Cambodian high school students have demonstrated their impressive academic abilities at the World Scholar’s Cup 2022 Tournament of Champions. The Kingdom’s representatives secured 44 gold and 69 silver medals across several challenging competitions at the event, according to the travel consultants who organised the trip.

The tournament is the culmination of a year of tough competitions, and was held on the campus of one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Yale, in the US state of Connecticut. To qualify, teams had to pass World Scholar’s Cup exams in their own nations and then successfully get through a difficult regional round.

The World Scholar’s Cup features a series of competitions in various subjects, and aims to inspire and focus on research, new discoveries and confidence building, teamwork, leadership, public speaking and positive learning experiences.

Teams from more than 60 countries entered the November 11-16 tournament.

El Nory, marketing manager of Bright Education Consultants and Travel Co., Ltd, expressed his happiness at the medal count, saying this was clear proof that the Kingdom’s students were world class.

“Their efforts have made their parents and teachers very proud. I think the wins will serve as motivation for them to work even harder and commit more energy to their studies,” he said.

“These students are especially talented, having passed the regional qualifying exam in Phnom Penh and then the mini global rounds in Thailand and Vietnam. It was thanks to their earlier success that they were invited to the final event,” he added.

The Tournament of Champions was organised into four parts – team debate, collaborative writing, scholar’s challenge and the scholar’s bowl.

The four parts of this year’s competition included elements of many academic subjects, including science and technology, history, art and music, literature and media. This year’s theme was “A World Renewed.”

“As Cambodian students, we felt very capable, and there was no sense of inferiority. We have learned from the earlier competitions that we are as strong as anyone else, and we know that the harder we work, the stronger we will get,” said Chheang Sokhivuth, one of the competitors.

“There were some difficult aspects of course, most notably the use of English all the way through,” he added.

Chour Kimly, a CIA First student who won one gold and one silver medal, said that she was very happy with her results, especially given the number of countries that she was competing against.

“A lot of very good students from many countries came to the US to compete. The most important thing for me was that I believed in myself. I have gained self-confidence thanks to the effort I put in, the things that I learned and the experiences I had,” she added.