researchreport-university students’ awareness and perception of foreign aids to cambodia

Students’ Awareness and Perception 1

University Students’ Awareness and Perception of Foreign Aids to Cambodia

Ky Sereyvuth Lee Sebin

Mean Vysonita Morm Kulkitya Sim Lyheang

Department of International Studies

IS303 Introduction to Research

Lecturer: Theam Sokvibol

January 26, 2014


Abstract Foreign aid is an important issue in both developed and developing countries. The aim of this

study is to assess the level of awareness and perception of university students on foreign aid

in Cambodia. Self-completion questionnaires were given to university students chosen by

non-random sampling method at the Institution of Foreign Languages (IFL) and Institute of

Technology of Cambodia (ITC) to measure awareness and perception on foreign aid.

Students also answered on their preference of how foreign aid should be spent in the

education sector: whether to improve in quantity education or quality education. Findings

revealed that the level of awareness on foreign aid of Year 4 (senior) students was higher

compared to that of Year 1 (freshmen) students in both universities. Also, the level of

awareness on foreign aid of IFL students majoring in International Studies was higher than

that of ITC students majoring in Engineering. Students’ perceptions varied, as IFL and ITC

students had similar responses on some questions but different on others. Students from both

institutions had similar opinion on the amount of foreign aid spent on quantity education and

quality education. Our findings suggest that the level of awareness on foreign aid is generally

high and that education is considered as a priority for foreign aid spending.


Contents

Acknowledgement .................................................................... 4 Introduction .............................................................................. 5 Literature Review ..................................................................... 5 Research Questions .................................................................. 7 Methods .................................................................................... 8 Finding ...................................................................................... 9 Discussion ................................................................................ 16 Limitation ................................................................................. 17 Conclusion ................................................................................ 18 References ................................................................................ 19 Appendix 1 ............................................................................... 21


Acknowledgement

We owe a great many thanks to a great many people who helped and supported us during the

process of this research.

Our deepest thank to Lecturer, Theam Sokvibol, for guiding and correcting various

documents and works of us with attention and care. He has taken pain to go through the

project and make necessary correction as and when needed.

We express our thanks to the principal of Institution of Foreign Languages for giving this

subject, Research Methodology (IS303), and extending her support for this course. Without

this support, we would have been studied about the process of conducting a good research

project.

In addition, we would like to thank to our respondents from both Institute Foreign Languages

and Institute of Technology of Cambodia. Without such cooperation and participation from

them, this project would have been possible.


Introduction Having experienced civil war for years, Cambodia is still one of the poorest countries in the

world. In 1993, the first national election was held, followed by $5 billion USD foreign aid

flowing into the country over the next decade (Ear, 2006). However, most of Cambodian

people are not privileged with education, and they often do not realize how foreign aids affect

their everyday lives. Many researches have been conducted on foreign aid in developed

countries. There are quite a number of literatures on foreign aid and public policy, but there

are limited literature on foreign aid and public opinion, and most of it is based on donor

perspectives like in Milner and Tingley did in their research (Milner & Tingley, 2013).

Consequently, this research is going to discuss about university students’ awareness and

perceptions of foreign aids to Cambodia depending on: different majors and education levels,

and their needs from foreign aids. To extend deeper to the following contents, the research’s

main objective is to find out how different majors of Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL)

(more specifically, the Department of International Studies; DIS) and Institute of Technology

of Cambodia (ITC) and education levels, focusing on freshmen (Year 1) and seniors (Year 4

or 5). Students’ awareness and perception and their needs from foreign aid alongside the

second Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which is aiming to promote primary

education around the world, will be addressed.

Literature Review Public awareness and general knowledge of foreign aid in donor countries

In a study by Milner and Tingley (2013) of U.S. public opinion, 68% of respondents knew

the World Bank, whereas only 29% knew of USAID, though respondents with a 4-year

college degree had a higher rate of knowing USAID at 54% (Milner & Tingley, 2013).

Milner and Tingley (2013) did not conclude that Americans were simply ignorant, but

pointed out that further study is necessary in this field. Connolly, Doyle, and Dwyer (2008) in

their study on Irish university student opinions on development issues also asked students

whether they have heard of Irish Aid or not, and 72% of Irish university students responded

no.

