Friday, 16 December 2011
The Phnom Penh Post
Photo by: Sothea Ros
Tep Sopoan, 19, participates in an auto mechanics training class at the Battambang Institute of Technology yesterday. A one-month course at the Polytechnic Institute of Battambang provided Man Phumrin with a job and the skills he says will ensure he never again has to sneak across the border to Thailand in search of work.
When Man Phumrin was trafficked into Thailand, his first month’s salary covered the cost the smugglers charged his employer in Samut Prakan.
When he returned a year later, police patrolling the train from Bangkok to the border asked to see his passport. Man Phumrin didn’t have one, so they pocketed his meagre savings.
“When I worked in Thailand, I never had a day off. It was so expensive, I could save only a little, and even then the police took that from me,” he said.
Now he’s a chef at a restaurant in Battambang, earning more than he made in Thailand and receiving free room and board. If the restaurant closed, he said, he was confident he’d easily find another job.
Man Phumrin is among those benefiting from a shift in Cambodia’s education system, under which the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training was pushing for more vocational training to match emerging opportunities in the labour market and providing those living in rural areas with greater access to vocational training to reduce their poverty, Tung Sopheap, a ministry official overseeing the vocat-ional education strengthening project, said yesterday.
When Man Phumrin was trafficked into Thailand, his first month’s salary covered the cost the smugglers charged his employer in Samut Prakan.
When he returned a year later, police patrolling the train from Bangkok to the border asked to see his passport. Man Phumrin didn’t have one, so they pocketed his meagre savings.
“When I worked in Thailand, I never had a day off. It was so expensive, I could save only a little, and even then the police took that from me,” he said.
Now he’s a chef at a restaurant in Battambang, earning more than he made in Thailand and receiving free room and board. If the restaurant closed, he said, he was confident he’d easily find another job.
Man Phumrin is among those benefiting from a shift in Cambodia’s education system, under which the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training was pushing for more vocational training to match emerging opportunities in the labour market and providing those living in rural areas with greater access to vocational training to reduce their poverty, Tung Sopheap, a ministry official overseeing the vocat-ional education strengthening project, said yesterday.
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