Cambodia is a developing country and a member of ASEAN. Since the short period of time for development in this country has been being conducted from 1990s, she is considered to have problems in developing high capacity human resource and labor market for her own human resource because the educational sector was damaged seriously in Pol Pot Regime (1975-1979) and less investment. Most of high capacity human resource and some educational institutions were lost during that period. However, until now human resource in Cambodia is going to be better and better since there is the good opportunity for her students to pursue higher education both locally and overseas while more foreign investment are coming to Cambodia.
The most famous destination for higher education in Cambodia is Phnom Penh Capital. There are many big well-known educational institutions there such as Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Institute of Foreign Language (IFL), Institute of Technology in Cambodia (ITC or aka Techno), Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE), the University of Cambodia (UC), Cambodian Mekong University (CMU), National University of Management (NUM), Norton University, Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC), National Institute of Business (NIB), Australian Center for Education (ACE), Limkokwing International University, Zaman International University, North Bridge International School, and so on. Recently, the educational activities in Phnom Penh are more dynamic than before. Most of university students are doing the practical skill with their knowledge and flexibility in group study, presentation, debate on various topics for intra-university and extra-university, Mock Trials and Client Counseling for university students majoring in law, etc. These students are seen as the most competent human resource among million youths throughout the country. Significantly, her law university students are making Cambodia well-known for their participation in many events and gaining success on the international stage. They are very good at using English as a second language in which some universities are English-based. Also, they also focus on learning other languages such as French, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and so on.
More importantly, there is a strong believe that human resource in Cambodia right now are very strong and intelligent. Every year more and more students have been getting scholarship to study abroad like Japan, France, the United State, Australia, China, South Korea, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, New Zealand, Philippine, Brunei, Singapore,… They are seen as the good competitors at international universities and usually earn the good grade. Studying abroad enables the Khmer scholarship students to cooperate with the institution they study at and to create the association of Khmer students helping each other overseas by sharing experience and advice to next generation from Cambodia to gain full capacity in getting grade “A” result at those universities. After graduating from their university abroad, they usually come back to serve their country in different fields. Besides foreign scholarship, other opportunities are also being provided to Cambodian university students such as home stay, exchange program, training, etc. These programs run in a short period of time from a month to several months. Students can get this opportunity if they are hard-working, initiative, and smart in finding the information about these programs. Since then, many skills and new ideas have been being brought back by these students to Cambodia and soon human resource in Cambodia will be able to satisfy the needs of the labor market.
Even though human resource in Cambodia are being more competent and skillful, labor market is still the main problems to them since it is so small against millions of workforce aka the supplies for the labor market, especially in Phnom Penh. However, more and more foreign direct investment (FDI) has been getting to Cambodia to expand the labor market from year to year. It is really good for the expansion of labor market in Cambodia, but more and more university students graduate every year and they will try to find the job as possible as they could. Therefore, challenges are occurring within the whole country for the employment. The requirements of labor market today are also high to reach. Most of private companies demand the work experience while most university students freshly graduate without any professional experience. Only small number of these students could find the way out by doing volunteer or internship to get professional experience, but this kind of chances are also limited since less institutions provide this option. Other students connect themselves to the social network to find the job. In contrast, there is a big change of Cambodian university students now that they are beginning the career life since the second year and third year with low salary at a start in order to exchange for experience as the tool for future career.
In conclusion, nowadays Cambodia are full of human resource with high competence and her labor market are being improved even though it is still not enough space for all her workforces. There is an expectation that all university students in Cambodia will be able to access the labor market with their knowledge and practical skill and the opportunity to gain experience through volunteer and internship will be provided by all organizations and institutions. Also, there is an appeal to all foreign companies coming to invest in Cambodia should provide more training opportunity for all Cambodian staffs since some of them are knowledgeable, but still lack of practical skills. The positive aspect of labor market is that in the near future more foreign companies will come to do their business in Cambodia because Cambodia is the great destination to do all kind of businesses and plenty of natural resource is not being used 100%. For all Cambodian university students, they should prepare themselves in advance for both knowledge and practical skills and if possible they should establish their own business rather than waiting to apply for a job. One more thing to be considered is that interpersonal skill are playing an important role in the labor market, so those who are weak in communication must take action to develop this skill as quickly as possible. Royal Government of Cambodia should review her actions again in developing local jobs for all residents, to attract more foreign investments, and to reinforce her public policy in cooperation regarding foreign direct investment. “Be the Best!” “Bringing your paid-in capital to invest here, earning more profit as well as helping human resource in Cambodia!”
By: POK Panhavuth
