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The USAID Digital Workforce Development project in Cambodia is a five-year project targeting Cambodian youth, equipping them with enterprise-driven skills, training, and qualifications that will enable them to contribute to Cambodian society and succeed in an economy that is becoming increasingly digital. In the interest of enhancing the information and capacity of Cambodia, The Asia Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley, with support from USAID, have partnered to conduct two rapid assessments identifying the persisting gaps currently impeding the development of Cambodia’s digital workforce among higher education institutions (HEIs) delivering information and communications technology (ICT) programs and businesses hiring ICT graduates.

Through a qualitative approach, the data shown in this report was the result of analyzing the primary data from interviewing participants, consultation discussion findings, and workshops. The results showed that all faculty members’ education credentials included specialization in information technology or ICT while gender representation in ICT is virtually equal. Above 73% of HEIs partner with local businesses and provide internships to their students and 90% of the HEIs surveyed provided job placement services that included combinations of resume-writing workshops, mock interviews, internships, recruiter meetings, and relationships with prospective employers. There were some challenges that were identified such as a lack of a standard curriculum defining the core competencies of an ICT program, poor quality of lecturers, and lack of English language capacity of students. Due to the limitation of the project scope, the report results could be inapplicable to other geographical areas that have not been selected in the report scope.