The Royal Academy of Cambodia (RAC) on March 1 held a roundtable discussion on the importance of vocational training, with the participants agreeing that human resource training in all fields is necessary and must be done in a way that meets current and future needs.

The roundtable discussion was attended by many students as well as officials from the ministries of Labour and Vocational Training; Tourism; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Rural Development.

RAC president Sok Touch said vocational training plays an important role. He noted that in some countries, such training is started through the education system and integrated into schools from an early age so that they are interested and understand the value of professional skills.

He expressed hopes that through this roundtable discussion, stakeholders could find common solutions for the development of human resources related to technical skills.

“A thousand years ago, Cambodians made clay pots and in 2023 we are still making them. The Chinese also make clay pots, but the question is how they make their pots today? Because they need skills, production skills play an important role,” he said.

Kith Sopheap, deputy head of the labour ministry’s Department of Labour Market Information, said that seeing the benefits of vocational training, the government has established a number of skills training programmes across the country. There are 37 public educational institutions, while partnered private institutions have also contributed.

He said that in the new school year, his ministry has provided 14,000 scholarships, while more scholarships are being provided to students to enable them to acquire personal skills at the same time. The skills provided in the training are in demand in the job market.

“Before the training, we went to do outreach, which means that they have a place to talk about the needs in the villages and communes, and we look at that before the training," he said.

According to Sopheap, past human resource training programmes were followed by research to determine the level of knowledge, skills and work attitudes of graduates. The 2021 study found that 85 per cent of graduates acquired skills and jobs, but that their soft skills were limited.

Try Chhiv, director of the tourism ministry’s Department of International and ASEAN Cooperation, said that the tourism sector also needs specialised resources, mainly because Cambodia is a country rich in entertainments that can attract

many international tourists now and in the future.

He said that training human resources to achieve the desired goals in each sector, especially tourism, is necessary to be able to attract tourists. If Cambodia has these skills resources, it is a good thing.

“We need to train our staff to be able to manage people and know how to learn new things and gain knowledge in line with world trends. So in the future context, such goals of skill development are the same. In tourism, it is important that we pay attention,” he said.

With this training, Try Chhiv said his ministry has developed more than 30 skills in hotel and travel services in the context of the country and the ASEAN region. He added that the other 38 skills are new for Cambodia that will be fully implemented in 2024 as most of those skills are related to the organisation of meetings.