Date: 13/10/2003
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Asmal: 3rd Annual Further Education & Training Convention
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, AT THE MINISTERIAL AWARDS GALA DINNER OF THE 3rd ANNUAL FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING CONVENTION, Caesars, Monday, 13 October 2003
Chairperson
International guests
Partners and friends from the business community
Chairpersons and Principals of Colleges
Colleagues in Government
Ladies and gentlemen
Tonight is one of those special occasions I have as Minister of Education because I have a pleasant task to perform - to share with you the joy of presenting our first Ministerial Awards for excellence and innovation in the newly restructured Further Education and Training (FET) college sector. It is an evening for celebration and appreciation of devotion to duty, persistence and, if I may say so, patriotism.
We celebrate the endeavours of many in business and the colleges who have made a positive difference to inspire us all towards achieving our goal of a new era of high quality, responsive, and innovative further education and training in all colleges.
We are also very thankful for all your individual and combined efforts to put our 50 new FET colleges on such a sound course. To the Business Trust in particular - and here I include all the business partners within the Trust - I again wish to express deep appreciation for your initiatives and support throughout this process made possible through the Colleges Collaboration Fund. Thank you too for making these first-time Ministerial Awards a reality. There is still so much for us to do and I am hopeful that the excellent partnership, which you have achieved between business and government, will not only continue but will increase its impact to develop our economy for a better life for all.
With this the Year of FET, we have indeed entered a new era for technical and vocational education and training. We laid out and established a new FET college landscape, we have new horizons and visions, new hopes and aspirations, new goals to achieve. These are essential for the further attainment of the aims and objectives of the government's Human Resource Development Strategy.
Our main focus tonight is our FET colleges and to honour some for particular excellence. This time last year, at the 2nd national FET Convention, I announced the introduction of the Ministerial Awards Programme. The Programme is designed to provide both a stimulus and a challenge to the colleges in particular to take the initiative and implement certain programmes and innovations that will make a difference to enhancing quality of performance as well as ensure the effective involvement of commerce and industry in our colleges and their activities. There is something compelling as well as attracting about quality. As parents we want the best quality education for our children; as colleges we want the best quality lecturers, facilities and equipment for our students; as employers we want the best quality recruits from the colleges; as consumers we want the best quality goods and services.
This programme therefore provides significant evidence of the Department of Education's commitment to ensuring that our education and training meets the needs and expectations of commerce and industry as well as that of our people for relevant learning opportunities.
Quality is not an add-on but an essential ingredient for success. Commitment to quality is a key factor that drives not only improvements in services and products but very importantly, relationships as well. Our new colleges require every assistance to achieve quality in all of these aspects. College relationships with business and the world of work will promote quality as much as be determined by quality.
These Awards have been established to recognise and reward outstanding contributions by FET colleges in key areas of change, namely to increase access to relevant education and training opportunities and to create best practice teaching and learning environments that meet business needs and contribute towards implementation of the national Human Resource Development Strategy. For this year, Awards will be made for excellent development in three categories:
* student support services that will improve learner participation in FET
* curriculum innovation that improves the quality and appropriateness of the college curriculum
* college-industry linkages that lead to effective and sustainable partnerships for growth and transformation.
The winning colleges in each of these categories will receive a sum of money to be spent on the further development of their initiatives.
As a major facet of the Year of FET, these Awards are also designed to raise the profile of our FET colleges both in the public eye and within the sector itself. I am delighted to learn that the Awards Programme has been taken seriously by the colleges from its inception. Equally, it is gratifying that through the Awards, colleges have been identified who, in spite of their difficult circumstances of change during this past year or two, have gone beyond merely maintaining themselves and have initiated and implemented meaningful projects for transformation and development. I am certain our winning colleges tonight will be justly proud of their Award Certificates and these will be prominently displayed at their colleges.
We already have the National Teaching and the Most Improved School Awards, which have captured the imagination of their sectors and have, in the short space of three years, become established features of educational system.
I referred earlier to the relationships we expect our colleges to form with industry and the world of work. These valued relationships will be in the form of real partnerships. I trust that this evening will be a stimulus to both colleges and business enterprises to promote each other's interests and establish sustainable relationships. To the colleges I would say you should not expect the initiative to come always from the business side. I issue the challenge to you to take the initiative, become a part of the business world and develop strategies to respond to their needs.
One of the Awards tonight is in fact made to a college that has achieved just that.
