Theme: Teacher is a Real Shaper of Students’ Future

I am deeply honored to be with you today to celebrate World Teachers’ Day. I would like to express my sincere
thanks to the college dean madam Florenda A. Pabustan,.
Let me begin my remarks by expressing my profound gratitude to all teachers who are present here and all
around Cambodia for your tireless commitments, limitless contributions, dedication and continued hard work
despite all the challenges and difficulties you may encounter.
Following UNESCO’s four pillars of learning: Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to be, and Learning to
live together with peace and harmony, teachers not only pass on the knowledge to children, youth and adults,
but also teach us critical thinking and how to be responsible citizens.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the MoEYS leadership for having put Teacher component as a
key priority reform of the Ministry in recent years. This is in fact an evidence of the national theme this year
emphasized on vital role of “Teacher as a Real Shaper of Student’s Future”. Amongst the priority reforms,
the Teacher Policy Action Plan offers learning opportunities for teachers and increase of salary.
Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Teachers and Colleagues
I appreciate the reforms made by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport placing teacher as central to the
improving the quality of education, especially through formulating of the Teacher Policy and Teacher Policy
Action Plan documents. These documents will help Cambodia to address the issues of teacher shortages,
teacher deployment and redeployment, and teacher qualifications as well as to retain teachers in the system
and to make teaching profession more attractive.
We are pleased to see the annual increment of teacher salary from year to year, and especially the recent
announcement by the Prime Minister of Cambodia for having monthly teacher’s salary of around 1 million riels
in 2017. This is in fact a key motivation factor for better performance of teacher toward quality of teaching
service provision.
As part of these efforts, UNESCO reaffirms its continued support to translate the TPAP into implementation by
supporting the Royal University of Phnom Penh to pilot the Cambodia Innovative Teacher Education (CITE)-
pre-service teacher training (BA+1) for lower secondary schools to demonstrate the capacity of RUPP to be a
strong TEPS provider. Also UNESCO is finding ways to upgrade capacity of teachers who hold 9+2 certificate
to acquire a Bachelor equivalent as well as to support in-service training for early grade teachers in
disadvantage areas where the learning assessments found low.
Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Teachers and Colleagues
In a Joint Statement on World Teachers’ Day on 5 October 2016, Ms. Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General,
called for an improved status of teachers through providing teachers the supports they needed such as
continuing training and development, compensating them properly to their indispensable jobs, and giving them
an active role in decision-making that affects their work.
So I would like to encourage all teachers to seize opportunities to upgrade their own capacity through life-long
learning in order to acquire the 21st century skills and improving knowledge transferring to students.
On behalf of the National and International partners and the Global Campaign for Education Coalition, I would
like to say thank you to all the Teachers in Cambodia for your hard work and efforts.
I would like to re-affirm our commitments to supporting the Royal Government and the Ministry’s efforts in
transforming the education sector, in particular enhancing the overall status of Teachers in Cambodia.