In South Korea, Kwon and Park (2012) provide an overview of Korean public surveys on

development aid where almost half of the Korean respondents answered that they were aware

of Korean government’s ODA to developing countries. In the same study, 59% of the Korean


public responded that they have never heard of MDGs (Millennium Development Goals).

Kwon and Park (2012) note “there was a correlation between the level of support and

awareness. Those who know better about MDGs tend to strongly support foreign aid” (Kwon

& Park, 2012, p.66).

Also, Action Aid UK (2007) conducted public polls in the United Kingdom which show that

the general public highly overestimate the percentage of foreign aid given by its government.

The average of all estimates in the poll was 18.55% when the actual figure of foreign aid

given by UK was 1.3% in 2006 (ActionAid UK, 2007).

Positive public perception on foreign aid

In Childfund Australia (2011)’s survey, two-thirds of Australian adults found that foreign aid

was improving the situation of children in developing countries (Childfund Australia,

2011).

When Irish university students were asked whether aid makes a difference to the lives of

people in developing countries, 63% responded that it makes ‘a little bit’ of difference while

24% responded that it makes ‘quite a lot of difference’. Only 5% of respondents answered

that aid does not make any difference to people in developing countries (Connolly, et al,

2008).

In terms of foreign aid support, McDonell, Lecomte, and Wegimont (2003) write that OECD

countries in general strongly support foreign aid. Support for the principle of helping

developing countries ranged from 70% to 95% among OECD countries (McDonell, et al.,

2003). In South Korea, 90% of respondents to public surveys strongly acknowledged the

importance of development aid as a donor country (Kwon & Park, 2012).

Many studies have asked about whether the amount of foreign aid should be increased or

decreased. In the South Korean public survey, over 70% of the respondents answered that

current ODA volume is either adequate or too little, and over 60% of the same respondents

answered that Korea should maintain or expand current ODA volume (Kwon & Park, 2012).

In the UK polls, when asked whether the UK government spends too much, too little, or

about the right amount on foreign aid, 72% of respondents answered that it is about right or

too little, calling on UK to continue its foreign aid assistance (ActionAid UK, 2007).


Foreign aids focus on quality education

While the awareness and perception of university student on foreign aid are being discussed

in this research, the perception of university student on how foreign aids on education sector

should be spent among its subsector is also important for this research.

Traditionally, most donor agencies have prioritized their foreign aid for educational system to

the “Basic Education” and “Quantity of education”. These subsectors of education sector

have been a favorite for those donor agencies since all leaders of 189 countries met at United

Nation Headquarter in New York in September 2000 to endorse the Millennium

Development Goals (MDGs), which the second of the 8 goals is to achieve “Universal

Primary education” by year 2015. According to EFA (2005), more than 30% of foreign aid to

education is focused on “Basic education” and “quantity of education”, while the other part

such as “quality improvement”, “facilities donation” share only small percentage of foreign

aid to improve the overall level or quality of education. A recent study by Birchler and

Michaelowa (2012) reveals the positive correlation between the aid disbursement and

primary education enrolment, but reveals the negative correlation between the aid

disbursement and quality of education at higher level. In his research at 8 sub-Saharan

African countries, such as Mozambique, Kenya, and Malawi, the team has found that less

than 50% of children who spent five years in school were able to read few sentences

(Birchler and Michaelowa, 2012). They concluded that the increase of primary education

enrolment and quantity of education do not correspond with the increase of national reading

score and quality of education.

Research Questions

The main objective of conducting this research is to find out how different majors and

education levels students affect the awareness and perception on foreign aid of Cambodian

university students and if their needs from foreign aid are alongside the second goal of

achieving universal primary education among the 8 Millennium Development Goals

(MDGs).

Research Questions:

1) How do different majors affect university students’ awareness and perception of

foreign aid to Cambodia?


2) How do different levels of education affect university students’ awareness and

perception of foreign aid to Cambodia?

3) Do university students want foreign aid on education sector to be focused more on

“Quantity Education” or “Quality of Education”?

Methods

This study aims to measure the awareness and perception of university students on foreign

aids based on two variables: majors and educational levels, and their needs from foreign aid.

