Competent teacher is an indispensable pillar for students' learning outcome and education quality improvement. This paper examines Cambodian teachers' perception regarding: (1) teacher competence and improving education quality and (2) ensuring teacher quality and in-service teacher training. This study used questionnaire that targeted a line of educational staff of Cambodia: from school to central level. In August, 2012, 230 copies were distributed, and 173 copies (75.22%) were collected. Through concerned notice, it showed that the majority of higher-ranked officials also have experience working at any school education level. As results, it revealed that (a) respondents realized and indicated explicitly that competent teachers do help contribute to student's learning and promote the level of education quality, and (b) respondents recognized the importance of in-service training because it helps make teachers more confident in the profession as it can bring people's respects and trust. This paper shortly concludes that Cambodian teachers acknowledge their crucial profession. They further desire to upgrade their capacity by means of continuous professional development through in-service training programs. Thus, structuring a feasible in-service training model for them becomes evidently needed. Expected structure will be organized in accordance with Cambodia's actual situation and the availability of its resources.

In-service training is an imperative for ongoing flexible development of teacher in this changing world. This study is to explore directions to ensure this need that later the study will propose a design of these exemplary sustainable in-service training frameworks. The study administered questionnaire surveys, interviews, and school visits in total of seven stages of field studies in Cambodia, in addition to existing literatures. As such, quantitative and qualitative analyses were made carefully. The results of the study found that (1) teachers acknowledged the significance of in-service training opportunity for their personal/professional/school development, (2) they desire to have regular opportunities in their career, (3) they need an actionable framework for it; but (4) they face some challenges within their schools specifically schools in rural and remote areas. The study would suggest: a) extend to larger survey samples, b) test the designed framework to see how effective and efficient it will be and to what extent it will get sustainable, and c) further find ways to raise awareness from more teachers to make more acceptable decision in their career, from community people to support teacher education, and from stakeholders to provide timely supports to teachers especially rural and remote teachers.

Abstract-Teacher is the nucleus of the whole educational system and is of the significant impact on children's learning. This paper investigates challenges of Cambodian teachers in contributing to their nation's future human and social development. In order to achieve that development, are Cambodian teachers well-trained? To clarify, a questionnaire was distributed to a line of Cambodia's educational staff from local to central. A section of the questionnaire was extracted for this paper. The results revealed that educational development in Cambodia faces severe challenges due to severe shortage of qualified trained teachers. Up to present, some teachers have not experienced in any pedagogical training. Furthermore, despites few officials who are PhD holders, some are primary school graduates or even not finished primary level. Moreover, in-service training has not yet been systematized and has been provided to teachers not regularly. Thus, feasible in-service training programs for Cambodia's teachers appear urgent to be structured for their continuous professional development so as for contributing to human and social development.Index Terms-Cambodia, human and social development, in-service teacher training, quality education, qualified trained teacher.