Venerable Yorn Seng Yeat (left) leads monks on a trip to forests spanning Kampong Speu and Koh Kong provinces in November last year. PHOTO SUPPLIED
Venerable Monikosal Yorn Seng Yeat, a postdoctoral research fellow of Harvard University in the US who was recently appointed rector of the Preah Sihanouk Raja Buddhist University (PSRBU), will launch a series of reforms to modernize the top Buddhist educational institution with a focus on efficiency.
The university was founded by King Norodom Sihanouk and established in 1954 on prime real estate near the Royal Palace. However, the university, which operates solely on a state budget and through the support of philanthropists, has suffered in recent years from a lack of growth and funding.
Venerable Yorn Seng Yeat, has been the vice-rector of the PSRBU since 2006, when the government changed the institution from its designation as a college to that of university.
Seng Yeat told The Post that he will examine possible reforms at the higher education institution after the full assignment of responsibility for the leadership of the university is completed.
Seng Yeat was awarded a postdoctoral research fellowship by Harvard in 2016 and he spent three years living there, but he hesitates to say that Cambodian institutions should be reformed to more closely resemble those in the west.
“I do not dare to say that because I attended a programme and studied in the US, and because other countries use the same system as they do, we should also do that, because it relies on many factors.
“We will learn from their strengths and use the ones that we can follow. Some of the things that Harvard can do well, we have to accept that we cannot do them right now. For example, the quality of their research is very high and there is a great deal of financial support available for research and data production,” he said.
When it comes to the reforms he’d like to make at PSRBU, Seng Yeat said that his available resources are very limited, but he does have some changes in mind.
Seng Yeat said he will first focus on making major upgrades to the facilities and buildings on campus because many of them are dilapidated due to age and their design is now obsolete, so renovating and modernizing the campus facilities will be a priority.
According to data obtained by The Post, PSRBU currently has 1,993 undergraduate students – 422 monks, 511 men and 1,061 women – who are studying to earn Bachelor’s degrees in three campus locations: Phnom Penh, Kampong Chhnang and Battambang.
The university offers majors in nine programmes: Philosophy of Buddhism, law, education administration, general management, Khmer literature, ecology, Pali language, sociology and English literature.
The leadership of the general-secretariat of National Buddhist Studies announced that Seng Yeat would become the new rector of the university on December 1, following the retirement of his predecessor Samdech Preah Areyvong Khy Sovanratana, due to old age and illness.
Suon Somony, a former student of the PSRBU and an alumnus of the international relations programme at Jawaharlal Nehru University in India who is currently working for the Ministry of Mines and Energy, said that he was of the view that Seng Yeat was a good choice for rector because he is highly educated and accomplished, but progress at the university would also depend heavily on the participation of many of the senior monks.
“Their choice is a good one, but he will still need the support of the leading monks at the university to get reforms done, to be sure… It’s impossible for just one person alone to do all of the work that will need to be done,” he said.