Thus, it is appropriate to use non-experimental, cross-sectional design in this study due to the

short availability of time and resources as well as consistent responses of respondents.

In this study, self-completion questionnaires were utilized as the method of data collection

because it ensures anonymity, speedy collection of data. The questionnaires were divided into

four sections: respondents’ attribute information, their knowledge on foreign aid to Cambodia

to assess awareness, their perception on foreign aid to Cambodia, and their personal opinion

on how foreign aid in education sector should be distributed.

The population of this study undergraduate students of two different universities: students

from the Department of International Studies at Institute of Foreign Languages, Royal

University of Phnom Penh (Year 1 & Year 4) and students from the Institute of Technology

of Cambodia (Year 1 & Year 5). The sample of this study is selected based on year levels and

their majors by using non-random/non-probability sampling design, and quota sampling. Six

classes of Year 1 students (Two classes from Institute of Technology of Cambodia, four

classes from Institute of Foreign Languages), four classes of Year 4 students (from Institute

of Foreign Languages), two classes of Year 5 students (from Institute of Technology of

Cambodia) are selected as sample for conducting this study.

In the data collection process, the team members went to the twelve classes and provided

them the questionnaire. The respondents were asked to complete this questionnaire in about

ten to fifteen minutes. Finally, the team members collected the questionnaires immediately

after the respondents completed it. Once the questionnaires were gathered together, SPSS

was used to analyze the sample.


Findings

High awareness of foreign aid among university students To access awareness of foreign aid, respondents were given a set of nine questions1 that

asked whether they knew aid agencies such as KOICA and JICA, other multilateral donors

such as the OECD and ADB, the amount of foreign aid received by Cambodia, the largest

donor countries to Cambodia, and where the foreign aid is spent.

Foreign aid awareness of IFL students higher than ITC students

(Figure 1: Awareness of foreign aid between IFL and ITC) IFL (Year 1 & 4) ITC (Year 1 & 5) Awareness Don’t

know Quite sure,

Know exactly Don’t know

Quite sure, Know exactly

(1.3) “Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)” is the collection of many donor countries

44 (23.3%)

48 (25.4%)

39 (48.8%)

7 (8.8%)

(1.5) Cambodia has received foreign aid from many agencies including China, KOICA, JICA, ADB, WB

15 (7.9%)

89 (46.8%)

6 (7.4%)

20 (24.7%)

(1.8) Since 2011, China has been the biggest donor country to Cambodia, followed by Japan.

14 (7.4%)

85 (44.8%)

15 (18.5%)

18 (22.2%)

When comparing between majors of study, we divided IFL students and ITC students.

The results show that in eight questions out of nine, IFL students had more percentage of

students who answered that they were quite sure or knew exactly. Notably, 25.4% of IFL

students responded that they were quite sure or knew exactly about OECD as a donor,

whereas only 8.8% of ITC students answered the same way (1.3). Also when asked about

whether or not they knew Cambodia receives foreign aid from KOICA, JICA, ADB, and the

World Bank, only 24.7% of ITC students answered that they knew, whereas 46.8% of IFL

students knew (1.5). Finally, when asked whether they knew about China being the biggest

donor to Cambodia since 2011, 44.8% of IFL students were quite sure or knew exactly about

this fact, whereas only 22.2% of ITC students answered the same way (1.8). This finding

answers our first research question that different majors have different levels of awareness;

especially IFL students have more awareness than ITC students (Figure 1).

1 See Appendix 1.


Awareness on foreign aid of Year 4 students at IFL more than Year 1 students at IFL

(Figure 2: Awareness of foreign aid comparison between IFL Year 1 and IFL Year 4) Year IFL Year 1 IFL Year 4 Awareness Don’t

know Quite sure,

Know exactly

Don’t know


(1.2) JICA is the Japanese aid Agency.

