Conclusion

Abstract

Cambodia has experienced a number of major political changes since the colonial period. Accompanying these have been reforms in policies and practices in education. In particular, there have been many changes in the areas of educational administration, curriculum, and teaching and learning at the primary school level in the country.

At the same time, very little research has been conducted on school leadership and management at the primary school level in Cambodia, and specifically in relation to the post-conflict period. In particular, hardly any research has been undertaken to examine the issues that primary school leaders confront and the strategies that they use to deal with them. This is in line with international trends indicating that there are relatively few studies that have focused on extraordinarily challenging circumstances and, in particular, at the individual school level in post-conflict settings (Clarke and O’Donoghue, The case for studying educational leadership at the individual school level in post-conflict societies. In: Clarke S, O’Donoghue T (eds) School level leadership in post-conflict societies: the importance of context. Routledge, London/New York, pp 1–8, 2013). As a result, there is a very poor knowledge base to draw upon to promote the generation of an understanding of the context and the nature of school leadership in post-conflict contexts.

The study reported in this book was undertaken to address the deficits mentioned above. This final chapter opens with an overview of the study reported in this book. It goes on to present a summary of the results relating to each of the three central research questions. The matter of the transferability of the study’s results to contexts other than Cambodia is then considered. Finally, attention is given to the implications of the study for policy development and practice, and for future research.