Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Board of Directors, Lecturers and Students of the Institute!
I am pleased to be here to confer diplomas and degrees to 2,562 trainees and students of the National Technical Training Institute (NTTI). Today’s event will award junior technical trainees and students of technology to 424 students of which 61 students are female, advanced pedagogic diplomas of technology to 960 students of which 177 students are female, advanced diplomas of technology to 405 students, bachelor degrees of technology to 749 students of which 24 students are female, and master’s degrees of technology to 24 students which include 2 females. I can recall that I have conferred degrees and diplomas to the institute’s students twice, the first on November 28, 1996 and the second on October 24, 2005. Although this is my third time, I am still pleased to attend such event which represents our hard-earned achievement in human resource development effort because I clearly understand that knowledge and know-how are the key investment to promote social welfare and poverty reduction in the era of peace and political stability.
I take this opportunity to praise the board of directors, the management and lecturers of the institute for the hard work that helps realize today’s achievement. On behalf of the Royal Government, I sincerely congratulate the institute for the prideful achievement in the area of human resource development.
The conferment is merely an evidence of human resource development for socio-economic development, while Cambodia is seeing a full-fledged development progress and needs more skilled labors to accommodate growth. I strongly believe that in the short and medium terms, demand for skilled labor will be on the rise as growth is predicted to be 6% in 2011 following the end of the crisis. In this spirit, we need firm contribution from both private and public vocational training institutes in terms of quality programs and ethical conduct as did by the institute.
The rapid growth requires some pre-requisite factors such as macro-economic stability, good governance, favorable condition for the private sector, investment on human capital and so forth. I believe that before Cambodia can achieve high growth, we need to invest in skill development as it is a pre-requisite for productivity improvement and better competitiveness; while the private sector sees it as an important incentive for investment and participation in economic activities. To achieve this target, we must have adequate resources, especially financial resource, to invest in skill development before we can attract investment and promote economic growth.
The Royal Government has introduced a number of measures to promote skill development, either through the implementation of its own programs or assistance provided by development partners, ranging from technical skills such as construction, decoration, electricity, tailors to other skills such as marketing, accounting, management, rural development, tourism and so forth. However, we can also note the limitation of our technical skill resources, both in terms of quality and quantity, for the demand of labor market and socio-economic activities. Moreover, Cambodia over relies on basic skilled workforce to fulfill the demand of garment and construction sectors. In the long run, I think we need to further develop our vocational training based on the concept of “expanding quantity and strengthening quality” and transform Cambodia froma country abundant in labor force into a country abundant in skilled, knowledgeable and innovative labor.
Therefore, I think skill development needs to connect with actual employment and business knowledge to facilitate students find a job and earn income. This initiative is designed to help the Royal Government in the area of human resource and skill developments, especially to cushion the people’s living standard during any economic crisis. For instance, in 2008, the Royal Government implemented a short-term vocational training program under the “Special Fund of Samdech Techo Prime Minister” by incorporating “Entrepreneurship” into the program, while Cambodia was affected by the global economic crisis which resulted in a number of investors closing down their factories or reducing their employees. For example, in 2008 the Royal Government introduced a short-term technical and vocational training project under a project called “Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen Special Fund” by including “Enterprise Initiative” program in the time that our country was affected by the impact of global economic crisis, resulting in merchants, businessmen, companies, factories and enterprises closed down or retrenched their employees and workers. This project was created to enable employees and workers to obtain new experiences so that they succeed in their businesses and know how to choose a business by relying on resource management skills and market needs, calculating, budget management and so on. In this spirit, I would like to appeal to all relevant ministries and institutions to focus on the skill development task in the direction of labor markets and career creation aimed to increase work productivity to attract investment and promote economic growth.
Taking this opportunity, in order to take part in the development of education training sector, in particular technical skill development in line with the Rectangular Strategy of the Royal Government, I would like to leave some comments for the National Technical Training Institute, other training institutions and the students as below:
First: The institutes have educated students and university students to have knowledge, know-how, intellect, and optimism in living in society, and has taught whatever good for the future of students and university students, so you all need to stick to the principles of good citizens, know how to live in harmony in the society in order to take part in building the country for the future.
Second: Truly, educating human beings is difficult, and it requires patience and diligence serving as a model including attitude and the talking. In addition, educating human beings is a difficult task that is different from planting trees and vegetables; planting trees and vegetables if we do not take good care of them, not enough watering or fertilizers, then we do not get the yields without having any big impact on the society. In this spirit, the National Technical Training Institute and other training institutions need to pay attention on their education to ensure good quality in order to make them become active people, and conduct good deed by not causing troubles for society.
Third: I also would like to advise all students to always do good, deserving as human resources with quality, knowledge, know-how, unification and good morality for living, know how to live in harmony in the society in order to serve a good role model for youths who are the descendents of our country.
Fourth: I hope all students continue the efforts in study, which is “Life-Long Learning” in order to upgrade your knowledge and become a good role model for younger generations to stick to this customs in order develop yourselves so that our Cambodia has plenty of human resources with high knowledge for taking part in social development.
Fifth: I strongly hope that all technical trainees and students of technology who have just completed their studies with success at the National Technical Training Institute and will play role as human resource developer in the capital city of Phnom Penh, provinces-municipalities, district-khan and other ministries and institutions. At the same time, those who start with teaching career have to be aware of their roles and obligation in order to build the foundation of growing human resources with good morality and transfer your knowledge to train the students who are our new human resources within the framework of the technical and professional training institutions in the cities-provinces to make sure they will gain knowledge, experiences, good morality, quality and efficiency in order to be able to support their living with modest conditions, based on the policy of poverty reduction of the Royal Government.
Sixth: As I have mentioned above that the human resource and skill development is the foundation for building society and national development as a whole. In this spirit, I would like all levels of management and lecturers to pay attention to institutional and human resource development. I strongly believe that the National Technical Training Institute, which is the institution for technical and professional training, is the model institute in training technical trainers and students of technology with quality on professional skills aiming to contribute to the national development based on Rectangular Strategy-Phase II.
Seventh: I would like the National Technical Training Institute to continue further efforts in order to achieve the vision set for 2010-2015 by making sure that trainers are more competent in technicalities, foreign languages, use of computer and research. In this connection, the Institute has to support the education quality at high school level nationwide by creating Center for Multi-Information and electronic based academic curriculum. This modern curriculum must be attached with the training cooperation program and pedagogy in order to improve quality, efficiency and responsibility.
Before ending, I would like to take this opportunity to highly appreciate and value the Bachelor Students of Technology who are a bit old but take your busy time to pursue studies until success. I strongly hope that you will put the knowledge and experiences gained so far into practice with success and contribute to the nation building.
At the end, I would like to wish Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests, Lecturers, Trainees, Teachers and Students the four gems of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
