Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, I have a great honor and pleasure to joint you all in the degree presentation ceremony for bachelor and master students, graduated from the National University of Management.
Taking this great opportunity, I would like to express my congratulation and profound appreciation to Board of Directors, management, lectures, civil servants and all staffs of the National University of Management and also the hard work of all students that have produced fruitful and prideful outcomes. Achievement that you all have attained today is the prove, which highlights the attention and focus of the Royal Government for human development which fulfills a key responsibility to contribute to economic development of the nation, especially to reduce poverty and enhance the living standards of the population, which is the main objective of the Royal Government.
Indeed, all these achievements can not happen without cooperation and assistant from development partners that have constantly supported the development of tertiary education in Cambodia. Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and People of Cambodia, let me extend my sincere gratitude to the donor communities, private sector, civil society and national and international organizations that have provided financial and technical contribution to develop the tertiary education sector in Cambodia.
Education sector at the present has had a notable transformation and progressed according to the Royal Government policy which is “Education for All” and “All for Education”. This means that we all consider about a better future of our children and transform them to be fully equipped in terms of technical capacity, including quality and morality for the development of the future society.
The main theme of the Royal Government “Rectangular Strategy” for Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency serves as an important tool to support the implementation of the Royal Government policy program of the Third Legislature of the National Assembly. All these issues are a key factor to ensure sustainable development of our country.
On the behalf of the Royal Government and myself, I would like to give a high value and to consider that the human resource development is a long term development strategy of the Royal Government, which is “Poverty reduction is the result from establishing the basis for human resource development” that ensures the sustainability of the development and the equity in distributing the fruit of growth.
In this regard, the Royal Government understands clearly that strengthening education system and developing high quality human resources are very important to build human resources stock, so that Cambodia is able to effectively compete with other countries that are moving quickly forward in the globalization and regionalization movement. At the same time, we understand that a good performance economy is the one that has efficient human resources training, utilization and good brain management. Therefore, it is necessary to establish favorable environment to develop and manage brain resources. In this sense, we will not only provide basic knowledge to the people, but also provide opportunity to expand their skills in other sectors that are essential to absorb new techniques, knowledge and practical skills. In this context, the connection between educational strategy and poverty reduction strategy through synthesizing of Education Financial Planning and Public Expenditures Planning and Management, the Royal Government believes that “a sustainable economic growth, equitable distribution and good governance are complement to get success in poverty reduction.”
Taking this opportunity, I partake in this great occasion with you all who had studied hard to fulfill your wish. I appreciate for your effort to study hard for many years and hope that you all will turn the knowledge to benefit for our society both in the present and future.
The Royal Government is promoting Cambodia to be a rule of law country and economic growth to protect rights of living and to reduce poverty. We continue to propel our country and people to have real progress and prosperity. It is true that the Royal Government never promises to do this or that, but the Royal Government has its clear visions, strategies and action plans to implement its plans sequentially in all sectors and dimensions. The achievements can be seen in every part of the country including roads, bridges, schools, pagodas, ports, and irrigation networks, etc. Those are our achievements of the last 10 years of work and will be the basis for the development in the future. In combination, the new term of government has actively concentrated on irrigation networks to contribute to level up living standard through cultivation. In this opportunity, I would like to appeal to all sorts of competencies, national organizations and international organizations including donor countries continue to support either technically and financially to build economic infrastructures, especially to build irrigation network targeting the goals of economic development and to achieve the vision of growth, employment, equity and efficiency stated in the Rectangular Strategy.
To develop the country, firstly it requires human resources to do research, planning and real operation. In this spirit, I strongly support the development of human resources that is one of main priorities of the Royal Government policy platform. Essentially, education has been considered as one of prioritized sectors in the Rectangular Strategy of the Royal Government of the third mandate of the national assembly and the development of human resource is also regarded as key factor of national development. In this spirit, the policy and strategy for education is a priority agenda of each nation in its socio-economic development process.
At the same time, my remark is that National University of Management has chosen a right option to modernize both facilities and lecturers aiming at attracting more students who graduated from high schools. The paid system of higher education, which is being implemented, is in response to globalization of tertiary education in both developed and developing countries. This is the general trend of this age to assure the decentralization type of management and the sustainability of the educational institution.
Indeed, the transfer of knowledge from lecturers is really important for students who will be the next generation to work for the society. However, what the lecturers have done here and it is something that I admire is that they do teaching while they are studying for another degree; as the result the lecturers in this university consist of both Ph.D. and Master degrees which is a necessary condition for training and education at the higher educational level. Moreover, the mission of the higher education institution is not only providing knowledge, but also doing researches, which is something that lecturers should never forget. In this sense, I would like to extend my enthusiasm and appreciation for the professionalism of the lecturers and responsibilities of staffs, who have sacrificed their time to transfer knowledge to young students of the next generation. The esteem scarifications of lecturers, the university management, civil servants, and staffs transforms hundred thousands of workers to be effective labors and good citizens of our nation.
At the same time, it should be noted that Cambodia is not lonely anymore. Cambodia has got many friends. We have integrated into the international community. We do not stand still in one place, which means that we are stepping forward in every sector. Despite there are many difficulties, we have overcome major disasters that is our nation’s life. In this context, I strongly hope that we will reconstruct our country to have a development like other developed countries and the evidence of our efforts has already shown some results. I would like to appeal to all Cambodian people to actively participate in protecting forest, natural resources, human resources, cultural heritages and environment which are supreme prefixes to enhance the national dignity which maintains national identity and responses graciously to the efforts of our ancestor in protecting country up to the present time.
Please keep in mind that you are the driving forces to promote economic growth, which is vital to our nation. The end of your study has offered a significant meaning to Cambodian human resources in the effort to reform toward socio- economic growth in our country because we need to understand about the demand of labor market in the present time and quality of training must be related to whole quality management. The enhancement of training needs reforms, reconsideration about the reality of losses and benefits by not adopting the old habit or easy thinking. There must be a change in the process on how to begin, how to end, to avoid wasting time and to have it done quickly with good quality and reasonable price. Quality also needs to be improved, especially technological use and promotion of higher quality to satisfy customers’ needs. Taking this opportunity, I would like to remind all universities, faculties, and institutes that good education needs to consider quality first and strive to meet the quality standard of education.
In this spirit, I am optimistic that all of you, who are about to receive your degrees, both Bachelor and Master degrees, in which 67 percent are already employed and 33 percent are unemployed, will become labor with technical skill, knowledge, practice, responsibility, good morality, and intellectuals with rationalism, patriotism, active participation in developing Cambodian society to have gradual progress and harmony. At the same time, please keep in mind that “Knowledge is an asset, which cannot be stolen and the more you use the better it will be”. Knowledge is beneficial to the progress of human kinds, but it could lead to a problem if it is used in the wrong way. Therefore, you have to use this knowledge in the right way with high morality to be beneficial to yourself, family and the whole society. Finally, I would like to wish you all, Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Lecturers, Officials and Graduates with five gems of Buddhist blessing.
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