The finding in section 4.2 illustrated that people develop their foundation through general education and skill through higher education. It is these outcomes of education that initiate and strengthen people’s resilience. In general, this is also a clear fact about education that the world has acknowledged. This research has identified examples which validate this inference about formal education in the context of Cambodia’s development. It was found that many university students in Cambodia get jobs which are not specifically related to their academic background. However, they can still adapt to these jobs and thrive. In this regard, KI8 who is a university teacher commented that “many Cambodian students get a job which is totally different from the degree they received from the university but they can still do it”.
In addition to this observation of KI8, the Case Study of UG3 [page 60-62] also provides an example of the relationship between education and resilience. UG3 initially planned to be a mathematics teacher and therefore completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics. However, financial constraints forced him to cancel his plan after he graduated from university. Instead, he looked for a job for which his educational background was not directly relevant. Without any academic background or degree in tourism, he was offered a job as a tour operator with a tour company. However, he adapted to the job quickly and established himself as a valuable employee at that company. Moreover, he has since changed his job to work for a bank with yet a new position which is totally different from his academic background and tour operating work experience. However, he again adapted to that latest job quickly and is thriving in his new role.
There are other cases in this research which illustrate that individuals who have more education are more likely to be more resilient compared to those who have less education. People, as a result of having more education, are capable of dealing with new situations more effectively contrasted with those who have less. This argument is supported by the case of UG4 who is a young, successful business person. In the interview, UG4 who has an advanced university degree compared the way he operates his business to the way his sister who did not finished high school operates hers in order to highlight how they each respond to their business situations. A key difference he highlighted is that he is more capable of identifying and benefiting from market opportunities. He stated that “I have the ability to see more opportunities and to catch and transform them into growth while my sister has very limited ability of this kind”.
There was also evidence that people who have more education are more resilient than those who have less education when they encounter the same problem. UG5 is a young business person who became an entrepreneur when she took over her parents’ business about two years ago. She has a lot more education than her parents do as she has a Master’s Degree while her parents do not. She has turned the business from non- systematic to systematic in order to increase the productivity and operational effectiveness. She described that:
“My parents opened a glass cutting and frame making shop a few years before I came back from Australia. […] Late 2013, I came back from Australia to take over this business from my parents. […] After a few months, I realized that the productivity of our business was very low. At that time, there were only three male staff and two female ones. So, the five staff worked from 7am to 6pm. However, they paid overtime wage to keep the staff at work until 9pm or 10pm in order to have the work done. […] Yet, they still could not supply the products with enough quantity that our clients wanted. […] So, I suggested that we must add more staff and set up a working system in order to improve our productivity. […] Now, we have twenty staff and we can deal with large orders. We open our shop from 7am and close at 6pm and our staff are less tired. We can supply the frames to our main customers which are private companies, universities and NGOs in numbers that none of our competitors can do”.
This quote suggests that people who have a higher education are more likely to have a broader range of concepts than those who do not. The understanding of the concept of the productivity enables UG5 to innovatively introduce an operational and management system which can help the business to deal more effectively with much bigger market demands. It can also be interpreted that she is more resilient because she is more capable and skilful.
Thus, education is found to have helped individuals to develop their ability to adapt quickly to new situations, creatively respond to problems, and thrive under pressure. In other words, individuals who have more education are more resilient in their careers and lives. On this basis, it can be concluded that resilience and capability have a very close link with each other. This finding reinforces the importance of education in psychological development of individuals in a Cambodian context.