Stability, growth require job creation
Cambodia is entering a new phase of economic growth in which the development of a skilled workforce will be critical to social stability and regional competitiveness, government officials and economists said Thursday at the 2014 Cambodia Outlook Conference. Delivering the keynote speech at the conference, Prime Minister Hun Sen said that deep administrative reforms and an increased focus on education would be crucial to the country’s economic progress. “Reform is a necessary and urgent task that has to be continued for both the present and future,” Mr. Hun Sen said. ... “The improvement of education quality is a necessary task which must be done and is a crucial element for creating the competitiveness of Cambodian people in the future,” Mr. Hun Sen said. “Cambodia lacks skilled workers…at both the low and middle level,” he continued. “One main priority for the government in the next five years is to deal with the problems regarding the inconsistency or the professional gaps in what industry and business requires.” ... Vongsey Vissoth, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Economy and Finance, said that failure by the government to meet the employment needs of an expanding workforce would have a destabilizing effect on the country. ... “Jobs for youth is a major priority,” Mr. Vissoth said. “If we don’t do it, it will…become a social and political problem.” “It is easy for [youth] to be attracted by certain points of ideology,” he added. Jayant Mennon, a senior Southeast Asia economist for the Asian Development Bank, said that the government’s anti-corruption efforts were inextricably linked to efforts to create better jobs. ... During a panel discussion on improving the skills of the workforce, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron outlined the various ways that the education system was failing to equip students for a global workforce. While the country has reached almost universal enrollment in primary schools, only 27 percent of students are enrolled at the upper secondary level, Mr. Chuon Naron said. ... Martin McCarthy, the managing director of Total Cambodia, said that with so many university students receiving degrees in the fields of management and finance, it was nearly impossible to find qualified staff to work in the oil industry. “2.5 percent of graduates coming out as engineers is horribly insufficient,” he said, adding that the poor quality of graduates required large investment in training new staff. ...
Colin Meyn and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/stability-growth-require-job-creation-53317/
