Graduation of Foundation Year Students Promotion 10, Term I, Academic Year 2011-2012
Song Sophoat (Deputy Director, AFD)
On December 22, 2012, 138 students of the University of Cambodia received recognition for having successfully completed their courses at the Academic Foundation Department and received certificates, which were conferred by H.E. Dr. Kao Kim Hourn, the President of The University of Cambodia and Adviser to Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia.
In his opening remarks, Dr. Y Ratana, Dean for the Undergraduate Studies Division and Director of Academic Foundation Department (AFD) of the University of Cambodia reported that the AFD was created in 2005 and officially recognized by the Accreditation Committee of Cambodia (ACC) and the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports. It seeks to reinforce its position as a leading provider of Foundation Year studies for new Bachelor’s degree students. The Foundation Year program aims to not just educate our students, but also to further develop their mental capacities, broaden their minds, and instill lifelong study habits. In combination with each student’s major focus of study, this program seeks to produce students with intellectual vision, creative aptitude, and moral responsibility, as well as the necessary skills to ensure a balanced, practical liberal arts education.
Dr. Y Ratana added that up to now, the Department has so far conferred Foundation Year Certificates to 1,517 students in total including those who received certificates at that day’s ceremony. Since March 1, 2010, the University of Cambodia through its Academic Board Meeting made a decision to reform the grading system to a higher level to emphasise its efforts to be a leading higher education institution providing good curricula and quality education and to encourage students to study harder, put much time into learning and researching so that after completing their degree program, they would be better able to meet the challenges of the job market, and become a good resource for social development.
In his keynote address, H.E. Dr. Kao Kim Hourn expressed his high appreciation for the students’ efforts to have studied hard to complete the programme successfully at the AFD for Academic Year 2011-2012. This was the result of the joint efforts of UC leaders at all levels and faculty, as well as the students themselves. He further noted that learning is a never-ending process: one cannot get knowledge within a single day but over an extended period of time. This can be helped through learning by sharing and giving to one another, learning through discussion, experiment, and writing as a good method for achieving one’s goals in academic life.
