National TVET Day

Background:

TVET holds a strategic place in achieving the Government of Cambodia’s goal of becoming a middle-income nation by 2030. Thus, recently formulated educational policies and reforms aim to prepare a skilled workforce that is future-ready as well as able to contribute across various industries and sectors. This is particularly important since a) enrolment in TVET programmes is still low when compared to higher education, and b) private sector cooperation is very limited.

One of the major policy reforms to address such issues has been the approval of a recurrent national event solely dedicated to TVET; on 6th September 2017, the Government of Cambodia approved the ‘National TVET Day’ via Sub-Decree No.150.

Department of Labour Market Information of Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training organised the first National TVET Day from 15th-16th June 2018 at Phnom Penh’s Diamond Island Convention and Exhibition Center.

Objective(s):

Overall purpose of the event was to draw more investment to vocational training programmes from the private sector along with local and international organisations, and to encourage students and their parents to consider vocational education as a viable option.

Specifically, event objectives were to:

1. build awareness and change the negative mind-set of people towards TVET;
2. provide information on TVET, scholarships and labour market needs;
3. showcase TVET students’ achievements to employers and private sector companies; and
4. seek active engagement of the private sector (specifically in the industrial sector)