Opinion: Cambodia’s bid for industrial power needs a stronger workforce

Nobel Memorial Prize winner Gary Becker theorized that investing in human capital through education and training is central to the socioeconomic development of all countries. His ideas became hugely influential, and many nations have since poured a great deal of resources into the sector.

Cambodia needs to follow suit. As things stand, it faces a shortage of high-skilled workers — something a country that aspires to be competitive in the global market through industrial development simply cannot afford. But there’s a way past this bottleneck — provided that the government can develop a holistic road map informed by lessons learned from success stories in advanced industrial economies.

Meeting this challenge is a crucial step before Cambodia can become a knowledge-based economy and meet its development goals, including plans to upgrade to an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and then to a high-income one by 2050.

A refined strategy

High-skilled workers are in short supply despite assistance from several major development initiatives. Take the government’s latest Digital Economy and Social Policy Framework, which aims to accelerate digital transformation within all economic sectors by 2035. To do so, the country will need a large pool of qualified workers, especially in artificial intelligence and advanced technologies.

Significant effort and resources have already been poured into skills development, but feedback from employers suggests persistent shortages and skills gaps. This is due to factors such as a lack of coordination and leadership between relevant ministries, low-quality teaching, and poor resources in terms of budget, expertise, equipment, and implementation.

To move in the right direction, the government needs to formulate a well-designed, holistic strategy for skills development that aligns with priority industries.

There is much to learn from success stories of rapid industrialization in the region, namely from the four “Asian tigers” — South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong — where workers are generally highly skilled, more competitive, and more productive than those of other countries nearby.

These nations raced ahead of their neighbors in part by investing strategically in skills development, research, and innovation. Following the same path would be a challenge for Cambodia. But it’s far from impossible, and it could transform its industrial development.

Learning from successes

There are concrete examples of feasible and successful strategies to draw from — collaboration models that can bring industries, universities, and government together in a mutually beneficial relationship, which can lead to impressive gains in skills development.

One strategy is to forge better linkages between industry and skills development initiatives. For example, training providers can build and strengthen partnerships with manufacturing firms. This can be done through meetings to exchange expert opinion, sharing technical and human resources, and supporting the design of better training curricula. Schools and firms can also cultivate such links through joint training, or to seriously step up cooperation, they can co-create apprenticeship programs.

An approach designed to enhance multistakeholder collaboration in education and training is the so-called triple helix model, which enables academia, industry, and government bodies to collaborate based on shared interests — through a joint research grant, for example.

In Japan, the triple helix model was adapted by the University of Tokyo’s Matsuo Lab into its Hongo Valley Initiative of industry-academia collaboration. The initiative has been successful in building technology and innovation startups by offering students entrepreneurship education and by forming a support network of alumni.

But Cambodia need not only look to other countries. There are success stories of industry linkages within its borders too, such as the Kirirom Institute of Technology. Its AI and software engineering program is the best in the country, offering students opportunities to gain real-life work experience through projects with technology companies.

Initiatives based on the “teaching factory” concept, meanwhile, are already used in some of Cambodia’s special economic zones or industrial parks. They combine work and school environments, enabling students to learn about industrial equipment or the production process and gain hands-on competencies to complement their academic education. These approaches make for a strong university-industry linkup, integrating elements of industrial manufacturing into the classroom. But they have yet to scale up.

Forging partnerships

Regardless of which specific approach the Cambodian government adopts, one thing is certain: It cannot develop competent and skilled human resources alone. It’s crucial to mobilize and involve other development partners, including the private sector and NGOs.

The key is to forge linkages between industry and universities. In fact, this is a prerequisite for improving the skills development system as a whole.

To ensure its national skills development strategy meets current and future industrial needs, the government’s road map will need to match industrial sectors with specific universities or training providers. And it will need to incentivize firms to create and sustain training programs or apprenticeships in cooperation with training providers.

In essence, the government needs to ensure an enabling ecosystem for joint research and innovation projects. But industry and universities will need to play their part, too.

Companies should seek to collaborate on such initiatives with local academia and training providers. They should also have good-quality internal training to upskill and re-skill their workers, regardless of grade or job type. A rewards system should also be developed — not only as an incentive to maintain good performance, but as a motivation for workers to enhance their skills and competencies.

For their part, universities and training providers should constantly strive to align their curricula and offerings with the national skills development road map and what the country’s industrial transformation requires. This can be done by participating in — and expanding — networks with industrial trainers and instructors. Training institutions can also conduct annual skills gap surveys, which help to anticipate trends and future requirements.

There is no question that enhancing workers’ skills, competencies, and knowledge is a crucial steppingstone to industrial transformation and economic development. Developing a workforce skilled in advanced technology and engineering is a must for young Cambodians, and it’s a must for their country’s plans for economic transformation.

This does not happen overnight, and it takes investment. Without it, Cambodia risks getting caught in a trap where poor skills and employment opportunities leave its economy stagnant.