21 (17.8%)

45 (38.1%)

5 (6.9%)

41 (56.1%)


41 (35.0%)

13 (11.1%)

3 (4.2%)

35 (48.6%)


11 (9.3%)

38 (32.2%)

4 (5.6%)

51 (70.9%)


12 (10.2%)

41 (34.8%)

2 (2.8%)

44 (61.2%)

Comparing responses between Year 1 and Year 4 students at IFL, Year 4 students were more

aware of foreign aid than Year 1 students across the board. Notably, 56.1% of Year 4

students answered that they were quite sure or knew exactly that JICA was the Japanese aid

agency, whereas only 38.1% of Year 1 students answered the same (1.2). Also, only 11.1%

percent of Year 1 students were aware of OECD as a multilateral donor, whereas almost half

(48.6%) of Year 4 students answered that they were quite sure or knew exactly (1.3). When

asked about whether or not they knew Cambodia receives foreign aid from KOICA, JICA,

ADB, and the World Bank, 70.9% of Year 4 students, as compared to 32.2% of Year 1

students, said they were quite sure or knew exactly about it (1.5). Finally, when asked

whether they knew about China being the biggest donor to Cambodia since 2011, 61.2% of

Year 4 students were quite sure or knew exactly about this fact, whereas only 34.8% of Year

1 students answered the same way (1.8). These results answer our second research question

that year levels affect students’ awareness on foreign aid in Cambodia. Year 4 students are

more aware of foreign aid in Cambodia than Year 1 students (Figure 2).


Varying results among Year 1 students and Year 5 students at ITC

(Figure 3: Awareness of foreign aid between ITC Year 1 and ITC Year 5) Year ITC Year 1 ITC Year 5 Awareness Don’t

know Quite sure,

know exactly

Don’t know


(1.1) KOICA is the South Korean aid Agency.

13 (33.3%)

3 (7.7%)

17 (42.5%)

7 (17.5%)

(1.6) In 2012, Cambodia has received about US$1.38 billion in aid, which is equal to 9.8% of its total GDP.

13 (32.5%)

4 (10.0%)

20 (48.8%)

1 (2.4%)

Among ITC students, the level of awareness varied across the questions given, although

generally, seven out of nine questions revealed that Year 5 students had proportionately more

students knowing about foreign aid. However, when asked about whether they knew KOICA

was the Korean aid agency, 42.5% of Year 5 students responded that they did not know

compared to 33.3% of Year 1 students (1.1). In other words, there were more Year 5 students

who did not know this compared to Year 1 students. Similarly, when asked about foreign aid

Cambodia received as a percentage to its GDP, 48.8% of Year 5 students answered that they

did not know about this fact compared to only 32.5% of Year 1 students who answered that

they did not know (1.6). Additionally, for the same question asked, only 2.4% of Year 5

students answered that they were quite sure or knew exactly about the information, where as

10.0% of Year 1 students answered the same way (1.6). Contrary to our findings among IFL

students, ITC students showed only a minor difference in awareness between Year 1 and

Year 5 students. These results, combined with the results of the first research question,

suggest that IFL and ITC students have different levels of awareness due to their majors

(Figure 3).

(Figure 4: Awareness between Year 1 & Year 4,5 (both IFL & ITC))

Year Year 1 Year 4,5 Don’t

know Quite sure

Know exactly

Don’t know

Quite sure Know exactly

(1.1) KOICA is the South Korean aid Agency.

82 (52.2%)

17 (10.8%)

41 (36.9 %)

28 (25.2%)



58 (36.9%)

15 (9.5%)

25 (22.5%)

39 (35.1%)


13 (8.2%)

45 (28.5%)

8 (7.1%)

36 (56.2%)

(1.6) In 2012, Cambodia has received about US$1.38 billion in aid, which is equal to 9.8% of its total GDP.

66 (41.8%)

10 (6.3%)

33 (29.5%)

14 (12.5%)


19 (12.0%)

47 (29.8%)

10 (8.9%)

55 (49.2%)

Overall, between Year 1 and Year 4,5 students, the senior year students had higher

percentage of awareness across all 9 questions, showing that year level indeed affects

awareness (Figure 4).

Students’ Perception on Foreign Aid (IFL and ITC):

Respondents were asked eighteen questions in order to access their perception on foreign aid.

Not all of the questions are mentioned here because we only choose questions that have the

most significant information prior to our research questions2.

