Speech at the opening of new student hub, Wintec
Kia ora and thank you for welcoming me here today.
I acknowledge the passing of Lady Raiha Mahuta. My condolences to Tainui and my acknowledgments also to King Tuheitia.
I'd also like to acknowledge:
- Wintec Council Chairman Gordon Chesterman,
- Hamilton Mayor Bob Simcock,
- My parliamentary colleagues
- Hamilton City Councillors
- business and community leaders
- and of course Wintec staff
Its great to be here today to celebrate the opening of the new student hub.
As I approached the campus today, I was impressed with how open and accessible the campus is to the community. It makes you feel like you want to come in and check it out.
It's a place that invites you in, and when you come in it has a real buzz about it.
I would like to congratulate Chow Hill, Kingston Partners, Lincolne Scott, Mainzeal, Maunsell and Micon for their dedicated work on this building, as well as the Wintec staff who put so much effort into the project.
As you are aware, this impressive facility in front of us follows on from the success of the Gallagher Hub for students at the main Wintec campus. This hub has by all accounts been extremely successful in improving interaction among students and better meeting their needs.
It's great to see an institute of technology ‘walking the talk' in terms of making modern facilities available and installing the latest technology.
The whole redevelopment project at Wintec's campuses will bring about greater community interaction, improved alignment with industry needs, and better relations between students and staff. These are the kinds of results we want to see for students at institutions right around the country.
The government is acutely aware of how important educational outcomes for our young people are to strengthening our economy for the future.
We have to continually ask ourselves, does our tertiary education sector produce all the skilled people we need for our economic well being?
As a government we are very keen to ensure that New Zealanders from all educational backgrounds have the right opportunities to gain - at a level that suits them - world-class skills and knowledge to allow them to get ahead in life.
In order to achieve that, we must get the balance right between having certainty about overall levels of spending, while at the same time freeing up education providers like Wintec to be able to come up with innovative initiatives that respond to economic and community needs. And that's what I see here today.
The opening of the student hub is about more than just cutting a ribbon on a new building, it allows the community to truly opens the doors to all of the benefits that tertiary education has on offer, and it provides an environment where achievement and success are as highly prized as the qualification and new knowledge gained by the students.
To that end, I'm serious about ensuring that the both tertiary education organisations and our students are performing as well as they can be. We're introducing a suite of measures such as performance linked funding and student support to encourage improved results.
I am very encouraged to see that Wintec is a strongly performing institution in terms of qualification completion rates.
It's heartening also to note that Wintec is a strong performer in two of our priority groups - Maori and young people.
There can be no doubt that Wintec is well placed to achieve what the government is looking for from our ITP sector as a whole, and that is, a flexible and responsive financially successful ITP which provides modern vocational training for kiwis in the 21st century.
Before I finish, I'd like to congratulate Wintec on its collaborative initiatives with industry and businesses in the region, which aim to strengthen the emphasis on research and technology.
I've heard your employer partnership groups, which give industry leaders in the region the opportunity to engage with Wintec, are proving successful in establishing just what sort of skills and technology industries need, to operate at their very best.
Thank you for inviting me to speak here today. I know this new hub will be a great success and that it is the result of a lot of hard work for many of you here today. I also look forward to hearing about how the projects due for completion later this year are progressing.
Very best wishes for the future.