Public sector celebrates learning achievements

Media Release: Public sector celebrates learning achievements at graduation ceremony in Wellington today

Learning State chief executive, Jeremy Baker, called on the public sector to follow the lead of the 60 plus local and central employees awarded tertiary qualifications in Wellington today, and boost their skills too, so that they could better deliver services to the public to be proud of.

“Public service is the defining role of the public sector,” Jeremy told the employees, gathered with their family and work colleagues, at the graduation ceremony organised by Learning State, the industry training organisation for local and central government.

“I aspire to be part of a public sector proud to serve the public; a sector that encourages learning in the workplace so that employees can better deliver relevant, top quality and cost-effective services to the New Zealand public.”

“It is clear from your successes in learning, that you have that pride,” he told today’s graduates.

This year, more than 700 employees from local government councils and central government organisations graduated with work-related tertiary qualifications, after completing workplace learning programmes through Learning State.

The programmes covered a range of generic and specialist skills including administrative excellence, adult education, border management, core public sector skills, customer service, dispute resolution, leadership and management.

Jeremy described the past year as particularly challenging for those working in the public sector, due to increased financial constraints, the un-anticipated and devastating earthquake in Christchurch, and the recent oil spill off Tauranga.

The public sector response to the earthquake in particular, had highlighted how important public services were to maintaining and restoring healthy, well-functioning communities, he said.

“In these times, it is tempting to hunker down and save costs by cutting out learning and development,” said Jeremy. “However, this is the time when it is most imperative that we invest in our public sector employees and build their resilience, so that they can step up to the challenges, face the changes and the unexpected, work smarter, and deliver better.”

As the industry training organisation for local and central government, Learning State works in partnership with the public and tertiary education sectors to set standards; identify existing and anticipated skill gaps; and develop and implement training programmes and qualifications to fill them. Learning State specialises in structured workplace learning benchmarked in line with standards on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework.

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