A group of Cambodian students who recently completed their studies and internships in Israel in the field of agriculture have returned to Cambodia, with all of them expected to get good jobs in the public or private sector earning a decent income, according to the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon.

Sakhon told The Post that 197 Cambodian agricultural students completed their 10-month training course and internships in Israel and returned to the Kingdom on October 31.

He said most of them were second-year and third-year students. They were sent to study and train for 10 months in Israel to gain practical knowledge and skills.

He added that the students will continue with school in Cambodia for another year or two for their bachelor’s degrees and then will begin working.

By the time they graduate, he said almost 100 per cent of them will be employed and their applications will be welcome everywhere, not just at the agriculture ministry.

However, he said the ministry cannot automatically hire them and they must go through the proper channels by taking the civil service exam to be able to work in the ministry.

Sakhon expects that the private sector will hire most of them because they have the knowledge and practical skills which have become necessary for modernizing Cambodia’s agriculture sector.

“Agriculture is being promoted in all provinces through the cultivation of vegetables. The installation of modern watering systems using Israeli technology will provide jobs for some of the students. Others will find work as technical advisers in the agricultural sector,” he said.

According to the minister, nearly 3,000 agriculture students who have returned from Israel in past years have found good jobs with above-average salaries due to the skills they acquire during their internships and they are assisting with the progress of Cambodia’s agricultural sector with their added technical knowledge.

He said Israel had been impressed by the hard work and positive attitudes of Cambodian students in the past and that the Sedot Negev Agricultural Training Centre wanted to increase the number of agricultural students to at least 200 for 2022.

Thun Vathana , president of the Prek Leap National Institute of Agriculture, said he had already told the school to conduct a survey regarding employment outcomes for the Cambodian agricultural students who went to study and train in Israel. The results will be announced in a report next year.

He said many companies had contacted his school to ask about hiring the students who went to study and train in Israel, but the school had no students available to refer to them in most cases because they all had jobs since labour for the sector is in high-demand and the number of students in the programme each year is relatively small.

“Our students in the field of agriculture who don’t even go to study and train in Israel are easily landing jobs. There are companies advertising the need for 20 to 30 students to work for them alone. We can’t find enough workers for them because there aren’t enough students in this field because some people think that if they study agriculture they will end up working in the rice fields under the hot sun.

“But in fact agricultural work for people with a degree in it isn’t like that at all. They want to work in offices but they don’t realize that many jobs in agriculture working in offices are now available,” he said.