FIJI INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GRADUATION CEREMONY
13 APRIL 2007

REMARKS BY AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSIONER JAMES BATLEY

Thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to be your Chief Guest on this happy occasion. It is a pleasure to be here with you.

Let me start by congratulating all of you on your achievement in getting to this point. I’m sure there were times for many of you when it felt that you’d never reach this moment. Well, you have reached it, it’s here and it’s now.

To the students I’d like to say: this is your day, and you are naturally the centre of attention today. But before going any further I think it would be appropriate, on your behalf, to thank all those who have contributed to getting you to this point – and I’m thinking here especially of your families but also of your teachers and other support staff of the Institute. Of course in the end it is you, the students, who are most responsible for your own success, but no-one makes it this far on their own. So please spare a thought for all those people who have helped you along the way.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the key role that FIT itself has played over many years now, and continues to play, in Fiji and in the region more broadly as one of the premier regional technical and vocational institutions. FIT’s courses are tailored to suit the needs of employers in the 21st century economy, and FIT has also developed strategic links with partner institutions overseas including in my country. You are serving us well.

Australia has always been happy to work with FIT. We hope to work with FIT now on a major new regional project, the Australia Pacific Technical College. This initiative was announced by Prime Minister John Howard in 2006. Agreement has already been reached to establish campuses in Vanuatu and Samoa, and discussions are well underway with a view to establishing campuses in Fiji and in Papua New Guinea.

Australia has set aside $150 million for the establishment and operation the college which will provide Australian-standard training to Pacific islands students from throughout the region. Courses offered by the college will not compete with those offered by existing institutions, such as FIT, rather they will complement them. The college will offer courses in hospitality and tourism, health and community services, automotive trades, manufacturing and construction and electrical trades. Courses will be delivered by Australian registered training organisations.

The first intake of students is scheduled for July this year and it is hoped that in the first four years, 3000 students will graduate.

Cynical people sometimes say: What’s the point of providing education to our younger people, they’ll just acquire skills and migrate to Australia or New Zealand or even further afield. I think there’s a range of good answers to that argument. It’s true that this country has seen something of a brain drain over the past 20 years, and since December last year we at the Australian High Commission have seen a rise in the number of enquiries about migration to Australia, from all communities.

Of course, giving up is hardly the answer. There is no doubt that the countries you come from – not only Fiji but also other countries in our region - confront serious challenges in this day and age – political, economic, environmental and social. The skills you have are badly needed and will continue to be needed, whether people continue to migrate or not.

What is it that will persuade people to stay here? People always have a range of individual motivations, but one of the factors that will keep people here is if they see they have opportunities, opportunities that will provide for them and their families and their children. And opportunities are created by a growing economy. That is the essential challenge for government in this country, and in all your countries.

In the end, though, I don’t think we should get overly worried about migration of skilled people. It’s a sign of our increasing economic integration in this age of globalization. Since I have arrived in Fiji I have been struck at the interpenetration of our societies. What I mean by that is that skilled migration is not necessarily a one-way street. There are many people born in Fiji who now live in Australia, but who retain very close links with this country – indeed, who come back here to live and work. I am convinced that, in future, our economies will be even more closely integrated, and that sense of interpenetration will be felt even more strongly.

A graduation ceremony such as today is a serious rite of passage in any culture. In participating in this formal ceremony today we are not only congratulating you the students but we are saying: Now is the time for you to enter society at large, now it is your turn to start making a contribution in whatever field you are best suited. Now it’s time to show us what you’re made of.

What I would like to suggest to you today however is that, as your working life progresses, you will increasingly find that what counts will be not so much your formal qualifications or your technical knowledge.

Of course these will remain important to you. But you will find that the difficult and the defining decisions you face in your professional life are not the ones based on your technical knowledge.

What really counts – whatever field you are working in – is how you make decisions, and how you relate to other people in your professional life, just as in your personal life.

The difficult decisions – and you will all face them - are the ones that will test your judgement not as an engineer, or an architect, or a teacher - but as an adult, as a member of society. And this is true whatever field you are working in, whether you are an employer or an employee.

The qualities I’m talking about here can be described as good judgement, ethical behaviour and good character. They are qualities that depend on values such as honesty, integrity, understanding, respect and sympathy for others, imagination and creativity.

How do you develop such qualities? FIT does not offer a diploma in good judgement or a degree in good character. These are qualities which I hope that your parents and families have nurtured in you, and for which you have the personal responsibility to develop.

Such qualities start from an understanding that our work is not something separate from life, or from society at large. They draw on an understanding that our work – all of us - affects other people.

This is what the great English poet John Donne meant when he wrote, 400 years ago, that No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.

So, as you leave this place, you should all take pride in the piece of paper which you are clutching tightly. By all means frame it and hang it on your wall. But don’t worship it. Because in future you will be judged, not on that piece of paper, but on the basis of your character.

This will be the real measure of your success, because you will only really succeed if other people trust you, and if they respect you.

To all of you, I wish the very best in your future careers.

Thank you.