Young Cambodians try out for technical education

Girls filling application forms at Don Bosco technical school in Sihanoukville on August 15.

By Albeiro Rodas
The Asian Correspondent
Aug 18, 2011

Sihanoukville. The week began in the Cambodian sea port with a rainy Monday that did not stop the arrival of several families from nearby regions to the only technical school for unprivileged youth in the southern provinces of the Kingdom. During that first day of interviews, about 500 teenagers and young adults presented their documents to apply for any of the nine technical section offers by the Don Bosco organization in the port. It meant an increase of 100 percent from last year.

“In August 2010 we made 1,000 interviews to choose only 300 new students for the technical sections. This year, in only two of the first days of the interviews, we already reached 1,000,” said Fr. John Visser, 78, Rector of the Don Bosco Technical School, who will receive the Medal of the Order of Orange from the hands of Queen Beatriz of the Netherlands on August 31 for his technical schools in Thailand and Cambodia.

The technical school was built in 1997, when Sihanoukville was a modest town around the only deep sea port in Cambodia. Set up with the purpose of providing technical skills to disadvantaged young people, the NGO wanted to open opportunities for teenagers and young people coming from impoverished areas of Sihanoukville, Koh Kong, Kompot and Takeo. Half of the students come from Takeo and Kompot, two rural provinces bordering Vietnam where young people find few options of further education. The other half of the 700 students come from Sihanoukville, Kompung Speu and Kandal, while a minor group is a gathering of young people from provinces as far as Kompung Thom, Kompung Cham, Battambang, Prey Veng and Pailin. Read the rest of the article here.