(Figure 5: Perception on foreign aid by major) Perceptions of Students IFL ITC

Agree Disagree Agree Disagree Foreign aid help to develop poor countries: increase public spending, increase investment, increase jobs, etc. (Perception 1)

174 (91.6%)

13 (6.9%)

69 (86.3%)

11 (13.8%)

Foreign aid reduces recipient countries’ reputation on international arena. (Per. 5)

55 (30%)

88 (46.3%)

36 (45.6%)

25 (31.6%)

Foreign aid may reduce government of poor countries’ incentive to develop their countries because when their countries become developed countries, the amount of foreign aid will be reduce. (Per. 8)

119 (62.5%)

56 (29.5%)

60 (75%)

14 (17.5%)

2 See Appendix 1.


Should government ask for more or to reduce foreign aid to Cambodia?

IFL ITC

Increase 62 (33.2%)

39 (50.6%)

Stay the same 91 (48.7%)

26 (33.8%)

Reduce 34 (18.2%)

12 (15.6%)

Sectors that foreign aid should focus on: IFL ITC Reduce extreme poverty and hunger 3.64 4.57 Education 2.1 1.92 Health 4.11 3.3

*Note: the number on the last table was indicated by average mean from the order of importance ranging from the most important to the least important (1-9). IFL and ITC students’ perception based on different universities:

On the idea that foreign aid help to develop poor countries, most of IFL students agree by

91.6%. Similar to IFL students, ITC students also agree on this perception by 86.3%.

However, if we compare to the idea that foreign aid reduce recipient countries’ reputation, it

is different that IFL students tend to disagree with this perception by 46.3% since 23.7% of

IFL students have no idea on this. ITC students as the whole tend to agree on this perception

by 45.6%, but there is significant notable event between fifth year and first year ITC students.

Fifth year ITC students, on the other hand, tend to disagree on this perception by 42.5% while

first year ITC students agree on this idea by 61.5%. Moreover, more than half of the

respondents tend to agree on the idea that foreign aid may reduce governments of poor

countries’ incentive to develop their countries. To be specific, IFL students and ITC students

agree on this idea by 62.5% and 75% respectively. Last but not least, almost half (48.7%) of

IFL respondents think that government of Cambodia should keep foreign aid to Cambodia at

the same amount while 50.6% of ITC respondents think that foreign aid to Cambodia should

be increased (Figure 5).

Overall, most of the respondents want foreign aid to contribute to education sector rather than

any other sectors following by promoting health care and reducing poverty. According to our

finding, all of the respondents have rated education sector in the order of importance ranging

from the most important to the least important (1-9) at the average mean 2.06, which is the

lowest mean among all the sectors have been listed in the questionnaire. In health sector, on

the other hand, has the second lowest average mean at 3.64 while aid that is used for reducing

poverty and hunger has 4.37 (Figure 5).


(Figure 6: Perception on foreign aid by year level) Foreign aid help to develop poor countries: increase public spending, increase investment, increase jobs, etc. (Perception 1)

DK SA A

Year 1 2 (1.3%)

30 (19.1%)

114 (72.6%)

Year 4, 5 1 (0.9%)

34 (30.4%)

64 (57.1%)

Foreign aid reduces recipient countries’ reputation on international arena. (Perception 5)

DK SA A

Year 1 42 (26.8%)

11 (7%)

47 (29.9%)

Year 4, 5 21 (18.9%)

11 (9.9%)

24 (21.6%)

Foreign aid may reduce government of poor countries’ incentive to develop their countries because when their countries become developed countries, the amount of foreign aid will be reduce. (Perception 8)

DK SA A

Year 1 17 (10.8%)

15 (9.6%)

83 (52.9%)

Year 4, 5 4 (3.6%)

11 (9.8%)

69 (61.6%)

(Figure 7: Perception on foreign aid by year level: Should foreign aid increase?) Aid to Cambodia

Increase Stay the same

Reduce

Year 1 55=35.3% 78=50% 23=14.7% Year 4, 5 46=43% 39=36.4% 22=20.6%

IFL and ITC students’ perception based on their year level (Y1 & Y4, 5) (Both IFL and

ITC)

On the idea that foreign aid help to develop poor countries (perception 1), on the data we

have collected show that different year level does not affect their perception on this idea.

