Kevin Harris – Institute Director, TAFE NSW – Northern Sydney Institute
If you read Mark Callaghan's blog last week about Australian trades students competing in the forthcoming WorldSkills International Competition in Calgary, Canada, you will know that Australia is sending 26 ‘Skillaroos' to this prestigious competition.
You might not know that 18 of the 26 Skillaroos were trained by TAFE NSW and five by TAFE NSW - Northern Sydney Institute. TAFE NSW and Northern Sydney Institute are hugely proud of the commitment we have made to participating in this competition and the success we have achieved within it. It speaks volumes about the quality of our training and our focus on helping individuals to make the most of their talents.
Our success in International WorldSkills qualification was one of the many causes for celebration at Northern Sydney Institute's annual Excellence Awards event held at Ryde College on Wednesday 10 June. Every year for the past 19 years we have held this Institute-wide event, and there has been no more impressive and poignant edition than this one.
Excellence awards were presented to students in twelve categories before Brooke Somerville, the Community Services and Health Excellence Awards winner and a recent graduate of the Diploma of Community Welfare Work, was announced as Northern Sydney Institute Student of the Year. Twenty five Northern Sydney Institute students also achieved State Medals for gaining the top mark in their courses within TAFE NSW statewide.
From the opening music, provided by two talented singer/songwriter students, to the key-note speech delivered by Damien Lees, a former plumbing graduate who has gone on to complete an engineering degree and is now one of the country's leading micro-tunnelers, the evidence of outstanding student achievement was everywhere.
The most powerful moment of the evening came during the student vote of thanks. Carlos Bouman, a graduate of Bradfield College now studying Fashion Design at Sydney Institute, described his personal journey from despair at the end of his school days to success and immense satisfaction achieved at Northern Sydney Institute's Bradfield College. Carlos described how his HSC design work, titled Dishcloth Couture, became the emblem of the 2008 DesignTECH exhibition of student work at the Powerhouse Museum and featured in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Weekend magazine.
To witness his excitement about the opportunities the future holds, and to see the obvious pride of Carlos's parents, was to be reminded of the transformative power of training and the degree to which we can make a difference to the lives of individuals through the quality of our service.
I urge you to follow this link to the Northern Sydney Institute Excellence Awards site to read more about these award winners and their impressive achievements.
Regards
Kevin