| |
Keynote Address at the Closing of 2008-2009 Stocktaking Conference of Education,
Youth and Sport Achievements and Direction Setting for 2009 – 2010
National Institute of Education, 19th March 2010
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen distinguished national and
international guests,
Municipal/Provincial Education Delegate, and all the
participants!
It is my honor
and privilege to be here in the closing of the “2008-2009 Education, Youth
and Sport Achievements and Direction Setting for 2009 – 2010” which is
hosted by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MEYS). This event indeed
allows all of us, in particular, officials from local levels to exchange
dialogue and experiences to explore development options for the education, youth
and sport sector. Through this, we can reassess our past achievements,
drawbacks, opportunities, and challenges to implement the new plans consistently
with development partners and stakeholders to ensure equity in enrolment,
quality improvement, efficiency and social development. In particular, some good
lessons and experiences learned in the 2008 – 2009 academic year will enable us
to achieve better results in the new year by addressing all shortcomings and
deepening the strong points.
Taking this
opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and myself, I would like to thank
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen all level of MEYS officials, lecturers,
students’ parents, students, local authorities for your commitment and
contribution in the previous year to promote the education and human development
sector, in spite of some challenges and shortcomings. The effort of the
Ministry’s management and all levels officials and related
ministries/institutions is not only a major catalyst for education development
but also an assurance of capable human resources for fair competition in the era
of globalization. Along with this, I would like to commend all development
partners, development agencies, national and international organizations, and
all stakeholders for the cooperation and support given to the both the
formulation and implementation of plans to improve efficiency, quality and
development. These efforts are a big contribution to the implementation of “the Rectangular Strategy” for growth, employment, equity and efficiency as well as socio-economic development and poverty reduction. In
this sense, I would like to request the management and all levels of officials
of the MEYS, related organizations, development partners, development agencies
and the private sector to continue to cooperate closely in terms of materials,
finance and techniques and work harder to realize Cambodia’s vision of education
development especially in terms of rehabilitation and expansion of physical
infrastructure and development of institutional and human capacity to respond
timely to the requirements for socio-economic development.
The cooperation
and support from all sources indicate we are moving in the right direction in
implementing the principle of “Education for All, All for Education”,
which is consistent with the Constitution and targets set out in the 2000 – 2015
World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal. In this spirit, the Royal
Government will work harder to mobilize support and resources from development
partners, development agencies, and other sources to accelerate the education
sector and create employment for Cambodian people. Success in this sector, apart
from a key resolution for all socio-economic issues, will make our society a
place with harmony and respects but free from violence and discrimination.
The conclusion
of the conference highlights that the education sector for the last 30 years,
starting from the 24th September, 1979 to the 24th September, 2009 had made prideful progress. Although this sector has been
experiencing some obstacles, however the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports
has been able to make remarkable numerous achievements that could answer demand
from new socio-economic development. At the same time, the conference clearly
highlights the remaining issues that are shortfalls which require us to double
our efforts to improve and solve all those problems in the forthcoming years.
Obviously,
according to proceeding report that is cited by Excellency Im Sithy, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports, in overall I can understand the
situation and the evolution of Cambodian education sector that we rehabilitated
and developed from the scratch after the 7th January, 1979, the day
when the nation was rescued from the genocidal regime. Apparently, for the last
30 years we had gained lessons and experiences in the education sector, and
those still remain valuable until today, for which we started from “Those
who know little teach those who know nothing”, “Those who know more teach those
who know less”, “All must learn again and again, and learn regularly”, “state and people jointly develop”...etc... All achievements at
the moment are definitely prideful to all of us.
To strengthen
and extend the quality and efficiency in the education sector and as the
foundation for direct setting for the next 2009-2010 school year I would like to
provide a number of additional recommendations to be carried out in this sector
as follows:
First.
Continue implementing policies that ensure equitable enrollment at all levels of
education among which, we must find the strategy to mobilize those children that
reached school age and get all of them enrolled, at least make them complete
9-yeear basic education in conformity to the Constitution and toward achieving
the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. In parallel, we must strengthen the
profession-oriented programs which provide youths with technical and vocational
training opportunities to answer the demand of the labor market and to promote
development of creative ideas as well as to increase new opportunities for poor
students, especially for female students to study at all levels of education by
increasing scholarships and building dormitory and school and dispatching
teachers to the right target nationwide. Through this, increasing chance for
private sector engagement and cooperation with development partners is necessary
task to be kept implemented in order to promote education at all levels by
making environment better and open for investment and implementation of the
projects in this sector.
Second.