The Ministerial Awards programme provides a new opportunity to business and industry to participate in the regeneration of our education and training system by direct involvement with the colleges. If we are serious about wealth and job creation, about creating a skilled work force, about creating a 'nation at work', we can not neglect seizing every opportunity to develop our people's knowledge and skills. Government has set the colleges on a path that will provide what the business and industrial sectors need and desire. What is needed now is for the colleges and the business and industrial sectors to establish practical arrangements to work together in the interests of human resource development for the nation.
I wish to make a few general comments about partnerships to be workable and successful.
* A good partnership is sustained through commitment on the part of both parties. It requires a sense of passion for the joint enterprise.
* There must be reciprocity and clarity of purpose. A college and its business partner must both achieve objectives from the partnership and these should be explicit. Continued and effective communication between the partners is therefore essential.
* Worthwhile partnerships develop best around innovatory projects and learning. One can hardly imagine a business partner wanting a partnership with a college to replicate something with no thought of improvement or development. We are all capable of creative and imaginative initiatives.
Another worthwhile CCF project to build our colleges' capacity was the Partnership Training Programme. Linked with the Tirisano Fellowship Programme, which has exposed 88 college middle managers to good management practice in FE colleges in Britain, partnership training for over 300 college staff has been most successful. While this may well be just the beginning to develop this expertise at colleges, our business partners can expect a more professional approach than up to now. No doubt, as business-college linkages take root and college expertise develops in labour market analysis and marketing of services, colleges will be able to play a very much more meaningful role in the expansion of business and industry through the provision of skills, as has been proved elsewhere such as the United Kingdom and Australia.
The new FET colleges era has arrived. I can assure the public that this has been a hard won victory through sacrifice, hard work and dedication of many in the sector. Those same qualities stand ready to serve our nation in a renewed way. Because business, through the Business Trust, has also played a significant role in assisting us to the point where we can reward excellence tonight it will be foolhardy to think that we could continue without your ongoing support.
It remains for me to say three things: firstly, to congratulate the recipient colleges of these first Ministerial FET Awards, and thank the panel of judges for advising me on these awards and to express my optimism that these Awards will play a growing role in the promotion of excellence in our colleges for the betterment of all.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Education
13 October 2003
Source: Ministry of Education
Title: Asmal: 3rd Annual Further Education & Training Convention
SPEECH BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION, PROFESSOR KADER ASMAL, MP, AT THE MINISTERIAL AWARDS GALA DINNER OF THE 3rd ANNUAL FURTHER EDUCATION AND TRAINING CONVENTION, Caesars, Monday, 13 October 2003
Chairperson
International guests
Partners and friends from the business community
Chairpersons and Principals of Colleges
Colleagues in Government
Ladies and gentlemen
Tonight is one of those special occasions I have as Minister of Education because I have a pleasant task to perform - to share with you the joy of presenting our first Ministerial Awards for excellence and innovation in the newly restructured Further Education and Training (FET) college sector. It is an evening for celebration and appreciation of devotion to duty, persistence and, if I may say so, patriotism.
We celebrate the endeavours of many in business and the colleges who have made a positive difference to inspire us all towards achieving our goal of a new era of high quality, responsive, and innovative further education and training in all colleges.
We are also very thankful for all your individual and combined efforts to put our 50 new FET colleges on such a sound course. To the Business Trust in particular - and here I include all the business partners within the Trust - I again wish to express deep appreciation for your initiatives and support throughout this process made possible through the Colleges Collaboration Fund. Thank you too for making these first-time Ministerial Awards a reality. There is still so much for us to do and I am hopeful that the excellent partnership, which you have achieved between business and government, will not only continue but will increase its impact to develop our economy for a better life for all.
With this the Year of FET, we have indeed entered a new era for technical and vocational education and training. We laid out and established a new FET college landscape, we have new horizons and visions, new hopes and aspirations, new goals to achieve. These are essential for the further attainment of the aims and objectives of the government's Human Resource Development Strategy.
Our main focus tonight is our FET colleges and to honour some for particular excellence. This time last year, at the 2nd national FET Convention, I announced the introduction of the Ministerial Awards Programme. The Programme is designed to provide both a stimulus and a challenge to the colleges in particular to take the initiative and implement certain programmes and innovations that will make a difference to enhancing quality of performance as well as ensure the effective involvement of commerce and industry in our colleges and their activities. There is something compelling as well as attracting about quality. As parents we want the best quality education for our children; as colleges we want the best quality lecturers, facilities and equipment for our students; as employers we want the best quality recruits from the colleges; as consumers we want the best quality goods and services.
