Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS), Kobe University
From January to February 2024, I undertook an internship at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI) under the guidance of Dr. Chea Phal, Director of CDRI. This internship provided me the opportunity to acquire a deeper understanding of teacher professional development in Cambodia. I was able to achieve this by examining the literature and gaining unique perspectives from teachers and a school principal in the field. Additionally, I actively participated in data analysis for an education project, which helped me grasp the overall process of practical data analysis tasks. During the internship, my primary focus was on the two aforementioned activities.
The first task I undertook in my internship was engaging in a project related to teacher development. Within this project, I primarily contributed by participating in conducting literature reviews, assisting in the preparation of interview questionnaires, and aiding in the preparation and implementation of fieldwork. During the literature review phase, I conducted a comprehensive review of current teacher training programs in Cambodia and neighboring countries. The review revealed a significant amount of literature on teacher training in Vietnam, allowing us to adapt the characteristics of teacher development training advocated in these documents to the Cambodian context through discussions with project members. Furthermore, during the fieldwork, I visited a primary school in Phnom Penh, the Capital of Cambodia, and assisted in conducting interviews with teachers and a principal to explore their perceptions of current teacher training in Cambodia.
For the second task in my internship, I was assigned to another project that involved organizing information for an education initiative targeting prisoners in Cambodia. My responsibilities included utilizing STATA, a data analysis software, to organize data about prisoners compiled in Excel and conducting analysis of their background information using descriptive statistics. Through these tasks, I gained insight into the flow and overall process of data analysis tasks in practice; which greatly motivated me to pursue theoretical studies in the future during my graduate studies.
Through this internship, I actively engaged in literature research, fieldwork, and data analysis tasks, all of which enhanced my understanding and knowledge about the current state of education in Cambodia. It was invigorating for me to investigate what I had learned through my academic settings in the actual field. I was able to realize the importance of further study and experience, which is necessary to understand the context of the field thoroughly. I extend my sincere gratitude to Dr. Chea Phal, who kindly accepted me for this internship; and to Professor Keiichi Ogawa, who kindly supported and contributed to the implementation of this internship.
Authored by Takumi Koike (Master’s Student)
