Book Censorship

There are many kinds of book nowadays. Millions of books have been publishing from the past until now and millions of them keep publishing in the future. There are certain kinds of book that are censored and banned in different areas.  In my opinion, there are good reasons to censor and ban books in good way.  I really agree with the idea that in some cases censorship is necessary for certain kinds of book.  

Book is the first mass medium, and book also part of culture as well. It has been producing massive influences on public from time to time. It has been playing a major role in shaping social perspective and social act. Book contains both positive and negative impacts on society. Among all kinds of book, there are many kinds of book contain something that should not be seen by public such as violence, sexual explicit, offensive languages, racist, opposite ideology and so on.  Those kinds of book really attract public attention, but they also produce negative impacts on the public. When people read all those kinds of book, they tense to think or practice what is in the book, as it has taught them by its contents.

            There are people who are entrusted to censor and ban the kind of book that should not be seen by public.  They are “Authority and the Publisher”, they play a major role in managing all kinds of book publishing. They have right to decide on which kind of book to public and which kind of book not to publish. They need to limit those banned contents of the book or limit publication to access it. They can limit the public user by age or in some areas like in educational institution etc. Moreover, Parents and teacher also can censor the book that they do not want their children or students to read on traditional purpose or academic purpose etc.

If I happen to own a bookstore, I will not sell every kind of book in my store. I will not put the kind of book that contain what is banned in my society. Moreover, I also will not put the book that I believe it will affect audiences in bad way. Even those kinds of book really attract audiences’ attention and we as the publishers can earn a lot of money from it, but those kinds of book really against social and cultural morality and they can bring negative impacts of society as well. I strongly believe book can bring both positive and negative impact to society, so we should publish only kinds of book that do not against social and cultural morality.

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Reflection on War Dance

Overall, I really like this documentary. The story is amazing. Although this documentary is a bit too long, the director has done a beautiful narrative story, which was based on true event, happened in Uganda at the time when the country was confronting with rebellion and civil war.

The film portraits horrified stories of three child victims of civil war, and amazingly the director links the story with hope and spirit for the future through music and dance. It makes the story thrill, horrified but at the same time it makes audiences believe and have hope for the future of the three children. 

It also portraits the country’s tradition and culture that play an important role in bonding people together to share hope and belief. The documentary director has done an amazing job portraying Ugandan culture and tradition by embedding music and dance along the whole documentary.

The cinematography is outstanding. This documentary presents a lot of amazing footages of Uganda in both hard time (war) and beautiful time. The cinematography director manages to capture Uganda's war zone, which I don’t know whether it just a reenactment or real time footages. It helps this documentary to look so real and catch audience attention to the documentary. And at the time, this documentary also shows a lot of beautiful footages of countryside, families and individual, which nicely portrait lives of Ugandan people. Last but no least, it also show many beautiful natural landscapes in Uganda as well.

The documentary theme song and music are wonderful and unique. They are really fit to the documentary. I don’t know Ugandan language nor the meaning of the song, but I can feel that the music and songs somehow convey the meaning both in hard time and cheerful mode which were perfectly fit to the situation in the documentary.

The main actors of this documentary also have done an amazing job. The director used the three kids’ live to present the documentary. And those kids were really good at acting in front of the camera. They acts very natural and normal just like what people do in their daily live. Those kids were good at doing narration good. Their tone, their facial expression and emotion were all shown in the documentary, which made this documentary powerful and real.

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The Readiness of Cambodian University to AEC

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) or the regional economic integration will start at the end of 2015. With a single and free flow market, AEC generally provides a huge advantage for a developing country like Cambodia. On the other hand, the competitiveness in free flow of skilled labour and human capital seem to trigger the concern of Cambodian youth toward such issue.

Cambodia education was ranked in around 170th in the world due to budget spending on education sector is very small (just 1.6% of Cambodia's GDP spending on education), According to UNESCO, 2010. 

Sin Rithy, a senior in Royal University of Phnom Penh, express his concern toward the employment competitiveness when AEC is introduced, as a sign of Cambodia education sickness that need to be cured as soon as possible.

“Our education level has to meet the standard that can be recognized by other countries. Even Cambodia has included 4 universities into ASEAN university network, I still think those ASEAN developed countries like Singapore and Malaysia still don’t value our education system”, he continued.

There were considerable progress that has been made in Higher Education between 2009 and 2013 with student enrollments increasing to 207,000 and students receiving scholarships to 4,200, stated in Ministry of Education website. And to ensure the quality of university students’ enrollment, in 2014, the first national grade-12-examination reform was implemented, among 90,000 candidates, less than 50% passed and proceeded their higher education in university.

Cambodian government has taken progress in developing higher education and education in Cambodia as a whole. Released in April 2014, the Higher Education Vision 2030 agenda aims to create a more equitable and accessible higher education program, develop a better curriculum that meets national and labor market needs, improve teaching, learning and research quality, and establish a governance system for higher education.

Meanwhile, Ministry of Education Youth and Sport has been doing its job by setting up development strategies to ensure that all universities have to meet the standard of higher education.

Quoting from the interview with Mr. Ros Salin, spokesman of Ministry of Education, by Phnom Penh Post on July 31, 2015, “This year, we selected 11 universities for a pilot project. We went to the universities first to get information to test the criteria. We look at quality, student standards, achievement, management, curriculum, teaching, research activities and libraries.”

He continues, “From January 2016, we will start our assessments on the 73 criteria. We have a certain standard in each of our criteria that all the universities must meet. They have six months to develop on the criteria to be ready for the assessment next year.”

Strengthening university agenda alone cannot ensure the development quality of higher education. There are a lot that have to be tackled and improved.

In Cambodia Education 2015 Review by Dr. Sothy, Head of Education Research Unit at Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI), there are four suggested policies to develop higher education in Cambodia.  One of those is Improving Access and Equity, the accessible education service has to be widely reached through out the whole country. 

Secondly, Improving Quality and Relevance, developing educator ability is the main priority and at the same time focus on the areas that are needed in today’s demand. As suggested, building science and technology education is very important to respond to market demands and ASEAN integration.

Financing Higher Education is also one of the top priorities, government must invest in higher education development especially in building facilities as libraries and laboratories at public high education institutions. Developing incentive and remuneration program for encouraging management and lecturing staff is also a priority. Last but no least, strengthening the governance and management in higher education is also one of the suggested policies.

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