This programme therefore provides significant evidence of the Department of Education's commitment to ensuring that our education and training meets the needs and expectations of commerce and industry as well as that of our people for relevant learning opportunities.
Quality is not an add-on but an essential ingredient for success. Commitment to quality is a key factor that drives not only improvements in services and products but very importantly, relationships as well. Our new colleges require every assistance to achieve quality in all of these aspects. College relationships with business and the world of work will promote quality as much as be determined by quality.
These Awards have been established to recognise and reward outstanding contributions by FET colleges in key areas of change, namely to increase access to relevant education and training opportunities and to create best practice teaching and learning environments that meet business needs and contribute towards implementation of the national Human Resource Development Strategy. For this year, Awards will be made for excellent development in three categories:
* student support services that will improve learner participation in FET
* curriculum innovation that improves the quality and appropriateness of the college curriculum
* college-industry linkages that lead to effective and sustainable partnerships for growth and transformation.
The winning colleges in each of these categories will receive a sum of money to be spent on the further development of their initiatives.
As a major facet of the Year of FET, these Awards are also designed to raise the profile of our FET colleges both in the public eye and within the sector itself. I am delighted to learn that the Awards Programme has been taken seriously by the colleges from its inception. Equally, it is gratifying that through the Awards, colleges have been identified who, in spite of their difficult circumstances of change during this past year or two, have gone beyond merely maintaining themselves and have initiated and implemented meaningful projects for transformation and development. I am certain our winning colleges tonight will be justly proud of their Award Certificates and these will be prominently displayed at their colleges.
We already have the National Teaching and the Most Improved School Awards, which have captured the imagination of their sectors and have, in the short space of three years, become established features of educational system.
I referred earlier to the relationships we expect our colleges to form with industry and the world of work. These valued relationships will be in the form of real partnerships. I trust that this evening will be a stimulus to both colleges and business enterprises to promote each other's interests and establish sustainable relationships. To the colleges I would say you should not expect the initiative to come always from the business side. I issue the challenge to you to take the initiative, become a part of the business world and develop strategies to respond to their needs.
One of the Awards tonight is in fact made to a college that has achieved just that.
The Ministerial Awards programme provides a new opportunity to business and industry to participate in the regeneration of our education and training system by direct involvement with the colleges. If we are serious about wealth and job creation, about creating a skilled work force, about creating a 'nation at work', we can not neglect seizing every opportunity to develop our people's knowledge and skills. Government has set the colleges on a path that will provide what the business and industrial sectors need and desire. What is needed now is for the colleges and the business and industrial sectors to establish practical arrangements to work together in the interests of human resource development for the nation.
I wish to make a few general comments about partnerships to be workable and successful.
* A good partnership is sustained through commitment on the part of both parties. It requires a sense of passion for the joint enterprise.
* There must be reciprocity and clarity of purpose. A college and its business partner must both achieve objectives from the partnership and these should be explicit. Continued and effective communication between the partners is therefore essential.
* Worthwhile partnerships develop best around innovatory projects and learning. One can hardly imagine a business partner wanting a partnership with a college to replicate something with no thought of improvement or development. We are all capable of creative and imaginative initiatives.
Another worthwhile CCF project to build our colleges' capacity was the Partnership Training Programme. Linked with the Tirisano Fellowship Programme, which has exposed 88 college middle managers to good management practice in FE colleges in Britain, partnership training for over 300 college staff has been most successful. While this may well be just the beginning to develop this expertise at colleges, our business partners can expect a more professional approach than up to now. No doubt, as business-college linkages take root and college expertise develops in labour market analysis and marketing of services, colleges will be able to play a very much more meaningful role in the expansion of business and industry through the provision of skills, as has been proved elsewhere such as the United Kingdom and Australia.
The new FET colleges era has arrived. I can assure the public that this has been a hard won victory through sacrifice, hard work and dedication of many in the sector. Those same qualities stand ready to serve our nation in a renewed way. Because business, through the Business Trust, has also played a significant role in assisting us to the point where we can reward excellence tonight it will be foolhardy to think that we could continue without your ongoing support.
It remains for me to say three things: firstly, to congratulate the recipient colleges of these first Ministerial FET Awards, and thank the panel of judges for advising me on these awards and to express my optimism that these Awards will play a growing role in the promotion of excellence in our colleges for the betterment of all.
I thank you.
Issued by: Ministry of Education
13 October 2003
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