Furthermore, for the perception 5 that foreign aid reduces recipient countries’ reputation,

different year level affects their perception. As shown on the table above, students who study

in first year tend to agree in term of number more than students who study in fourth and fifth

year. The same to the first perception, different year level does not affect perception 8. For

the question that ask respondents to suggest their idea on how should the government keep

the amount of foreign aid, half of first year students want government to keep the amount of

foreign aid at the same level while almost half of fourth and fifth year want to increase the

amount of foreign aid (Figure 6, 7).


IFL and ITC students’ perception and their awareness

As already mentioned above, generally IFL students are aware of foreign aid than ITC

students. Therefore, we assume that students who are more aware of foreign aid tend to think

that government of Cambodia should keep foreign aid to Cambodia at the same amount while

students who are less aware of foreign aid tend to think that government should ask more

foreign aid.

Perception on Improving Education Sector (Quantitative Education and Qualitative Education):

(Figure 8: Perception on foreign aid spending on education) Strongly

Agree Agree Disagree Strongly

Disagree

Quantitative Education

Build more schools

32.8%

58.6%

7.5%

1.1%

Primary Education

31.1%

65.2%

3.7%

0%

Increase primary education enrollment

34.8%

58.8%

6.4%

0%

Qualitative Education

Provide more facilities to school

66.4%

31.3%

1.5%

0.7%

Improving teaching method

63.1%

33.2%

3.4%

0.4%

Enhance education system

58.4%

37.1%

3.4%

1.1%

Last but not least, the last finding of our research questions is aiming to find out how students

want foreign aid on education sector to Cambodia to be spent on, and whether foreign aid

should be spent on “Quantity Education” or “Quality education”. According to the findings,

most of the students are satisfied and desire improving on both trends. For the Quantity

Education, there are 58.6% of strongly agree and 32.8% of agree, responses wanting foreign

aid to be spent on building more schools. In addition to the provision of primary education,

65.2% of students noticeably strongly agree, followed by another 31.1% of agrees.

Meanwhile, expecting to increase primary education enrollment, there are only 6.4% in total

who strongly disagree. Similarly to Quantity Education, the students also want to see the

improvement in Quality Education. 66.4% of respondents strongly agree while there are just

2.2% of who disagree and strongly disagree on providing more facilities to schools such as

books, laboratory, and other related education materials. Moreover, 96.3% of respondents

agree that teaching method is also really important that needs improvement. Furthermore,

95.5% out of 100% agree in wanting to see changes in education system; for example, to

revise curriculums, strictness, examination strategies, and so on (Figure 8).


Discussion

The study has revealed that the type of university major has indeed an effect on students’

awareness of foreign aid. IFL students majoring in International Studies were more aware

than ITC students majoring in Engineering across all awareness related questions.

When it comes to year level, the study also confirmed that regardless of the students’ major,

higher year level students (Year 4 and 5) were more aware of foreign aid than those in Year 1

who have just entered university. This can be explained by the exposure to academic

materials in the university and other outside influences such as paying more attention to the

news or media, though this is not the scope of our study.

In general, students within our study population believe that foreign aid help poor countries

to develop through various ways such as increase public spending which generally contribute

to people’s living standard improvement, increase in investment which generate more jobs,

and so on. However, there is conflicting perception on how foreign aid damages recipient

countries’ reputation in the international arena; in short, some respondents agree while some

respondents do not. Because students from different universities and year level think

differently due to their awareness about foreign aid. Furthermore, on the idea that foreign aid

may reduce government of poor countries’ incentive to develop their countries, almost all of

the respondents have the same idea that they agree on this perception. It is hard to say that

respondents have different ideas because of their different ways of thinking or due to what

they have known in general about foreign aid, so there is no clear answer to this reason. On

the idea of whether to keep the amount of foreign aid at the same level or increase,

respondents tend to have different perception based on their differences of year levels and

universities. We believe that those respondents who think government should ask for more

foreign aid because they still think foreign aid to Cambodia is too small and is not enough;

while those who want to keep foreign aid at the same amount because they think that even if

there is more foreign aid there will not be effective use of it, and it only generates bad side

effects including corruption.

The fact that most students perceive education as the most important aspect among the nine

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set by the United Nations is notable. This can be

explained by the lack of education and the relatively low literacy rate of 77.6% (NIS, 2008)


in Cambodia, where education is believed to be the key in its economic as well as social

development.

