Students' perspective on freedom of critical inquiry in Cambodia

Abstract

Macfarlane & Ottewill stated “protecting student academic freedom is a pre-requisite for empowering learners to become critical about knowledge claims” (2008). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ Article 19, Cambodia Constitution’s Article 66, and 2007 Cambodia Law on Education’s Articles 18 and 35 guarantee academic freedom. However, there are few to no studies about Cambodian students’ freedom of critical inquiry. To bridge that gap, this study’s main purpose was to examine the development of Cambodian students’ freedom of critical inquiry.

This study employed both in-person interviews and phone interviews with 28 students from three different public universities in Cambodia. In-person interviews were used with 17 students and phone interviews were used with the other 11 students.

The findings of the study indicated that students’ freedom of critical inquiry in Cambodia is very limited to the extent that students resort to self-censorship while the majority of them seek alternatives to fulfill their curiosity by discussing with their trusted classmates. The universities and lecturers fail to provide students with a protective and supportive learning environment to encourage critical inquiry.

This study suggests certain recommendations to the universities and lecturers, based on the findings.