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Major Speeches |
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September 15, 2006
PRESIDENT KESSAI H. NOTE
Opening of USP Campus Library
USP Main Campus
2 PM September 15, 2006
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, students, faculty and staff. Good afternoon.
I am pleased to be here at the USP Campus this afternoon and to be invited to open the extension to the campus library. I thank the Government of New Zealand for providing grants to USP and making this facility possible.
USP moved to this location in 2000 and over the past six years we have noticed its modest but continuing development to provide ever-improving services to an increasing numbers of students who are taking advantage of the presence of the University in the Marshall Islands.
I understand that this year there are 9 students enrolled in face to face courses in Geographical Information Systems, 5 in Official Statistics, 12 in a Early Childhood Education, 4 in the Agriculture degree program, and 14 members of the staff of the Nitijela are taking courses in Library and Information Studies, Management and Law. Added to this, are the 37 students completing their Foundation Studies through the RMI-USP Joint Education Program, and the many other who are advancing their academic and professional qualifications through USP at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The extension to the library as well as the new video-broadcast and course materials facility will most certainly assist them in being able to access lectures from the other USP campuses and enable them to undertake research. I understand that last week the University Librarian was in Majuro to install a new technology called ‘Digital Library in a Box’. This computer-aided technology enables encyclopedias, dictionaries and other collections of books, periodicals and journals to be available to students without having to go on-line. The library will be updated regularly through the server but can be accessed in house.
Over recent years, the Government has been pleased to see more students from the Marshall Islands, entering the programs of the University. Those that have completed their studies are providing excellent services in many different fields of development in our country. To complete a program at USP, takes dedication and perseverance, as well as ability. As today is the University Open Day, with the theme Our Future, Your Future – Dare to Lead, I would like to dare more Marshallese students to take the challenge of completing their studies at USP. They will, without doubt, be among those who lead the Marshall Islands and this region into the future.
One way Marshallese students can do this will be to apply for one of the new All-rounder Sports Scholarships offered by USP for the first time this year.
The All-rounder Scholarship Program is a reflection of the University’s commitment to helping all students throughout the region maximize their career potential through higher education. The Program recruits ‘all-rounder’ students – those who, through sports and academic achievement, have demonstrated their capacity through both discipline and aspiration to strive for excellence. We have such students in the Marshall Islands and I encourage them to apply and take advantage of the opportunity opened to us.
Academic programs of study pursued by this group of all-rounder scholars at the University include pre-degree and degree studies, across a diverse range of disciplines. Sports engaged in by this select group include athletics, track and field, basketball, netball, rugby, soccer and volleyball. This will provide our Marshallese athletes with the opportunity to realize their sporting dreams through the provision of highly qualified and committed sporting professionals with access to a physiotherapist, mental skills trainer, high performance trainers sports coaches nutritionist and the program coordinator. Together with the highly qualified, experienced and dedicated academic and administration staff of the University, these sporting professionals will also contribute towards the holistic development of each of our scholars! I would like to congratulate the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Anthony Tarr for introducing this program and again re-iterate my hope that Marshallese students will apply for these scholarships.
The development of the University in the Marshall Islands and throughout the region – both in terms of its facilities and academic, cultural programs, is admirable. It is most certainly a University of the Pacific, for the people of the Pacific, and I am proud that the Marshall Islands is a stakeholder and a member of this University. In this light, I would like to undertake one other formal opening today – and that is to officially introduce to the Marshall Islands the recent publication of many years of research undertaken by Irene Taafaki and Maria Kabua Fowler. Their book ‘Traditional Medicine of the Marshall Islands, the women, the plants, the treatments’ is a record of the treatments freely contributed by a wide range of Marshallese healers. The book has already attracted the attention of academics in Hawaii, Australia and New Zealand. We are grateful that the cultural knowledge of the Marshallese people has been preserved and shared with due respect to the owners of the knowledge. I understand that today I am going to be presented with my own signed copy – I am very happy to receive it and look forward to reading it!
My Government is fully committed to raising the standard of education at all levels. In May this year we signed a Memorandum of Understanding with USP to further expand its presence in the Marshall Islands. In the near future we hope to be officially opening an even larger facility devoted to the human resource development of the country.
On a more general term, my Government has repeatedly given education, at all levels, the highest priorities. This year alone, my Government has proposed to the Nitijela a budget of over $39 million for education alone. We will renew and built new classrooms; train teachers and recruit new ones; and demand excellence from our educators. Education is the backbone and the future of the Marshall Islands. I reiterate my commitment and that of the Government to continue to give education the highest priorities.
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Ladies and gentlemen, it is now with much pleasure that I declare open the new facilities of the Marshall Islands Campus – I wish every success to those who work and study in this bright and comfortable learning environment.
Thank you and God bless the Marshal Islands.
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