However, respondents did not show a distinct preference between quality and quantity

education, but rather, pursued both equally. The responses here did not vary across major or

year level. The pursuing of quality education can be explained by the fact that many of the

respondents themselves having personally experienced the educational system in Cambodia

might be led to believe that the quality of Cambodian educational system is poor and should

improve. At the same time, the pursuing of quantity education could be attributed to the fact

that many rural areas in Cambodia still lack schools (UNICEF, 2011).

Limitation

We have three major limitations during our research process as well as three suggestions for

future researchers. One of the main obstacles of our study is the balance of study population.

Specifically there was an imbalance between IFL and ITC respondents in terms of number.

IFL respondents exceed ITC respondents by almost twice, which gave us more difficulty in

analyzing data, though since we used percentage points, it was not a grave problem. As a

result, we would like to suggest for future researchers to try to balance the population based

on their variable equally that will be easier to do analysis on their data. On the top that, we

also think that our study population is too small to generalize our research question and

finding since we only conducted survey on only a group of undergraduate students at IFL and

ITC particularly first year, fourth year, and fifth year of both universities. Therefore, we

suggest for future researchers to extend this research in a large scale with larger study

population in order to give a more accurate and generalized findings. Last but not least, we

faced some difficulties in finding literature review prior to our research questions. Since our

topic is one that not that many researchers have previously studied, it was difficult to find

information to support our research question in the literature review; thus, we suggest it is

better for future researchers try to find literature review at the same time try to adjust their

research questions to what you have found so far, and create or develop new research

questions based on their availability and limitation of resources and knowledge.


Conclusion

In conclusion, this study of university students’ awareness and perception in Cambodia is

important because of its foreign aid recipient status. Some major points in our findings are

that students, the higher their level of study, the more they are aware of foreign aid issues.

Also, although perception varied, a significant number of students perceived that the amount

of foreign aid should stay same. It points out that awareness does not necessarily lead to

wanting more foreign aid. As foreign aid in Cambodia continues to increase year by year,

further research should pay attention beyond university students to the broader public opinion

of recipients.


References:

ActionAid UK. (2007). Opinion Poll on Public Attitudes to Aid: Summary. ActionAid, London. Retrived from https://www.actionaid.org.uk/sites/default/files/doc_lib/poll_summary.pdf

ADB (n.d). Asian Development Bank and Cambodia: Fact Sheet. Retrieved from http://www.adb.org/publications/cambodia-fact-sheet

Birchler, K. & Michaelowa, K. (2012). What is the effect of aid on primary enrollment and quality of education. Retrieved from http://www.wider.unu.edu/publications/working-papers/2013/en_GB/wp2013-021/

CDC (2011). Aid management in Cambodia. Retrieved from http://www.cdc-crdb.gov.kh/cdc/aid-management-cambodia.html

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Harris, A., Milner, H., Findley, M., & Nielson D. (2013). Elite And Mass Perceptions Of Foreign Aid In Recipient Countries: A Field Experiment In Uganda.

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USAID (2013). United States Agency for International Development. Retrieved from https://www.usaid.gov


Apprendix 1: Survey Questionnaire

Survey: Questionnaire

University Students’ Awareness of and Perception on Foreign Aid

This survey is being conducted by a group of students at the Department of International Studies, Institute of Foreign Languages, Royal University of Phnom Penh. The study will help researchers acknowledge the awareness & perception of university student on foreign aid to Cambodia.

As with all sources of knowledge, your response to this survey, or any individual questions on the survey, is completely voluntary. You will not be individually identified and your responses will be used for statistical and academic purposes only.

If you have questions about your rights as a participant in this survey, or are dissatisfied at any time with any aspect of the survey, you may contact us at (+855) 16888715/ 12248470/ 70429248/ 10617008/ 69223399. 1. Gender: ☐ Male ☐ Female 2. Age: years old 3. Which Universities are you studying at? ☐IFL: Major: Year: ☐ITC: Major: Year: ☐Other: Name: Major: Year:

Please read the following questions, and mark only ONE answer unless otherwise noted.

Q1: Please indicate how much you know about foreign aid in Cambodia.

*Note: indicate your knowledge about the information below ranging from ‘1’ to ‘5’.

