership with the Korean embassy which allows x number of Korean students to enrol and study with them. Most of these Korean student speak very limited Khmer - very, very basic. But pass the degree course. Go figure.
Generally speaking, university degrees here are an exercise in ego and not in academia.

by **YaTingPom** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:08 am

Hanno wrote:
ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.
Some of the MBA degrees I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.....

I agree about some of the courses here but not having any further education myself (left Skool at 15yo) I can't really comment. However although some courses are questionable it at least gets brains working.
There's more overseas universities opening up in Cambodia so hopefully it'll make a difference.

My wife is in her third year of a banking and finance management BA and whilst she seems to enjoy the curriculum her friends don't - they just like the social aide of things. In fact I asked her why she seems to do all the work and she replied that's because her friends don't understand. When pushed about what happens exam time she just said they'd fail and do another year.

Things are changing with regards to attitudes towards education here but very slowly. The only reason my wife started her course was because of her grandma who encouraged her to start (and financed it before popped up), she lost 10 kids to the KR, as she is still from that era before the genocide.

My wife wants to do an MA. Fine by me!

by **Hanno** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:40 am

Lucky Lucan wrote:
vladimir wrote:I read somewhere that Vietnam increased the % of homes with reliable electricity from 50% to 90% in just ten years, an amazing achievement.
I heard they sent their biggest electricity consumers out on flimsy sampans to flounder and drown in the South China Sea first? Nobody ever dared to complain about unreliable electricity supplies since.

Even in 1995 I was surprised how every shack had electricity. A far cry from Kenya at the time, where electricity was only available in some places (and even in those places, multi-day power cuts were the norm).

by **Hanno** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 10:36 am

ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ wrote:Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.

Some of the MBA degrees I have seen are not worth the paper they are written on.....

by **ផោមក្លិនស្អុយ** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 9:46 am

Lucky Lucan wrote:
merchantsmutual wrote:From talking to a lot of young university educated Cambodians, their situation reminds me a bit of the U.S. where you can get the degrees and be very smart but the opportunities may not be there yet. You still see people with engineering or quant degrees sitting on the sidelines, so to speak, just like in the U.S. where very good people go to waste. I am not sure what can or will be done.
That was one of the big issues Sihanouk's regime faced in the 1960s. They vastly expanded the education system and trained huge numbers of students for jobs that didn't exist. This is still a major issue.

The west has an issue of graduates who are educated but don't know how to apply their skills into a work environment.
Cambodia has the issue of graduates who aren't educated (but think they are by virtue of having a certificate) who have no idea how to apply their skills into a work environment.
I prefer to employ smart non graduates who are a lot more humble and much easier to train. University graduates (generally) in Cambodia think they deserve a big salary and are reluctant to receive advice and training.

by **spitthedog** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 8:27 am

Hey, what do you think Cambodia would look like today if the Khmer Rouge's agrarian utopia really gained traction and took off then? Like, just without the murdering, genocide, hate people with glasses completely bonkers stuff.

Agriculture wise Cambodia looks like a dust bowl compared to Vietnam.

by **vladimir** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 6:46 am

I wonder what the stats are for Cambodia? There are a few areas of Phnom Penh that still experience frequent outages. Siem Reap, Sinville, it's worse.

by **Lucky Lucan** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 12:18 am

vladimir wrote:I read somewhere that Vietnam increased the % of homes with reliable electricity from 50% to 90% in just ten years, an amazing achievement.

I heard they sent their biggest electricity consumers out on flimsy sampans to flounder and drown in the South China Sea first? Nobody ever dared to complain about unreliable electricity supplies since.

by **vladimir** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 11:02 pm

I read somewhere that Vietnam increased the % of homes with reliable electricity from 50% to 90% in just ten years, an amazing achievement.

by **AE86** » Sun Jun 11, 2017 10:25 pm

In my view, the "education" system (any western based system, meaning the Prussian education model) has become extremely bloated with people who think getting a degree makes you smart, in the same way that joining a basketball team makes you tall.

Way too many people going to school for money and not for the love of the field they're studying. Look at here, business to science enrollment in uni here I'll bet is thousands to one.

I suppose it's no suprise that the happiest most successful people I know are uneducated and "stupid".