Across Cambodia, thousands of people have developed valuable skills through work, migration, apprenticeships, family businesses, and years of hands-on experience. They repair machines, build homes, manage teams, serve customers, and solve problems every day. However, many still lack the formal qualifications needed to demonstrate their knowledge and abilities. Consequently, their skills often go unrecognised in the formal labour market, limiting their access to better jobs and career opportunities.
To address this gap, the Skills Development Programme (SDP) is supporting Cambodia’s Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) system by strengthening the capacity of private-sector skills assessors. This ensures that workers’ existing competencies are recognised through fair, transparent, and competency-based assessments aligned with national standards and the Cambodia Qualifications Framework (CQF).
Why Recognition of Prior Learning matters
RPL enables individuals to have the skills they have acquired through informal and non-formal learning assessed against national competency standards. Rather than repeating training for skills they have already mastered, qualified candidates can obtain nationally recognised certification based on their demonstrated competencies.
This approach makes skills visible and measurable, creating new opportunities for workers, helping employers to identify qualified personnel and enhancing Cambodia’s Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) system. It also supports a more inclusive skills system, where learning acquired outside the classroom is valued equally alongside formal education pathways.
RPL is particularly valuable for returned migrant workers, low-skilled workers, and experienced employees who have built strong practical expertise over many years but have never had the opportunity to obtain formal qualifications. For many of these individuals, RPL provides the first formal recognition of their abilities, helping to improve their employability, career mobility and access to better job opportunities.
How SDP is supporting the national RPL system
To enhance the quality and credibility of RPL implementation, SDP provides technical support for a Skills Assessors Training programme for private-sector representatives, in collaboration with the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MLVT).
The training equips assessors with the knowledge and practical skills needed to conduct competency-based assessments that are fair, transparent, and consistent. Participants learn how to:
The programme also ensures that assessments reflect workplace requirements and industry expectations by engaging supervisors, technical experts, company trainers and experienced industry professionals as assessors.
This approach is also central to Cambodia’s TVET reform. Under the MLVT’s Strategic Action Plan 2024–2028, the government aims to certify 75,000 candidates through RPL, expanding access to recognised qualifications for workers across the country.
In line with this national direction, SDP had successfully provided technical support for the training of 447 private-sector skills assessors in the construction sector by the first quarter of 2026. This has helped to create a nationwide pool of qualified professionals who can deliver fair, transparent, and competency-based assessments under Cambodia’s RPL system.
Who benefits?
The strengthened RPL system creates benefits at multiple levels. For individuals, it creates a clear pathway to nationally recognised certification, opening doors to better job opportunities, higher confidence, and greater career mobility. For employers, it provides stronger assurance that certified workers meet industry standards, helping improve productivity and build a more skilled and reliable workforce. For Cambodia’s TVET system, it enhances the credibility, consistency, and quality of competency-based assessment, while supporting ongoing efforts to expand access to recognised qualifications nationwide.
Contributing to Cambodia’s skills development
Recognition of Prior Learning is more than an assessment process. It is a pathway to recognising skills that already exist.
By strengthening the capacity of private-sector assessors and supporting the national RPL system, SDP is contributing to a more inclusive, responsive, and labour market-oriented TVET system in Cambodia, where skills gained through experience receive the recognition they deserve.
Through this support, workers, including returned migrants and those who have learned outside formal education, can gain recognised qualifications, enhance their employability, improve their livelihoods, and contribute to Cambodia’s economic development.