1= I don’t know about this information at all; 2= I know a little about this information;

3= I am familiar about this information; 4= I’m quite sure about this information;

5= I know exactly about this information;

1 KOICA is the South Korean aid Agency. 1 2 3 4 5

2 JICA is the Japanese aid Agency. 1 2 3 4 5

3 “Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)” is the collection of many donor countries 1 2 3 4 5

4 “Asian Development Bank (ADB)” is one of the major donor agencies to Cambodia. 1 2 3 4 5

5 Cambodia has received foreign aid from many agencies including China, KOICA, JICA, ADB, WB 1 2 3 4 5

6 In 2012, Cambodia has received about US$1.38 billion in aid, which is equal to 9.8% of its total GDP. 1 2 3 4 5


7 From 1992 to 2011, Japan was the biggest donor country to Cambodia. 1 2 3 4 5

8 Since 2011, China has been the biggest donor country to Cambodia, followed by Japan. 1 2 3 4 5

9 Did you know that most of the foreign aid is spent on transportation improvement, health care improvement, and government and administration' staffs?

1 2 3 4 5

Q2: In your opinion, is foreign aid very important, fairly important, not very important, or not at all important for Cambodia?

☐Very important

☐Fairly important

☐Not very important

☐Not at all important

☐Don’t know

Q3: In your opinion, is foreign aid making any difference to improving the lives of people in Cambodia?

☐Yes ☐No ☐Don‘t know

Q4: In your opinion, compared to other developing countries, what is the level of foreign aid Cambodia receives (please consider the relative size of the population)?

☐Cambodia receives much less

☐Cambodia receives less

☐Cambodia receives similar

☐Cambodia receives more

☐Cambodia receives much more

☐Don’t know

Q5: Based on your perception, please indicate how much you agree or disagree with each of the following statements. There is no right or wrong answer. Just give your HONEST opinion.

SD=Strongly disagree, D=Disagree, A=Agree, SA=Strongly agree, DK=Don’t know

No Read out SD D A SA DK

1 Foreign aid helps to develop poor countries: increase public spending, increase investment, increase jobs, etc. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

2 Foreign Aid usually comes along with technological advancement. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐


3 Foreign aid strengthens relationship between states (donor countries and recipient countries) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

4 Foreign aid generates corruption in society due to improper distribution. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

5 Foreign aid reduces recipient countries’ reputation on international arena. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

6

Foreign aid may bring poor countries into crisis when poor countries solely rely on foreign aid (Donor countries may cut down their aid to recipient countries when they are dissatisfied with that country)

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

7 Some foreign aid comes with ideology: democracy and communism. Thus, recipient state's decision-making is vulnerable to donor countries' foreign policy.

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

8

Foreign aid may reduce governments of poor countries’ incentive to develop their country because when their countries become developed countries, the amount of foreign aid will be reduced

☐ ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

Q6: Based on the statements in Q5, do you want government of Cambodia to ask for more or to reduce foreign aid to Cambodia?

☐ Increase ☐ Stay the same ☐ Reduce

Q6.2: Why do you think that? Answer (optional):

Q7: From this list, which sector do you think is the most important that foreign aid should focus more, and which sector is the least important?

*Note: Rank them in order of importance from the most important ‘1’ to the least important ‘9’.

1 Reduce extreme poverty and hunger

2 Education

3 Promote gender equality and empower women

4 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

5 Health

6 Ensure a sustainable environment


7 Agriculture development

8 Infrastructure and transportation

9 Industry and trade

Q8: In your opinion, please indicate how do you want foreign aid on education sector to Cambodia to be spent? Should foreign aid be spent more on improving “Quantity Education” or “Quality Education”?

*Note: SA: Strongly Agree, A: Agree, D: Disagree, SD: Strongly Disagree

No

SA A D SD

*Quantity Education

1 Building more schools ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

2 Providing primary education (grade 1-‐9) ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

3 Increase primary education enrollment ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

*Quality Education

1 Providing more facilities to school: books, laboratory, and all related education materials ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

2 Improving teaching methods ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

3 Enhancing education system: revise curriculum, strict examination, and etc. ☐ ☐ ☐ ☐

researchreport-university students’ awareness and perception of foreign aids to cambodia

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