Opening Address by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam Chairman Board of Governors OTC Institute Graduation Ceremony 4 Nov 2006 at NTUC Auditorium, One Marina Boulevard

Opening Address by Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam Chairman Board of Governors OTC Institute Graduation Ceremony 4 Nov 2006 at NTUC Auditorium, One Marina Boulevard

Mr Lim Boon Heng, Secretary-General NTUC & Minister in Prime Minister’s Office

Mr Lim Swee Say Deputy Secretary-General NTUC and Minister in Prime Minister’s Office

On behalf of the Board of Governors, I am pleased to welcome all of you and offer each one of you our heartiest congratulations. I would like also to thank my Cabinet colleague Minister Raymond Lim who readily accepted our invitation to be our Guest of Honour at this year’s graduation.

As we have just seen from the video, you have each worked hard and sacrificed countless hours in pursuing your studies. But I’m sure that you have been enriched by this experience – by the learning, as well as by the friendships and ties that you have formed with your course mates and others. In past years, we have found that graduands have cherished the friendships formed amongst unionists from a wide range of sectors and companies.

Some of you faced an extra challenge. We heard earlier from Freddy Lim, President of the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority Workers’ Union (SURAWU), on how he endured a broken leg. Freddy took 3 months longer to complete his course because of this. For those who know Freddy, he has polio. So when Freddy fractured his stronger leg, it made things more difficult. At 57 years of age, it would have been easy to give up. But Freddy not only persevered, coming for lessons in a wheel chair, but also excelled. Overall he came in 4th out of a class of 40 that included many younger people.

Neither age nor experience has been a barrier for several seasoned unionists graduating today. Mah Wei Cheng, 53 years old, is Deputy General Secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Public Employees (AUPE) and already has a Masters in Law. Also 53 is Michael Tan, President of the Education Services Union (ESU). 52 year old Wee Soon Guan is General Secretary of the Singapore Bank Officers’ Association (SBOA). All three have been in union leadership positions for many years. Yet they enrolled in the Professional Diploma in Employment Relations when it was launched, so as to keep abreast of developments in their field. They are leaders who are leading by example - leading in the way they have embraced life long learning.

We are also delighted to see several unionists graduating today. OTC Institute will continue to work closely with Young NTUC and the unions to develop the leadership potential of our next generation of unionists. In fact among our graduands today is the Secretary of Young NTUC, Noorfarahin, and committee members Sean Tan, Peter Kwek, Mak Mun Whai, Candy Lee and Sheena Foo.

Today’s Diploma in Employment Relations graduands will be the first to receive a joint diploma from OTC Institute and the SIM University (UniSIM for short). This partnership is adding value. The Diploma in Employment Relations (DER) has been given advanced standing of up to 1/3rd of a UniSIM degree course. Earlier this year, 2 of our graduands took advantage of this and enrolled at the UniSIM. Now, five DER graduands on the OTC ETF study award have all opted for the UniSIM. UniSIM has graciously offered to cover course fees in excess of the $15000 study award. In effect this amounts to a full scholarship and we are delighted by UniSIM’s gesture.

The Institute has also introduced outdoor experiential training in its courses this year. Like what we saw briefly in the video - the water activities at Sentosa for the ACIR course. Many of the non-swimmers who started the day full of doubt, ended full of confidence. The Institute will devote more resources to enhance the quality of training activities including having more such adventure learning and residential programmes.

This year is as we all know NTUC’s 45th anniversary. To mark the occasion, a series of Rediscover NTUC talks were organized. Veteran unionists and others provided insights into the growth and development of the labour movement. On 6 Sept, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew provided the NTUC 45th Anniversary Lecture to a packed audience. Unionists and younger staff have told us that such lectures and dialogue sessions have been inspiring and enriching.

We will continue with this form of engagement in 2007, and in future years. A new dialogue series involving Secretary-General NTUC and Cabinet Ministers will be introduced. This will allow branch officials and other unionists to discuss issues and concerns with national leaders. In addition, unionists can also look forward to ‘learning journeys’, that will provide opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of changes in the local economy the challenges facing workers.

Next year too, we will be adding a further international perspective to our trade union courses. Dvelopments and issues for labour from around the world are worth learning about. It will help our unionists to better understand Singapore’s challenges, and the approaches we are taking to tackle them, keep the economy strong and keep creating jobs.

On this note I wish to conclude by thanking our unions, our academic partners from NUS and UniSIM, the Board of Examiners and all others who have in one way or other helped in the functioning of the Institute during the course of the year. Once again, my warmest congratulations to all our graduands today.