Phnom Penh: The 9th National Technical and Vocational Education and Training Day 2026, June 15, 2026, was held under the theme “TVET provides skills, jobs and income” at the Koh Pich Exhibition and Convention Center. On this year’s TVET Day, His Excellency President Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, was honored to preside over the official opening ceremony, attended by leaders of ministries, institutions, representatives of the Cambodian embassy, development partners, associations, unions, the private sector, and approximately 1,100 stakeholders.
On this significant day, Mr. Heng Sour, Minister of Labor and Vocational Training, briefed the King and the guests on the progress of the TVET sector, which has developed physical infrastructure, curricula, and skills training capacity. The 262 TVET institutions under the ministries are providing short-, medium-, and long-term training to an average of 60,000 people and training an average of over 30,000 apprentices per year. In the last 5 years, from 2022 to the present, a total of 698,000 people have been trained at all levels, of which more than 270,000 students have been trained for free through TVET programs.
The Minister said that the ministry is also working hard to revolutionize the TVET system to respond to the industrial revolution. 4.0 Digital Economy and Society and the Green Economy are in line with the Royal Government’s policy by ensuring that “every citizen has at least one skill for life” and the Samdech Thip Dei’s approach that students must learn “to finish, to know, to have a job” as well as a strong commitment to achieving human capital building with knowledge, technical skills, capabilities, productivity, high competitiveness, resilience and good work attitude and participating in reducing the skills gap in the labor market and new technologies. The designation of June 15 each year to celebrate National TVET Day, especially the high invitation of the President today, is very important in promoting, encouraging, and encouraging students, youth, parents, guardians, workers, and the private sector to understand TVET more broadly.
Speaking on this special day, Prime Minister Hun Sen congratulated the National TVET Day, considering that this year’s theme clearly demonstrates the high commitment of the Royal Government to build and develop human capital with knowledge, skills and attitudes, clear abilities, creativity and high competitiveness, achieving the goal of “every citizen has at least one skill for life or not leaving any young person or citizen without skills.” The King said that the 7th term Royal Government has launched the first phase of the Pentagon Strategy, giving the first key priority to “people”, and “technical skills training” is an important angle of the first Pentagon, “human capital development”.
The King emphasized the importance of software training And we need to expand direct outreach to the grassroots so that citizens understand the comprehensive program and focus on quality first. Even if we cannot reach the target of 1.5 million, we can continue to do so in the next term.
Samdech Thip Dei Hun Manet praised and highly valued the Ministry of Labor and relevant partners who have worked hard to implement this priority work and propose to continue to be proactive and responsible to guide and increase efficiency, with six key recommendations to the Ministry of Labor to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of socio-economic development and to be able to respond to the actual needs of the labor market.
Please note that the two-day program on Koh Pich includes exhibitions of production chains and products, modern technical equipment, professional learning opportunities, job opportunities, information on RPL tests, sharing of good experiences from national and international speakers, and more than 200 exhibition booths, as well as highlighting the importance of the TVET sector and introducing priority professions, as well as exhibitions of famous TVET institutions from China.
