Dear Members of the PREM Class of 2022,

Congratulations! You are an exceptional class in an extraordinary generation – of this there can be no doubt. For the past three years, you have been challenged to enact a real-life,

real-time experiment in the reinvention of the world’s education system. The Covid pandemic, with its draconian restrictions on face-to-face interaction, has required you, together with your fellow students across the globe, to imagine and implement innovative ways of learning and living together, utilizing the gamut of new information and communication technologies – including digital learning platforms and social media.

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, your teachers and parents were deeply concerned that restrictions on international travel and classroom attendance would disrupt and potentially set back your education in ways no one could predict. But we need not to have worried. Your educational achievements, like those of the two PREM classes before you, have shown through the opacity of untested pedagogy, as proven by your unprecedented success in both classwork and examinations. Most importantly, your accomplishments have been recognized by the fact that each of you has been accepted into the universities, colleges and careers of your choice wherever in the world that may be. How can we explain this phenomenal success? You, the members of the PREM Class of 2022, have demonstrated the commitment, the adaptability and, above all, the resilience that our illustrious namesake, H.E. General Prem Tinsulanonda foresaw would be the hallmark of all

future PREM students when, in Education for the Future, the visionary document that forms the founding charter of PREM International School, he penned these prophetic words: “The young are the future and the hope of the new world – a world full of challenges, a world in search of a proper balance between the need for new scientific discoveries, on the one hand, and human ethics on the other and also a world that needs to find a balance between competition and sharing. The mission before us is one that requires human intellect. Knowledge based on thorough study should not only enable us to gain a broader view, but should also make us kinder and more caring persons. Otherwise, the owner of knowledge thus acquired may turn out to be good at thinking, surely not a person with good thinking.”

This is the challenge that General Prem put before all PREM students as Global Citizens. It is the challenge that you, the Class of 2022, have met and surpassed. The Board of Governors is proud of your accomplishments and confident that as a graduate of Prem Tinsulanonda International School each and every one of you will continue to make your alma mater proud along whatever path you take in life, in whatever career you choose, on whatever place you make your mark. We are certain that as an alumnus of PREM, you will meet the challenges of the future head on, with the same inquiring, reflective “good thinking” that you have developed during your student years at Prem Tinsulanonda International School. As the Covid pandemic has made abundantly clear, humankind’s well-meaning attempts to extend stewardship over the Earth’s resources, constructing a sustainable future for all, to date have proven to be woefully inadequate. New, better ways of thinking and doing, based on scientific inquiry, comprehensive knowledge, and equitable practice are urgently required. As PREM graduates and part of the next generation of Global Citizens, you are well-prepared to become the champions that humankind will rely on to ensure the future of our planet. With the

graduates of the PREM Class of 2022 in the lead, that future in in good hands.

Richard A. Engelhardt

Chair of the Board of Governors