Your Excellencies,
National and International Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
My Dear Students,
Today I am very pleased to join you all, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen in conferring degrees to 19-20 batch of the Engineers, and 8-9 batch of the high level Technicians, here at the Technology Institute of Cambodia.
On behalf of the Royal Government and myself, may I express my cheerfulness and appreciation to all graduates who have worked very hard to successfully overcome all challenges during their long period of study and now becoming Engineers and high level Technicians who are the great human resources for building up our nation.
At the same time, on behalf of the Royal Government and myself, I would also like to express sincere appreciation to tremendous effort made by the Technology Institute of Cambodia as well as Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in human resources development by focusing mainly on quality and providing Cambodian society with people that have knowledge, high moral and deep cultural resource in order to step into the globalization current of the 21st century. In addition, I highly appreciate and compliment the management, foreign and domestic professors, civil servants and staff of the Technology Institute of Cambodia who have made tremendous efforts to fulfill their roles and obligation in training and transferring knowledge to students. It is clear that all your works have produced fruitful outcomes and results.
Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and Cambodian people, allow me to sincerely thank theGovernment and the people of France, through H.E. Yvon Roe d’Albert, the Ambassador of France to the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Agency of Francophone Universities (AUF) and other national and international organizations that have partnership with Technology Institute of Cambodia and have made valuable financial and technical contributions for the development of education in Cambodia in both quality and efficient manner, particularly higher education during globalization.
In the 42 years of its mandate, Technology Institute of Cambodia has experienced both excellent progress as well as almost total destruction of all its achievement. However, it is the pride for the institute, which can maintain its first ranking position in human resources development in the field of technology with great benefit in the economic development. It should be noted that the history taught us a bitter lesson during Pol Pot genocidal regime in which Cambodia gave up education on science, logic, culture, morality and embraced illiteracy, violence and mass destruction. After liberation day of 7 January 1979, our people reborn due to the willingness of our people through searching national identity and soul based on compromise and self-seeking solution principle.
On behalf of the Royal Government, I am proud to lead Cambodia through countless difficult challenges. None of the countries in the world faced similar experiences of Cambodia. However, Cambodia has gone through with honor and participated equally with other countries in the region and the world. All of these are the unique features of Cambodian people who has never been hopeless and stood up in any historical challenges while keeping this historical lessons for consideration and seeking solution with full of wisdom. The Win-Win policy of the Royal Government clearly proved this. In reality, these outcomes have brought back peace, stability, social order and sustainable development as well as the contribution of people from all levels and supports form friendly countries all over the world.
We never forgot that national development of all fields would not attaint without technical skills and thousand of engineers who were trained here. Indeed, our ancient people once gloriously made architectural constructions and irrigation networks. Until now, the works remain a thrust inside our engineers and technicians. In this spirit, we all observe that none of the economic sector in Cambodia is without a key role of engineers and technicians. The engineer is constructor and inventor of infrastructure and irrigation that is the basis to bridge Cambodia into modernization of computerization age as well as gaining absolute advantages not only in mechanic, chemical, electronic and new technological fields but also all fields in trade and industrial sector. Indeed, the achievements do not only respond to current and immediate demand of the society, but also impact on welfare, environment and national reputation for our next generations.
As I frequently point out, capacity and human resources building is priority and clearly stipulated in the Rectangular Strategyof the Royal Government of Cambodia by focusing on economic growth, employment creation as well as strengtheningefficiency in the public sector. This is the strategy to lead Cambodia into self-serve as well as ensuring efficiency in the regional and global participation. Nevertheless, in the current situation it is imperative to make a specific measure to ensure that human resources development is a responsive to the demand and requirement of socio-economic development. Nowadays, it is good that new centers, institutes and universities both public and private mushroomed in the city and some provinces, but we are also concerned about the management and control in order to ensure a balance between the quantity and quality of training. Indeed, the measurement of the real training’s quality in education sector is not based on the number of students, number of graduates, and the number of degrees that have been conferred but it should be measured based on the quality of development’s level, professional competency and the assessment and acceptance of the labor market. This is the double-edged weapon due to the fact that human resource training in tertiary education can be a catalyst force to push Cambodia out of poverty quickly; however, if the training is merely for commercial competition and profit, it will put more burden poor parents and disappointment for the whole nation.
In this sense, I would like to urge the Technology Institute of Cambodia to exert its utmost efforts to upgrade and maintain the high quality of its training, to expand its training curriculum into new areas with up-to-date technological and scientific progress in accordance to regional and international standards to transform this institution into a competitiveness base in the production of intellectual capital for Cambodia and for the region. Moreover, I also encourage and appreciate any research programs of the institution that respond to the real demand of the society for the development of the country. At the same time, fostering cooperation and collaboration with other countries, both with the French and English-speaking nations as well as other countries in the region and other continents should be further enhanced, since cooperation always brings about not only the spirit of mutual respects but also knowledge transfer in technology and culture that facilitate communication, harmonization, understanding and peaceful co-existence among all nations.
I believe that, today is a very special day which will stay within the hearts of all graduates. Besides the scientific knowledge acquired from here, I would like to offer a very short recommendation that, as a technician or an engineer, you must always be humble with any difficult tasks in order to ensure that the development from one generation to the next have been made with real techniques and to also provide advices for those people that possess the power to make political decisions with options that could ensure long-term stability without any negative impact on the environment and wellbeing. In this regard, the importance of this engineering profession indeed depends on the contribution of successful graduates today. Hence, may all today’s graduates properly utilize their acquired knowledge with high consciousness in order to ensure their nobleness and future as well as the true progress of our entire nation into the world’s community.
Taking this opportunity also, I would like to further remind you all that finishing study here does not mean the study should be ended. You must always keep learning in order to prepare yourself for new phenomenon and new technological breakthroughs. Our today’s world is changing very rapidly. For instance, some technological advancements that we never even heard of ten years ago have recently become normal things. Moreover, some studies are different from real practices. In real practices, some works are not what you have been taught in school, but all the knowledge that you have learned can be used as the foundation for analyzing and finding a sensible solution.
Once again, and in the presence of H.E. Yvon Roe d’Albert, the Ambassador of France, may I renew our expression of profound gratitude to the Government and people of France who have supported the Technology Institute of Cambodia for 10 years and still continue to extend all forms of support regarding the training progress and quality of the tertiary education sector in Cambodia, especially, for the Technology Institute of Cambodia. At the same time, I am greatly delighted for the personal contribution of the French Ambassador and the University Network of Belgium (CUD), that have cooperated with the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and the Technology Institute of Cambodia to provide dormitory for female students and to address the difficulties of female students that have no families in the city as well as encouraging more Cambodian women to come and study in the field of technology. I highly appreciate the Agency of Francophone University of French-speaking country (AUF) that has guided the successful implementation of the program, and has prepared the grounds for the transfer of independency and sovereignty to Cambodian counterpart. At the same time, the assertion of Technology Institute of Cambodia as a permanent member in the Supreme Council of the Agency of Francophone University (AUF) is the pride of Cambodian tertiary education sector.
I also thank, most sincerely, the other donors such as former Soviet Union, Belgium, Japan, New Zealand, India and especially, the community of ASEAN Universities Network (AUN/SEED-Net) who have, with wisdom and kindness, opened their doors for further support for the Technology Institute of Cambodia, now and in the future. Finally, May I wish all of you, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, the five Buddhist gems of Buddhist blessing. To all the graduates, good health and success in your future endeavors.
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