“How can youth best prepare themselves to get a job?” This is the question that Cambodia’s 60,000 university students ask themselves every day and the question that the 10 remaining YLC contestants had to answer on episode three of the Youth Leadership Challenge.

The two teams of five prepared for the debate, which was held in front of a crowd of around 100 university students, by talking with Kevin Doyle, the editor of the Cambodia Daily, about the lack of professional preparation among the Kingdom’s university graduates, a trend that has recently received coverage in The Phnom Penh Post and the Cambodian Daily, whose article “Many Graduate, But Few Are Ready, Employers Say,” written by Elizabeth Barber and Cheng Sokhong, was the starting point for the team’s research and preparation.

Both teams proposed that Cambodian youths need to seek more relevant experience through internships, volunteering and community service activities to make themselves more attractive to employers, but in the end, the audience had to vote and the five contestants on the losing team voted off Phan Bunnary and Chan Sopheakdy, leaving eight contestants still vying for this year’s YLC crown.

The winning team got the chance to meet Kol Pheng, a senior minister in Cambodia’s government, former minister of education, youth and sports and the founder of Pannasastra University, where he promised this season’s two best youths a full scholarship to PUC as long as they maintain a 3.0 GPA.