Continue implementing policy that improve and raise the quality and efficiency
of education of all levels through deepening reforms of institutions, curriculum
and materials, documents and research activities by regularly carrying out
perfection and training programs. Moreover, we must provoke and encourage
commune/sangkat councils and municipal/provincial councils to engage with
education movement aiming at linking education at schools with education in
family, community and the whole society in order to build up a new generation
of children and youth who are “good child, good student, good friends and
good citizen” with high education, skill, and good moral to eradicate
any vices in the society such as drug consumption, violence, gangster and sexual
exploitation. Regarding these issues, I had already announced during the 99th Anniversary of International Woman Day 8th March 2010 under the theme that goes “Together we promote the potential of women and youth for development” by taking 2010 as the campaign year to uproot all vices barbarian acts which
affect the dignity and honor of women and youth who are indispensible elements
for national development and affect the tradition, culture and the profound
civilization that are our national soul. Furthermore, I would like to take this
opportunity to reaffirm that all ministry-institutions, all kinds of armed force
and all levels of local authority must keep implementing effectively this
campaign by getting rid-off all culture of intervention and following legal
procedures.
Third.
Continue implementing policy for capacity building and institutional management
through making improvement and strengthening good governance according to the
principle of decentralization and de-concentration. We must continue to increase
the possibilities and means of human, physical and budgetary resources to
support the work and continue implementing policy for building the capacity of
civil servants to strengthen the monitoring and inspection system aiming at
upgrading the quality and efficiency of education of all levels. Strictly
implement the duty, role and the professional codes of ethic of education
officers, teachers, and professors toward eradicating any individual who uses
the education sector for his/her own interests and disgracing the national
education sector. In this regard, the continuation of careful and firm
implementation will truly contribute to the enhancement of honor, dignity and
national prestige at the national, regional and global level.
Fourth. Continue implementing policy of partnership with the private sector and the
national and international organizations, development partners and various
donors in mobilizing to rebuild and develop education sector in all levels based
on the principle: “State and People Work Together for Development”,
in which this work is the lesson and experience since the last 30 years and will
be further pursued.
Fifth. Continue promoting the competition on research and composition in all subjects.
At the same time, the research articles, newspapers, magazines, homepages and
other postures in public areas must be strictly controlled to make sure that
they maintain the original form and literature standard and national linguistics
as mentioned in the Khmer Dictionary written by Samdech Chuon Nath.
Taking this opportunity, I would like the National Committee for Khmer Language
to pay attention to defining the agreed framework in the reading, word creation,
definition as well as the writing of words that has not been in agreement yet.
Sixth. Promote and boost intensively the development of body language (gesture) for the
mute and deaf people, sign letters for the blind people to be in a clear cut
form and standard and must be extensively disseminated to those people to be
used for the interest of the daily living because those people legally have
equal rights in receiving full education.
Seventh. Continue implementing the development policy of youth and sport through the
promotion of Good 4 Movements: “good children, good students, good
friends, and good citizen”, that must be ensured by the national policy
for Cambodian youth and further promotion of the physical education and sport
that is the component of education among the 5
education components: Intelligence Education, Moral Education, Physical
Education, Labor Education and Beauty Education.
The promotion of
all kinds of sports is to achieve the objective of maintaining health,
intelligence and solidarity and through this work we have to continue promoting
and actively implementing the issue of sport for all in the framework of popular
sports, student sports and professional sports. Moreover, the Ministry of
Education, Youth and Sports must continue to support and encourage students to
participate in the Cambodian Red Cross Youth Movement (KAYARITH KAMPUCHEA) among
students more intensively with the objective to inspire and enhance the youth to
become humanitarian-hearted and be engaged in the art of sharing in order to
eliminate the negative effects in the society.
In fact, these
tasks will contribute ideally and spiritually to the conference as well as
academic staff, teachers, lecturers and management in all levels in education
sector to put into the objective, obligation and action plan to continue
implementing the tasks more effectively, efficiently and productively to double
the fruitful result and progress for our society.
Once again, I
would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the management of the Ministry
of Education, Youth and Sport and officials in all levels of the municipality
and provinces including teachers, professors and academic staffs to put further
effort in implementing their roles and functions with high attention and with
the spirit of high responsibility by having to be well aware that the destiny of
our socio-economic issue in the future will rest upon the process of the
national education and measures taken by Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, who
are the management of the academic staff, teachers, lecturers, working in this
education sector. We must all bear in mind that the people who have not been
fully educated can also be our partial fault and the weakness of the
institutional capacity and human resources in education sector also partly
results from the weakness of our measures. In this spirit, we have to always
bear in mind that the people all over the country have provided strong hope to
our pubic service delivery that will be able to upgrade the knowledge capacity
and experiences to promote their livelihood, community development and
socio-economy in the future. In this connection, our education system must be
strong, active and responsive to all aspects in the present and future. At the
same time, I would also like to appeal to the parents, families, local
authorities, national and international organizations, development partners and
agencies and all donors to continue the good cooperation and support the
national education sector in order to rebuild and develop this sector to be more
successful, progressive and prosperous.
Before ending, I
would like to appeal once again to the Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen and
the whole conference to participate actively and lively based on the plan we
have put forward as well as trying your best to share information, knowledge and
various experiences received from this conference for improving the
implementation to accomplish new achievements in conformity with the education
sector development strategy.
At this end,
together with the Closing of 2008-2009 Stocktaking
Conference of Education, Youth and Sport Achievements and Direction Setting for
2009 – 2010 today, I
would like to wish Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, National and
International Guests, Academic Staff, Teachers, Lecturers and the whole
Conference the four gems of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
EndItem
|
|