Regenesys graduation, Sandton
16 July 2007
Programme director
Mr Marko Saravanja, Regenesys director
Ms Penny Law, Regenesys director
Mr William Vivian, Regenesys director
Heads of Department at Regenesys, Ms Mbatha and Ms De Bruyn
Regenesys graduates and your families
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
I am honoured to be here to witness this graduation and see graduates
receive their certificates at Regenesys. This investment in human capital is
welcomed as we strengthen our second decade of democracy.
As an emerging economy, we have to generate skills and training in
leadership and management. It requires practical skills to drive delivery and
provide good service.
A task before all working people and public servants in particular, is to
promote a work ethic, which cares and services customers and people and places
people first in terms of service. Even for those who have to make profit, a
peoples approach is a key.
Skills challenges
Our country is faced with enormous challenges of promoting growth in the
economy and even more urgent share growth. In fulfilling our 2004 electoral
mandate of a better life for all and efficient services to our people, we are
faced with a challenge of skills scarcity.
The Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) has
revealed the degree of the skills challenge as a constraint to fostering a
nation at work for a better life for all. Part of AsgiSA programme is the Joint
Initiative for Priority Skills Acquisition (Jipsa), which is about addressing
skills shortage in responding to one of the binding constraints identified by
AsgiSA.
What are the scarce skills as identified by Jipsa?
In summary and based on the AsgiSA priorities, the following working areas
for Jipsa have been identified:
* High level: World-class engineering and planning skills for the 'network
industries', transport, communications and energy. All at the core of our
infrastructure programme.
* City: Urban and regional planning and engineering skills, desperately needed
by our municipalities.
* Artisan and technical skills with priority attention to those needs for
infrastructure development.
* Management and planning skills in education, health and in
municipalities.
* Teacher training for mathematics, science, information and communication
technology (ICT) and language competence in public education.
* Specific skills needed by the priority AsgiSA, sectors starting with tourism
and business process outsourcing (BPO) and cross-cutting skills needed by all
sectors especially finance; project managers and managers in general.
* Skills relevant to local economic development needs of municipalities,
especially developmental economists.
Holism in education and service delivery
Programme director, it encourages me to see that Regenesys, in its eight
years of operation, has been contributing to the supply of scarce skills.
Education opens doors for growth and development for all. Therefore,
development of human resources translates into driving development in the
economy for the public good. A holistic understanding is there to cultivate a
well-rounded manager in private and public sectors committed to upliftment of
the country.
Meaning of service delivery â Batho Pele
An investment in you, as public servants, through training received at
Regenesys goes into preparing you to take an important role in the public
service. This role involves service delivery, development and nation building.
It means highlighting values of Batho Pele and putting 'People First' since
government is there as a representative of the people. Without public servants
there is no state and no service to the nation.
The Batho Pele slogan asks of you to remember that we are employed because
we care for our people who are our customers. Batho Pele asks of you to
remember that we serve our citizens with good service because we can.
Graduates, the skills you now possess are for enhancing service excellence.
Without your commitment to Batho Pele the lives of our people would be far
worse.
Hopes of the public
For our poor people, the public servants and government are all they have.
Let us not disappoint them.
The training you take with you from Regenesys empowers you to understand in
a broad sense all areas of government. This also demands a pledge from you to
serve people with distinction. Your acquired skills highlight the value in
knowledge being used to deliver quality service.
I urge you to pass on the resilience you have displayed in your studies, to
give hope to millions who look upon you with expectation. I know you will make
the correct decisions and take appropriate actions in offering your services.
Batho Pele informs us to place people first in all our dealings. The concept
and practice of holism obliges us to see things for their broad impact. You
cannot see this certificate from Regenesys as simply your passport to personal
advancement. It compels you to think of those people you will be serving.
I call upon other education institutions to emulate Regenesys in offering
training that impacts positively on our people. Graduates, I have confidence
your skills will give hope to our people.
I thank you.
Issued by: The Presidency
16 July 2007
